LOGIC OF CONCEPTS, 77 



rich accumulation of orderly ideas, grouped together in many 

 systems of logical coherency. When, therefore, the advent of 

 language does take place, it is needless that this work of 

 logical grouping should be recommenced ab initio. What 

 language does is to take up the work of grouping where it 

 has been left by generic ideation ; and if it is found expedient 

 to name any generic ideas, it is the more generic as well as 

 the less generic that are selected for the purpose. In short, 

 immense as is the organizing power of the Logos, it does not 

 come upon the scene of its creative power to find only that 

 which is without form and void : rather does it find a fair 

 structure of no mean order of system, shaped by prior 

 influences, and, so far as thus shaped, a veritable cosmos. 



Again, all concepts in their last resort depend on recepts, 

 just as in their turn recepts depend on percepts. This fact 

 admits of being abundantly proved, not only by general con- 

 siderations but also by the etymological derivation of abstract 

 terms. The most highly abstract terms are derived from terms 

 less abstract, and these from others still less abstract, until, by 

 two or three such steps at the most, we are in all cases led 

 directly back to their origin in a " lower concept " — i.e. in the 

 name of a recept. As I will prove later on, there is no abstract 

 word or general term in any language which, if its origin admits 

 of being traced at all, is not found to have its root in the name of 

 a recept. Concepts, therefore, are originally nothing more than 

 named recepts ; and hence it is a priori impossible that any 

 concept can be formed unless it does eventually rest upon 

 the basis of recepts. Owing to the elaboration wdiich it 

 subsequently undergoes in the region of symbolism, it may, 

 indeed, so far cease to bear any likeness to its parentage that 

 it is only the philologist who can trace its lineage. When we 

 speak of Virtue, we need no longer think about a man, nor 

 need we make any conscious reference to the steering of a 

 ship when we use the word Government. But it is none the 

 less obvious that both these highly abstract words have 

 originated in the naming of recepts (the one of an object, the 

 other of an action) ; and that their subsequent elevation in the 



