302 A Limit to Evolution 



order to say, ' That object is an oak-tree/ we must have the 

 conception, as before said, of the kind of thing the object is, 

 ' what ' it is, or the idea of its ' whatness.' At the same time, 

 our intention is not to affirm that a kind exists, but that a 

 real concrete iking exists of a certain kind. We must there- 

 fore have mentally separated the ' idea ' of the oak-tree, from 

 our perception of the concrete existence, or ' subsistence,' of 

 that really existing material thing. 



These processes of mental abstraction are a necessity of 

 our nature. As soon as we begin to reason, as soon as we 

 ask ourselves what anything is and try to have any clear and 

 distinct notion about it, we are compelled thus to, mentally 

 or ideally, separate its qualities by abstraction. Now comes 

 the final act which completes the explicit judgment. This 

 act consists in putting ideally together what has just been 

 ideally separated. For during the very process of abstraction 

 we have not ceased to feel the object acting on our sensitivity 

 — or we have remembered it — and our mind has never lost 

 sight of the real unity — the concrete identity — of the oak- 

 tree, the qualities of which have been mentally, or ideally, 

 abstracted. It is the expression of this perception of unity, 

 together with abstraction, which constitutes the explicit judg- 

 ment. For this explicit judgment, then, three mental acts 

 are necessary: — (1) The apprehension, through a union or 

 ' synthesis ' of feehngs (produced by the qualities of an object) 

 of a certain kind of thing; (2) a mental analysis or separa- 

 tion of its qualities by abstraction ; and (3) a mental 

 synthesis again of the qualities previously abstracted. 



Judgments are amongst the elementary acts of the 

 human intelligence which cannot exist without them. The 

 human intellect, therefore, is an intelligence which neces- 

 sarily proceeds by an alternate process of union or 'synthesis/ 

 and of separation or 'analysis.' It is an active principle 

 which operates by alternately uniting and dividing. This 



