xiv THE CONCEPT 337 



their order of time or space, and in subservience to 

 immediate practical interests, but upon the basis of their 

 affinities, and the more remote connections that follow 

 therefrom. To arrive at these affinities involves a 

 measure of analysis and comparison whereby the character 

 of an experience, or any portion of its character, is 

 detached from its setting or surroundings, and becomes 

 free to enter into new combinations, or conceptions. 

 The combinations so formed may be taken as mere 

 products of the imagination, or they may be held to 

 express general truths, or they may form rules of conduct. 

 In any case, they go to make up the world of ideas. In the 

 second case we need not here discuss the difficult logical 

 implications of the third they form judgments held to 

 be possibly, probably, or certainly true, and affirming 

 relations as actual, contingent, or intrinsically necessary. 

 Such judgments sum up in general terms the results of 

 experience, and apply to the future with a reference that 

 is no less general. By tracing back experiences to their 

 underlying affinities, human thought is made capable of 

 grasping what is permanent and common to masses of 

 experience, and of ordering action towards comprehensive 

 ends. It is set free from the limitation of immediate 

 surroundings and the pressure of felt wants, and there is 

 no longer any permanent limit to the scope of its refer- 

 ence, or to the field within which it is able to bring 

 the chaos of experience into harmony and co-ordination. 



