=129.= In the first place, externality is an essentially relative conception--nothing can be external to itself. To be external to something is to be another 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--a position can have no intrinsic quality, for our form consists of pure externality, and externality contains no shadow or trace of an intrinsic quality. Thus we obtain our fundamental postulate, the relativity of position, or, as we may put it, the complete absence, on the part of our form, of any vestige of thinghood. The same argument may also be stated as follows: If we abstract the conception of externality, and endeavour to deal with it _per se_, it is evident that we must obtain an object alike destitute of elements and of totality. For we have abstracted from the diverse matter which filled our form, while any element, or any whole, would retain some of the qualities of a matter. Either an element or a whole, in fact, would have to be a thing not external to itself, and would thus contain something not pure externality. Hence arise infinite divisibility, with the self-contradictory notion of the point, in the search for elements, and unbounded extension, with the contradiction of an infinite regress or a vicious circle, in the search for a completed whole. Thus again, our form contains neither elements nor totality, but only endless relations--the terms of these relations being excluded by our abstraction from the matter which fills our form. =130.= In like manner we can deduce the homogeneity of our form. The diversity of content, which was possible only within the form of externality, has been abstracted from, leaving nothing but the bare possibility of diversity, the bare principle of differentiation, itself uniform and undifferentiated. For if diversity presupposes such a form, the form cannot, unless it were contained in a fresh form, be itself diverse or differentiated. Or we may deduce the same property from the relativity of position. For any quality in one position, by which it was marked out from another, would be necessarily more or less intrinsic, and would contradict the pure relativity. Hence all positions are qualitatively alike, _i.e._ the form is homogeneous throughout.