DIVISIONS OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS. 59 



object of thought, to express the same concept, in each of these 

 two distinct states. 



So long as we confine ourselves to material things and their 

 qualities there is no great difficulty in distinguishing between the 

 &quot; thing &quot; and the &quot; attribute &quot; : as strong things strength ; men 

 humanity ; democrat democracy ; envious envy ; square 

 squareness. And such terms usually go thus in pairs : the concrete 

 being as a rule the first and more easily understood, 1 and bringing 

 before the mind prominently the individual units characterized by 

 a certain quality ; while the latter, when thought of apart from 

 those individual things, is or may be designated by an abstract 

 term. Every general term therefore which directly denotes a class 

 of things, may conceivably have a corresponding abstract term 

 for their common quality considered in itself and apart from 

 those things ; though the names of such pairs of terms in any 

 language is in reality comparatively small. 



But can we maintain that the distinction between abstract and con 

 crete terms is an absolute and exhaustive one : that as soon as a term is 

 given us we can at once place it in one or other of the two classes, or 

 that the same object of thought cannot be regarded now as a thing possess 

 ing attributes and again as itself an attribute of some other thing? May we 

 not say of a man that &quot; he is brave &quot; and immediately go on to say that &quot; his 

 bravery is physical rather than moral,&quot; thus making the (abstract) quality of 

 bravery a subject about which we predicate the further attributes of &quot; physi 

 cal &quot; or &quot; moral &quot; ? We do undoubtedly think and reason about abstract 

 qualities of things just as we do about the concrete things themselves : witness 

 our common use of confessedly abstract terms (all of which are grammatical 

 substantives} as subjects about which we affirm or deny attributes. 2 We 

 think of them after the analogy of the things in which we find them : we not 

 only make them subjects about which we predicate further qualities as when 

 we say that &quot; laziness is demoralizing,&quot; or that &quot; honesty is the best policy &quot; ; 

 but we even constitute in our thoughts a world of abstract attributes which 

 we classify and generalize after the manner of concrete objects speaking of 

 different kinds or varieties of courage, of beauty, of colour, etc. 



Hence it has been suggested that we ought to regard as concrete 

 whatever term we use as the name of a subject of attributes and as abstract 

 whatever term we use as the name of an attribute of subjects? The same 



1 Not necessarily always : some abstracts are easier to grasp than their corre 

 sponding concretes. Cf. VENN, op. cit., p. 190. 



2 We may call attention here to the existence of a natural tendency to substitute 

 the abstract for the concrete term: to speak of the &quot; Deity&quot; or &quot;Divinity&quot; for 

 &quot; God,&quot; a &quot; reality &quot; for a &quot; thing,&quot; a &quot; relation &quot; for a &quot; relative,&quot; a &quot; nationality,&quot; 

 for a &quot; nation,&quot; etc. These then sometimes lose their abstract character and the 

 need is felt of coining such double abstracts as &quot; relationship,&quot; etc. 



8 KEYNES, Op. tit., p. 16. 



