POL 315
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MARXISM
rocks were thrown in the Niger and there was no dam until such a time
when the number thrown in started manifesting in terms of radical effect
on the flow of water. A few more and the river was dammed. Let us
think about what happened here. While the qualitative changes were
taking place within certain limits they did not seem to result in the
formation of a new quality (in this case, the dam).
However, as soon as they reached a certain definite quantitative limit, or
measure, the changes began to produce visible qualitative effects. The
law of transformation from quantity to quality- and vice versa, implies
that every object transforms form a lower quality to a higher quality.
Hence, when water is heated at 100 degree centigrade, it turns into
steam and the steam turns into gas and it disappears but returns as water
again. Kinetic energy transforms into potential energy, the theory of
relativity has even shown us that every form of matter is relativised and
can be contained and consumed in various forms without losing its
original properties but attaining a higher form. There is measure in
everything. Everything has a limit. Quantity and quality always conform
to one another as long as they are within the limits of measure.
Quantity changes pile up or accumulate imperceptibly, gradually and do
not seem at first to involve the quality nature of a thing; but there comes
a moment when quantity changes, having accumulated, lead to changes
in a thing’s quality- (e.g. watching a kettle of water as it is being boiled.)
At first, the water becomes warm then temperature rises 50, 60, 70, 80 –
99 degrees; but it still remains water though some changes are already in
evidence; but not such as to make the water lose its essential quality as
water but the moment it hits 100 0 c, the water boils more violently and it
changes into steam. The accumulated quantitative changes now result in
the formation of a new quality; the water becomes steam.
This law starts, at first, as small, imperceptible qualitative changes, by
gradual accumulation; and then leads, at some stage, to radical
qualitative changes, involving the disappearance of old qualities and the
emergence of new ones, which bring about in their turn, further
quantitative changes. As a consequence of quantitative changes,
essential changes of a qualitative nature occur, at a certain moment. This
moment of transformation to a new quality is called a leap.
Both in nature and in society, it is always leaps that bring about new
qualities. This was how inanimate nature produced animal nature. The
entire evolution of animal world, the transformation of animals from one
species to another, also occurred by means of leaps or sudden
interruptions of the process of gradual evolution. The quantitative is
transformed into qualitative one by means of a leap and transformations
cannot occur in any other way.
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