XIV 



THE CONCEPT 



objects. In other words, generality rests on the attributive 

 relation, the fact that concrete wholes are qualified by 

 attributes. The concept is the thought-function which 

 has mastered this attributive relation, and therefore can 

 construct what is not perceived, nor ever has been 

 perceived, as a whole. The analytic movement which we 

 have thus traced is under another aspect also a movement 

 of synthesis. Analysis rests on comparison, which is an 

 act of synthesis, since it brings different experiences into 

 relation ; and gains in explicitness, pari passu with the 

 common character on which the comparison turns. And 

 not only does the concept rest on a synthesis, but its 

 essential function is to make a further synthesis possible. 

 It must not be regarded as a kind of mechanical abstraction 

 which takes an attribute out of its surroundings and hangs 

 it up alone in mid air. The general attribute is nothing 

 if it is not understood as qualifying objects, and in its use 

 in thought and explicitly so in the universal judgment- 

 it must be recombined with other elements of reality. It 

 is the power of entering into diverse combinations while 

 still recognised as the same content that constitutes 

 generality. And recombination does not mean that the 

 two elements are placed side by side, but that they are 

 fused or applied to one another in a certain definite 

 manner. The new combination, in short, is in a general 

 way parallel to that from which the elements were 

 originally taken by analysis. There is thus in the free 

 usage of detached concepts a synthetic process always at 

 work articulating what has been disarticulated by analysis. 

 To make the general concept a reality, the mind must be 

 able not merely to detach fragments of its experience, but 

 to follow that articulation of reality whereby attributes 

 qualify substances, enter into relations, are resolvable in 

 turn into more elementary attributes, and are united by 

 manifold and interwoven affinities. This articulation 

 is the broad basis of the conception and the judgment, 

 and analysis and synthesis are the processes by which the 

 mind comes to understand and track it out. 



When we say that analysis is guided by comparison, we 

 do not mean that there is always an explicit mental syn- 



