138 ABSTRACTISMUS AND CONCHETISMUS. 



spoken of as great Departments or Domains of 

 Being ; two halves, as it were, of the Universe ex- 

 cept that plasmal and imperfectly characterized 

 Mikton which is not wholly separated into either. 

 Further statement and illustration will render this 

 difficult matter distinctly comprehensible. 



164. The Concrete includes all Sensibly or Naturally 

 REAL Things; every Mineral, including the planets as the 

 great Mineral Bodies, every Vegetable, every Animal, 

 including Man, as to his body, or all that is present 

 of him to the senses ; in fine, the whole Sensibly 

 Real World. It may then be asked with some sur- 

 prise : where is there room for another equal half of 

 the Universe, The Abstract ? To this the answer is 

 that The Abstract is wholly confined to what is, from 

 this Natural Sensuous point of view, A PURE NOTHING. 

 Hence, from this Outer and Material Standing-Point, it 

 is merely Negative ; although, as we shall find, the view 

 is reversed FROM ITS OWN STANDING-POINT, and The Ab- 

 stract is, then, THE MORE POSITIVE WORLD ; and the 

 World of Outer Sensible Appearances is NEGATIVE to it. 



165. Space and Time are Abstractions, and are, in a 

 sense, mere Nothings. A Point is defined, in Geom- 

 etry, to be Position, without Length, Breadth, or 

 Thickness ; a Line to be Length without Breadth or 

 Thickness ; and a Surface to be Length and Breadth 

 without Thickness. All of these are, therefore, Ab- 

 stract ; and that which has Materiality, and so Sub- 

 stance, or a Real Yalue, is the only Concrete. Even 

 the Geometrical Solid, though it has a ghostly kind of 

 thickness, being yet destitute of Substance (as a pie- 



