A CRITICISi 



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which can be seen and felt to large generalisations of an intangible and 

 phantom-like character. That is to say, that for convenience of thought 

 we classify objects. How is this classification effected ? It is effected 

 through the perception of identity amid difference. Among a lot of 

 objects I perceive certain attributes in common ; this group of common 

 attributes serves, so to speak, as a band to tie these objects together with 

 into a bundle convenient for thought. I gave a name to the band, and 

 that serves to denote any unit of the bundle by. Thus perceiving common 

 attributes among a lot of dogs as in an example already given I give 

 the name foxhound to this group of attributes, and thenceforth use. the 

 name foxhound to connect these objects by in my mind ; again perceiving 

 other common attributes among other similar objects, I invent the word 

 greyhound to denote these latter by. The concept foxhound differs from 

 the objects which it denotes, in this respect that these latter are (as we 

 say) real dogs with thousands and thousands of attributes each : one of 

 them has a broken tooth, another is nearly all white, another answers to 

 the name "Sally," and so on; while the concept is only an imaginary 

 form in my mind, with only a few attributes and no individual peculiari- 

 ties a kind of tiny G.C.M. arising from the contemplation of a long row 

 of big figures. 



Now, having created these concepts "foxhound," " greyhound," and 

 a lot of other similar ones, I find that they in their turn have a few attri- 

 butes in common and thus give rise to a new concept * ' dog. " Of course 

 this ' ' dog " is more of an abstraction than ever, the concept of a concept. 

 In fact the peculiarity of this whole process is that, as sometimes stated, 

 the broader the generalisation becomes the less is its depth ; or in other 

 words and obviously, that as the number of objects compared increases, 

 the number of attributes common to them all decreases. Ultimately as 

 we saw at the beginning, when a sufficient number of objects are taken 

 in, the concept (" dog" or whatever it may be) fades away and ceases to 

 have any meaning. This therefore i the dilemma of Science and indeed 

 of all human knowledge, that in carrying out the process which is peculiar 

 to it, it necessarily leaves the dry ground of reality for the watery region 

 of abstractions, which abstractions become ever more tenuous and un- 

 graspable the farther it goes, and ultimately fade into mere ghosts. 

 Nevertheless the process is a quite necessary one, for only by it can the 

 mind deal with things. 



To dwell for a moment over this last point : it is clear that every object 

 has relation to every other object exists in fact only in virtue of such 

 relation to other objects ; it has therefore an infinite number of attributes, 

 the mind consequently is powerless to deal with such object it cannot 

 by any possibility think it. In order to deal with it, the mind is forced 

 to single out &few of its attributes (the method of ignorance or abstraction 

 already alluded to) that is a few of its relations to other objects, and to 

 think them first. The others it will think afterwards all in good time. 



