The third rule, put in strict terminology, is as follows:
3) The Law of the Negation of the Negation: The logical growth and extension of past conditions, quantitative and qualitative, into a new state which renders the old both irrelevant and meaningless.
As was stated in 101.1, the third law represents merely the suggestion that the history established by the first law and explained by the second is shown, by the third, to have no terminal "end point". But consider the true implications being suggested by this law: It is a complete an utter rejection of all forms of 'constants', 'coincidences', 'luck', and 'happenstance.' In short, there is not only a meaning behind all developments, but that this meaning itself is not static and unchanging; rather 'meaning' moves, changes, and fluxes in the same manner that existence does.
The third law suffers from one negative drawback; it is hinged upon 19th century German terminology. This is in part a byproduct of Russian socialists failing to generate their own socialist culture and thus their own meanings, but it is also in part because the most influential early writers of dialectical theory were all German. However, the language can be put into more familiar terminology without much difficulty.
The word 'negation' refers to the rejection or replacement of an old condition with a new condition. As established by the second law however, this replacement is not isolated; rather it is dialectically interwoven by quantitative and qualitative changes. Hegel used a flower to describe this process:
A seed is 'negated' by the sprout. The sprout is then 'negated' by the stem. The stem further 'negated' by the bud. Finally, the bud is 'negated' by the flower, which finalizes itself as the true expression of the plant. However, despite this constant process of negation, the seed, the stem, and the flower all remain part of the same organism: a plant.
Thus the emergence of every new quality and/or state constitutes a 'negation' of something that was previously present. The point of the third law, in using the term twice, is that the story does not end with the death of the plant. The death of the plant is itself a negation, and during the course of the plants life it typically generates seeds to justify its own negation. As such, the plant lives on, so-to-speak, through its generational contributions.
It is very important, when considering the totality of these laws, that they are presented as conclusions arrived at through empirical, factual evidence found at all levels of existence. They are not presented as opinions or as "a priori principles, whose truth or validity is independent of their existence." Rather they are presented as facts of existence to which we all subjectively relate.
Consider the physical law of gravity. Gravity is a concept that people understood long before it was calculated with precision and given a direct origin. Newtonian physics became the standard explanation for what people previously understood through their subjective relativism. Historical materialism, through its three primary laws of dialectics, makes the same assertion for social and mental development: It is merely an explanation, in scientific language, for conditions and experiences that we are all aware of....but have only been aware of in a relative and subjective sense; like gravity before Newton gave it a definite name and a definite origin (which itself boils down to the mere existence of something: matter).
Most importantly, and certainly more important than the relativistic nature of thought, is that though these laws are regarded as empirical generalizations; it is not to be claimed that the specific laws can be identified at any particular moment, that contradictions and qualitative shifts can be both observed and declared in the same instant. In short, the laws of change at each level cannot be predicted. The existence of change as a constant can be accepted in general, but the specific content of the contradictions within a particular change cannot be stated in advanced or revealed as some determinist truth.
Like all of science, investigations do not take place in a methodological vacuum. They have a guide and a perspective, and this guide must come from a summation of what has been empirically observed to be true. As Somerville explained, "The Marxist does not seek to replace nor add something to the scientific method. He instead seeks to base himself on what is contained within it."
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