Note 156 — Introductory material

This converse deduction, as regards Free Mobility, is not very difficult, and follows from the argument of Section A[162], which I will briefly recapitulate. In the first place, externality is an essentially relative conception—nothing can be external to itself. To be external to something is to be an other with some relation to that thing. Hence, when we abstract a form of externality from all material content, and study it in isolation, position will appear of necessity as purely relative—it can have no intrinsic quality, for our form consists of pure externality, and externality contains no shadow or trace of an intrinsic quality. Hence we derive our fundamental postulate, the relativity of position. From this follows the homogeneity of our form, for any quality in one position, which marked out that position from another, would be necessarily more or less intrinsic, and would contradict the pure relativity. Finally Free Mobility follows from homogeneity, for our form would not be homogeneous unless it allowed, in every part, shapes or systems of relations, which it allowed in any other part. Free Mobility, therefore, is a necessary property of every possible form of externality.