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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