200 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



system makes desirable a growing definiteness and fixity of the 

 internal structure of the concept. This is the phenomenon which 

 we find in definition. Definition is a singling out of certain 

 features or certain elements of the total meaning of a concept 

 and regarding these as essential, while other more loosely associa 

 ted ideas are more or less effectively excluded. Even before 

 intentional and formal definition takes place, however, this proc 

 ess of centralization has been at work; and to a large extent 

 the formal definition merely recognizes and confirms the segrega 

 tion w T hich has already taken place. It is of significance that 

 this segregation, or definition, involves the selection of a com 

 paratively small group of associated concepts, the relationships 

 to which become constitutive for the concept in question. What 

 thus takes place in the course of intellectual evolution is that the 

 organization of concepts tends to fall into groups, varying in 

 size and in the closeness of their interrelations. At the one 

 extreme are the loose apperceptive systems of common life, which 

 vary with occupation, habits, and interests, as well as from indi 

 vidual to individual ; at the other, the special sciences. It is within 

 these last, and particularly within the abstract sciences, that the 

 process of integration and fixation of concepts has been carried 

 farthest. Because the special science is so remote in its reference 

 to common life and so entirely controlled in its progress by its 

 own special end, it becomes a system relatively independent of 

 the great body of cognitive experience. The increasing deter- 

 minateness of its peculiar field, the increasing definiteness of its 

 peculiar presuppositions, impart a high degree of stability to 

 its distinctive concepts. 



But it seems impossible that the definiteness and fixity the 

 clearness and distinctness of scientific concepts should ever 

 be more than approximate. The meaning of the associated con 

 cepts, in terms of which a given concept is defined, must itself 

 be determined in relation to yet other .concepts. For if it were 

 possible to restrict the meaning of a group of concepts to the 



