i EXPERIENCE AND REALITY 245 



brings out lights and shadows, outlines, ridges and valleys 

 which go to make up the content of the original perception 

 but are not at first distinctly perceived. So far, analysis 

 merely helps to make the field of consciousness clearer, and 

 it is not suggested that in so doing it disturbs, mutilates 

 or omits. The second function of analysis is indirect. 

 It serves as the basis of comparison, and generally of inter- 

 connection. Thus, a piece of country is roughly of tri- 

 angular shape, and having noted this we are able to apply 

 to it the properties of triangles. Here it is that there is 

 danger of mutilation. The actual surface will not be a 

 perfect plane triangle bounded by three straight lines, but 

 will exhibit irregularities of greater or less importance. 

 In leaving these irregularities out of account, we open a 

 door to error, and it is only by a critical use of the method 

 and the correction of one inference by another that we 

 avoid fallacy. In this usage analysis is the servant of 

 correlation. We break up our concrete, individual experi- 

 ence into elements in order to appreciate the general 

 relations that pervade it. Experience as it comes to us 

 always has its individual character. Even a green or 

 blue colour has in each case, where we see it, its peculiar 

 shade, intensity and quality. But in noting and naming it 

 as green or blue, we assign it a certain place in the colour 

 circle. We note the point in which it resembles all other 

 objects that are green or blue and we are able to predicate 

 of it certain things, as, e.g. that it is at the opposite pole 

 from red or yellow, and to communicate something of its 

 character to anyone who has not seen it. What we say of 

 the object is true though it is not the whole truth, and it is 

 important, because it is the means of bringing the object 

 into relation with objects already known, by subsuming it 

 under an idea which has its place in a system of ideas. 

 Analysis, that is to say, is the basis of the general relations 

 by which we discover system and interconnection running 

 through or, if we prefer to say so, underlying our experi- 

 ence. In the actual process of thought there is, of course, 

 a reciprocal action. Analysis is the basis of comparison 

 and it is also suggested by comparison. We note a certain 

 character in a man's face, perhaps for the first time, when 



