Here Lenin was referring to these two different world outlooks.In China another name for metaphysics is hsuan-hsueh. For a long periodin history whether in China or in Europe, this way of thinking, which ispart and parcel of the idealist world outlook, occupied a dominant positionin human thought. In Europe, the materialism of the bourgeoisie in its earlydays was also metaphysical. As the social economy of many European countriesadvanced to the stage of highly developed capitalism, as the forces ofproduction, the class struggle and the sciences developed to a levelunprecedented in history, and as the industrial proletariat became the greatestmotive force in historical development, there arose the Marxist world outlookof materialist dialectics. Then, in addition to open and barefaced reactionaryidealism, vulgar evolutionism emerged among the bourgeoisie to oppose materialistdialectics.The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees things as isolated,static and one-sided. It regards all things in the universe, their formsand their species, as eternally isolated from one another and immutable.Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in quantity ora change of place. Moreover, the cause of such an increase or decrease orchange of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motiveforce is external. Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of thingsin the universe and all their characteristics have been the same ever sincethey first came into being. All subsequent changes have simply been increasesor decreases in quantity. They contend that a thing can only keep on repeatingitself as the same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different.In their opinion, capitalist exploitation, capitalist competition, theindividualist ideology of capitalist society, and so on, can all be foundin ancient slave society, or even in primitive society, and will exist forever unchanged. They ascribe the causes of social development to factorsexternal to society, such as geography and climate. They search in anover-simplified way outside a thing for the causes of its development, andthey deny the theory of materialist dialectics which holds that developmentarises from the contradictions inside a thing. Consequently they can explainneither the qualitative diversity of things, nor the phenomenon of one qualitychanging into another. In Europe, this mode of thinking existed as mechanicalmaterialism in the 17th and 18th centuries and as vulgar evolutionism atthe end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In China, therewas the metaphysical thinking exemplified in the saying "Heaven changethnot, likewise the Tao changeth not", [4] and it was supportedby the decadent feudal ruling classes for a long time. Mechanical materialismand vulgar evolutionism, which were imported from Europe in the last hundredyears, are supported by the bourgeoisie.As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialistdialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing weshould study it internally and in its relations with other things; in otherwords, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessaryself-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with andinteracts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the developmentof a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictorinesswithin the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing,hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is thefundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactionswith other things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectivelycombats the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advancedby metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism. It is evidentthat purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, thatis, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differqualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another.As a matter of fact, even mechanical motion under external force occurs throughthe internal contradictoriness of things. Simple growth in plants and animals,their quantitative development, is likewise chiefly the result of their internalcontradictions. Similarly, social development is due chiefly not to externalbut to internal causes. Countries with almost the same geographical and climaticconditions display great diversity and unevenness in their development. Moreover,great social changes may take place in one and the same country althoughits geography and climate remain unchanged. Imperialist Russia changed intothe socialist Soviet Union, and feudal Japan, which had locked its doorsagainst the world, changed into imperialist Japan, although no change occurredin the geography and climate of either country. Long dominated by feudalism,China has undergone great changes in the last hundred years and is now changingin the direction of a new China, liberated and-free, and yet no change hasoccurred in her geography and climate. Changes do take place in the geographyand climate of the earth as a whole and in every part of it, but they areinsignificant when compared with changes in society; geographical and climaticchanges manifest themselves in terms of tens of thousands of years, whilesocial changes manifest themselves in thousands, hundreds or tens of years,and even in a few years or months in times of revolution. According tomaterialist dialectics, changes in nature are due chiefly to the developmentof the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in society are due chieflyto the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, thecontradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production,the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old andthe new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes societyforward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society bythe new. Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all.It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causesare the basis of change, and that external causes become operative throughinternal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken,but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has adifferent basis. There is constant interaction between the peoples of differentcountries. In the era of capitalism, and especially in the era of imperialismand proletarian revolution, the interaction and mutual impact of differentcountries in the political, economic and cultural spheres are extremely great.The October Socialist Revolution ushered in a new epoch in world historyas well as in Russian history. It exerted influence on internal changes inthe other countries in the world and, similarly and in a particularly profoundway, on internal changes in China. These changes, however, were effectedthrough the inner laws of development of these countries, China included.In battle, one army is victorious and the other is defeated, both the victoryand the defeat are determined by internal causes. The one is victorious eitherbecause it is strong or because of its competent generalship, the other isvanquished either because it is weak or because of its incompetent generalship;it is through internal causes that external causes become operative. In Chinain 1927, the defeat of the proletariat by the big bourgeoisie came aboutthrough the opportunism then to be found within the Chinese proletariat itself(inside the Chinese Communist Party). When we liquidated this opportunism,the Chinese revolution resumed its advance. Later, the Chinese revolutionagain suffered severe setbacks at the hands of the enemy, because adventurismhad risen within our Party. When we liquidated this adventurism, our causeadvanced once again. Thus it can be seen that to lead the revolution to victory,a political party must depend on the correctness of its own political lineand the solidity of its own organization.The dialectical world outlook emerged in ancient times both in China andin Europe. Ancient dialectics, however, had a somewhat spontaneous and naivecharacter; in the social and historical conditions then prevailing, it wasnot yet able to form a theoretical system, hence it could not fully explainthe world and was supplanted by metaphysics. The famous German philosopherHegel, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, made most importantcontributions to dialectics, but his dialectics was idealist. It was notuntil Marx and Engels, the great protagonists of the proletarian movement,had synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human knowledgeand, in particular, critically absorbed the rational elements of Hegeliandialectics and created the great theory of dialectical and historical materialismthat an unprecedented revolution occurred in the history of human knowledge.This theory was further developed by Lenin and Stalin. As soon as it spreadto China, it wrought tremendous changes in the world of Chinese thought.This dialectical world outlook teaches us primarily how to observe and analysethe movement of opposites in different things and, on the basis of such analysis,to indicate the methods for resolving contradictions. It is therefore mostimportant for us to understand the law of contradiction in things in a concreteway.II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF CONTRADICTIONFor convenience of exposition, I shall deal first with the universality ofcontradiction and then proceed to the particularity of contradiction. Thereason is that the universality of contradiction can be explained more briefly,for it has been widely recognized ever since the materialist-dialecticalworld outlook was discovered and materialist dialectics applied with outstandingsuccess to analysing many aspects of human history and natural history andto changing many aspects of society and nature (as in the Soviet Union) bythe great creators and continuers of Marxism--Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin;whereas the particularity of contradiction is still not dearly understoodby many comrades, and especially by the dogmatists. They do not understandthat it is precisely in the particularity of contradiction that the universalityof contradiction resides. Nor do they understand how important is the studyof the particularity of contradiction in the concrete things confrontingus for guiding the course of revolutionary practice. Therefore, it is necessaryto stress the study of the particularity of contradiction and to explainit at adequate length. For this reason, in our analysis of the law ofcontradiction in things, we shall first analyse the universality ofcontradiction, then place special stress on analysing the particularity ofcontradiction, and finally return to the universality of contradiction.The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning.One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things,and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movementof opposites exists from beginning to end.Engels said, "Motion itself is a contradiction." [5] Lenindefined the law of the unity of opposites as "the recognition (discovery)of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in allphenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society)".[6] Are these ideas correct? Yes, they are. Theinterdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and thestruggle between these aspects determine the life of all things and pushtheir development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction;without contradiction nothing would exist.Contradiction is the basis of the simple forms of motion (for instance,mechanical motion) and still more so of the complex forms of motion.Engels explained the universality of contradiction as follows: If simple mechanical change of place contains a contradiction, this is even more true of the higher forms of motion of matter, and especially of organic life and its development. ... life consists precisely and primarily in this--that a being is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly originates and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end, and death steps in. We likewise saw that also in the sphere of thought we could not escape contradictions, and that for example the contradiction between man's inherently unlimited capacity for knowledge and its actual presence only in men who are externally limited and possess limited cognition finds its solution in what is--at least practically, for us--an endless succession of generations, in infinite progress.
The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About The Good Life.epub
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