II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF CONTRADICTION
For convenience of exposition, I shall deal first with the
universality of contradiction and then proceed to the particularity of
contradiction. The reason is that the universality of contradiction can be
explained more briefly, for it has been widely recognized ever since the
materialist-dialectical world outlook was discovered and materialist dialectics
applied with outstanding success to analysing many aspects of human history and
natural history and to changing many aspects of society and nature (as in the
Soviet Union) by the great creators and continuers of Marxism--Marx, Engels,
Lenin and Stalin; whereas the particularity of contradiction is still not
dearly understood by many comrades, and especially by the dogmatists. They do
not understand that it is precisely in the particularity of contradiction that
the universality of contradiction resides. Nor do they understand how important
is the study of the particularity of contradiction in the concrete things
confronting us for guiding the course of revolutionary practice. Therefore, it
is necessary to stress the study of the particularity of contradiction and to
explain it at adequate length. For this reason, in our analysis of the law of
contradiction in things, we shall first analyse the universality of
contradiction, then place special stress on analysing the particularity of
contradiction, 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
movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.
Engels said, "Motion itself is a contradiction." [5] Lenin defined the law of the unity of opposites as "the
recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite
tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind
and society)". [6] Are these ideas correct? Yes, they are. The interdependence of
the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these
aspects determine the life of all things and push their 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.
... one of the basic
principles of higher mathematics is the contradiction that in certain
circumstances straight lines and curves may be the same....
Lenin illustrated the universality of contradiction as follows:
In mathematics: + and -
. Differential and integral.
In mechanics: action and reaction.
In physics: positive and negative electricity.
In chemistry: the combination and dissociation of atoms.
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