Modern Science : A Criticism 



stractions become ever more tenuous and ungrasp- 

 able the farther it goes, and ultimately fade into 

 mere ghosts. Nevertheless the process is a quite 

 necessary one, for only by it can the mind deal 

 with things. 



To dwell for a moment over this last point : 

 it is clear that every object has relation to every 

 other object in the world — exists in fact only in 

 virtue of such relation to other objects ; it has 

 therefore an infinite number of attributes. The 

 mind consequently is powerless to deal with such 

 object — it cannot by any possibility think it. In 

 order to deal with it, the mind is forced to single 

 out a few of its attributes (the method of ignorance 

 or abstraction already alluded to) — that is a few 

 of its relations to other objects, and to think them 

 first. The others it will think afterwards — all 

 in good time. In thus stripping or abstracting 

 the great mass of its attributes from our object, 

 and leaving only a few, which it combines into a 

 concept, the mind practically abandons the real 

 article and takes up with a shadow ; but in return 

 for this it gets something which it can handle, 

 which is light to carry about, and which, like 

 paper-money, for the time and under certain 

 conditions does really represent value. The only 

 danger is lest it — the mind — carried away by 

 the extensive applicability of the partial concept 

 which it has thus formed, should credit it with 

 an actual value — should project it on the back- 

 ground of the external world and ascribe to it 

 that reality which belongs only to objects them- 



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