4 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



the amount of human effort which has gone into 

 its making. So we have some ideas that are 

 freshly derived from experience, while others 

 have passed through so elaborate and prolonged 

 a system of refinement that we no longer know 

 from what raw material they came. But instead 

 of saying categorically that this idea is objec- 

 tive, that is subjective, may we not say merely 

 that one idea is more subjective than another, 

 recognizing all gradations in the extent of 

 operation of our process of abstraction .^^ In- 

 deed, it will be our policy not to emphasize those 

 classifications of ideal and real, false and true, 

 and the like, which often give too smug a view 

 of natural philosophy; but rather to point out 

 from time to time the artificialities of the 

 boundaries which these classifications set up. 



When we consider those ideas which we have 

 called the major abstractions, we find that a 

 large group, dealing with the relations of man 

 with man and of man with God, cannot be dis- 

 cussed with the same freedom from prejudice 

 and passion as those which are less intimately 

 human or social. The hardest study of mankind 

 is man. Perhaps a tiger beetle or a tarantula 

 could undertake the study with less prejudice, 

 but perhaps also they might be distracted by 



