Every form of society, every form of ideology, has its own particular contradiction and particular essence.
The sciences are differentiated precisely on the basis of the particular contradictions inherent in their respective objects of study. Thus the contradiction peculiar to a certain field of phenomena constitutes the object of study for a specific branch of science. For example, positive and negative numbers in mathematics; action and reaction in mechanics; positive and negative electricity in physics; dissociation and combination in chemistry; forces of production and relations of production, and class struggle, in social science;[4-436]offence and defence in military science; idealism and materialism, the metaphysical outlook and the dialectical outlook, in philosophy; and so on – all these are the objects of study of different branches of science precisely because each branch has its own particular contradiction and particular essence. Of course, unless we study[4-437] the universality of contradiction, we have no way of discovering the universal cause[4-438] for the movement or development of things; however, unless we study the particularity of contradiction, we have no way of determining the particular essence of a thing which differentiates it from other things, no way of discovering the particular cause[4-439] for the movement or development of a thing, [p. 253] and no way of distinguishing one thing from another or of demarcating the fields of science.[4-440]
It is necessary not only to study the particular contradiction and the essence determined thereby of every great system of the forms of motion of matter, but also to study the particular contradiction and the essence of each process in the long course of development of each form of motion of matter. In every form of motion, each process of development[4-441]is qualitatively different; in the entire world