§4. Dyads

462. The only primary essential dyadism is that between a containing monadic quality and a contained monadic quality. For qualities cannot resemble one another nor contrast with one another unless in respect to a third quality; so that the resemblance of qualities is triadic. This, however, is a point calling for reexamination in a future revision of this analysis. If I am right, there is no further logical distinction between essential dyads.

463. But with regard to accidental dyads, the case is far otherwise. We must at once divide them into those of which one subject is a monad, and those of which neither subject is a monad. This division is closely allied to and immediately suggested by the last. Dyads of the former kind may be termed inherential — as, this thing possesses redness; those of the latter kind may be called relational.

464. An inherential dyad strongly resembles an essential dyad. Begin with any quality, as high-colored, and form an essential dyad, as red is high-colored. Form another with red as second subject; as, scarlet is red. Form another with scarlet as second subject; as, mercuric-iodide-color is scarlet. So we may conceive determination added to determination, and at the limit a color so specific that it can only belong to an individual object. This I say is the limit which lies just beyond the possible, but is indefinitely approachable. This limit is a dyad of inherence. It is, after all, however, radically different from the essential dyad, because the quality of the subject of inherence is a mere accident of that individual. Inherence may be regarded from another point of view. Namely, the individual subject may be conceived as brought into relation to itself by the possession of the attribute.

465. Relational dyads are not further divisible in regard to the metaphysical character of their subjects. But they are divisible in regard to the nature of the connection between their subjects. And, first of all, a division is suggested by the last remark concerning inherential dyads. Namely, every relational dyad is either a dyad of identity, in which the two subjects are existentially one and the same, or it is a dyad of diversity, in which the subjects are existentially two and distinct. This relational identity is not the identity of inherence, but the identity which is altogether independent of any accident or accidents. It will, however, involve such inherences as may belong to the individual and identical subject.

466. With this division another is closely connected; namely, a dyad of diversity may either be such that the connection between its units consists merely in their agreement or difference in respect to a monadic quality, or it may be such that the connection of the units depends upon their possessing some dyadic character or characters. This distinction is most deeply engraved into the natures of dyads. For what is a dyadic character? It is a character conferred upon one individual by another individual. It thus involves the idea of action or force, not in a narrow scientific sense, but in the sense in which we speak of the will as a force. We may say then that this division is into qualitative and dynamical diversities. Or, in place of qualitative diversity, it will perhaps be better to use the familiar phrase partial agreements.

467. Dynamic dyads are, in the first place, distinguished into those which, by virtue of the characters which they attribute to their subjects, put those two subjects into like relations each to the other, and into those which, so far as the characters they attribute to their subjects go, leave a distinction between the reciprocal relations. The former kind may be called materially unordered, the latter, materially ordered. Thus, A is one mile from B is a materially unordered relation, but A kills B is materially ordered, notwithstanding that it may happen that B also kills A.

468. Closely connected with this distinction is another; namely, materially ordered dyads are divisible into those in which there is no existential or intrinsic distinction between the subjects as to which is first and which second, although in stating the fact language may require us to mark one as first and the other as second, and into those in which this distinction is existential. The former may be called formally unordered dyads, the latter formally ordered. Thus, when amber is rubbed against fur, one acquires resinous and the other vitreous electricity. The dyad is thus materially ordered. But, as far as we know, neither is to be regarded as distinctively agent or first in contradistinction to the patient, or second. When, however, of two oppositely electrified bodies one attracts the other, although the second equally attracts the first, yet the two attractions are distinct dyads and the attracting body is agent, or intrinsically first, while the attracted body is intrinsically second. For one is determining and the other determined. Now the determining body is, in so far, left indeterminate; and indeterminacy, or possibility, as the character of the monad, is first relatively to determination, which, as essentially dyadic, is second.

469. There is no further room for distinction based upon the positions of the subjects; but the formally ordered dyads can still be divided with reference to the character of the dependence of one subject upon the other. Namely, this is either such that merely the monadic accidents of the second subject, or patient, are dependent upon the agent, or such that the dyadic existence of the patient is dependent upon the agent. The former may be termed actional, the latter poietical,¹⁾ or productive, dyads.

No further distinctions seem to be relevant to the idea of the present analysis.

470. It will be remarked that the division is everywhere a dichotomy of the second of the two classes formed by the next preceding dichotomy. The result is that the ultimately undivided species form a staircase of successive steps. But the steps are not all equal. On the contrary, so thoroughly does twoness permeate the whole that the steps separate into successive pairs. There is also a marked distinction between the first pair of pairs and the second pair of pairs, which repeats the former with a variation. That is to say, the first pair of each of the two pairs of pairs arises from distinctions concerning the subjects, while the second pair of each pair of pairs arises from distinctions concerning the mode of connection of the subjects. The whole series of species of dyads are related like the phrases of a melody, as follows:

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The more this division is examined, the more clearly it will appear that it is not a fancifully imposed scheme, but springs inevitably from the evolution of the conceptions according to the general point of view adopted.