SECTION 20 STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 175 



shall now proceed to state the most general nature of the facts 

 to be examined. We might have simplified our task by merely 

 enumerating for this purpose Aristotle's Categories Substantia, 

 Quantitas, Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs, 

 and Habitus; 1 but his list of predicaments unfortunately no 

 longer satisfies scientific requirements. Consequently, we have 

 ventured to submit new lists of categories which, however, lay 

 no claim to completeness or finality. To have neglected this 

 delicate and responsible task altogether because of the difficulty 

 involved in its adequate execution, would have left a gaping 

 void in the methodological scheme propounded in this volume. 



I. INTRODUCTORY CATEGORY. 



76. We might say that the object of any enquiry is always 

 to determine the partial or total nature, and sometimes relations, 

 of a fact. A fact, again, we might define comprehensively as 

 a given or stated partial (e.g., portion of individual), single 

 (e.g., individual as a whole), collective (e.g., aggregations of 

 individual to species), grouped (e.g., beyond species, and in- 

 cluding larger wholes such as a science, or a group or groups 

 of sciences, to cosmology and the universe), or abstracted 

 (whiteness, etc.), physical or other something (i.e., anything 

 which partially or wholly exists, is coming into, or going out 

 of, existence, has existed, will, might, could, would, should, or 

 is believed, alleged, or feigned to, exist, or the contrary). 

 Liberally interpreted in this way, room is probably provided 

 for most orders of fact which obtrude themselves on the in- 

 telligence, and assistance is thus afforded in the most elementary 

 forms of classification. 



II. PRIMARY CATEGORIES. 



77. The Primary Categories may be profitably divided 

 into three main sections, and may be said to aim at indicating 

 and helping to ascertain the general nature and relations of 

 phenomena to be determined in an enquiry : 



(1) Material Aspects J 



(2) Modal Aspects J of a phenomenon investigated. 



(3) Procedure Aspects J 



(1) MATERIAL ASPECTS. The material aspects practically 

 include the bare facts alone, irrespective of anything measur- 

 able or changeable. 



1 According to Mill "all the assertions which can be conveyed by language 

 express some one or more of five different things: Existence; Order in place; 

 Order in Time; Causation; and Resemblance. Of these, Causation, in our 

 view of the subject, not being fundamentally different from Order in Time, 

 the five species of possible assertions are reduced to four." (Logic, bk. 3, 

 ctt. 24, 1.) 



