DISCRIMINATION AND COMPAMISON. 505 



have to be distinguished individually audible, so as to obtain an en- 

 tirely fresh recollection of the corresponding sensation, and the whole 

 business requires undisturbed and concentrated attention. We are even 

 without the ease that can be obtained by frequent repetitions of the 

 experiment, such as we possess in the analysis of musical chords into 

 their individual notes. In that case we hear the individual notes suffi- 

 ciently often by themselves, whereas we rarely hear simple tones, and 

 may almost be said never to hear the building up of a compound from 

 its simple tones. ■" * 



THE PBOCESS OF ABSTEACTION. 



Very few elements of reality are experienced by us in 

 absolute isolation. The most that usually happens to a 

 constituent a, of a compound phenomenon cihcd, is that 

 its strength relatively to hcd varies from a maximum to a 

 minimum ; or that it appears linked with other qualities, 

 in other compounds, as aefg, or ahik. Either of these 

 vicissitudes in the mode of our experiencing a may, under 

 favorable circumstances, lead us to feel the difference be- 

 tween it and its concomitants, and to single it out — not 

 absolutely, it is true, but approximately — and so to analyze 

 the compound of which it is a part. The act of singling 

 out is then called abstraction, and the element disengaged 

 is an abstract. 



Consider the case of fluctuations of relative strength 

 or intensity first. Let there be three grades of the com- 

 pound, as Ahcd, abed, and abcD. In j)assing between tliese 

 compounds, the mind will feel shocks of difference. The 

 differences, moreover, will serially increase, and their direc- 

 tion will be felt as of a distinct sort. The increase from 

 Cfhcd to Abed is on the a side ; that to ahcD is on the d side. 

 And these two differences of direction are differently 

 felt. I do not say that this discernment of the «-direction 

 from the cZ-direction will give us an actual intuition 

 either of a or of d in the abstract. But it leads us to 

 conceive or postulate each of these qualities, and to define 

 it as the extreme of a certain direction. ' Dry ' wines 

 and ' sweet ' wines, for example, differ, and form a series. 

 It happens that we have an experience of sweetness 

 pure and simple in the taste of sugar, and this we can 



* Seusations of Tone, 2d English Ed., p. 65. 



