A Limit to Evolution 301 



a thing the nature of Avhich is revealed to us through the 

 feelings we experience in connection with it, and is an 

 implicit act of judgment that the thing perceived is of some 

 definite kind. From this we may rapidly pass to an explicit 

 and formal deliberate judgment that such is really the case, 

 and the examination of this second act will serve to bring 

 out yet more plainly the difference of being which exists 

 between ' feelings ' and ' ideas.' 



Every object which we perceive, possesses a number of 

 different qualities — shape, size, colour, hardness, etc. — and 

 acts on our sensitivity accordingly. Qgy attention may be 

 directed to various qualities according to the different cir- 

 cumstances' of each case, and then these qualities may be 

 distinctly and expressly recognised as really being qualities 

 of the object observed. The power by which we thus ideally 

 separate qualities is the power of abstraction, and by it our 

 mind isolates (in order to apprehend them distinctly) the 

 various qualities and conditions which, in truth, exist, inti- 

 mately united in the concrete object perceived. Let us take 

 as an example the explicit judgment, ' That object is an oak- 

 tree.' In making this judgment, we abstract, mentally, 

 certain qualities, such as 'solidity,' 'vitality,' 'branching- 

 shape,' 'vegetable nature,' etc., which ideas are therefore 

 ' abstract ideas,' because thus abstracted. To see this clearly, 

 let us consider for a moment the quality ' branching-shape ' 

 of the oak, as it exists in reality, and as it exists as an 

 ' abstract idea.' In reality, it exists as one of the qualities 

 of that one particular, individual oak, a quality absolutely 

 and indissolubly united with it, and not existing at all except 

 in that one oak-tree. As an abstract idea, it is a general 

 conception — an idea applicable not only to all oak-trees, but 

 to all branching things. 



One very important primary and fundamental abstrac- 

 tion, already glanced at, should be distinctly noted. In 



