Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/163

 SOME PROBLEMS OF CONCEPTION. 147 Abstraction is defined as something negative. It is a leaving out and nothing more. But for the purposes of comparison it is not so much leaving out as singling out that is required. The contents which I compare and from which my general conception is formed are not likely to lie side by side. They will be parted as a rule in Time and Space, and, moreover, they are imbedded in a matrix of reality within which they are, as likely as not, mere elements. To serve for comparison they must obviously stand out in distinct relief. They must be singled out and known for what they are. But this pro- cess of discerning an element in a more concrete whole is rather what we call analysis than abstraction. It is a positive rather than a negative act. It does not necessarily leave surroundings out of account, while it does make a positive addition to the content before the mind by pre- senting as a distinct element that which is otherwise merged in a whole. There would be no theoretical objection to a mode of conception which along with the general content itself should retain its setting in every instance in which it had been presented. Such a conception would simply realise the extension in addition to the intension of the content and would serve every purpose of an ordinary generality so long as content and setting were kept distinct. The leaving out of the instances and their setting is merely a matter of intellectual economy, an economy, moreover, which is liable to incidental drawbacks. So far then we may say that while the idea and method of generalising are based on comparison, the contents to be made general are supplied by analytical distinctions within the order of reality. 1 II. Interpretations. Such being the data upon which conception is founded it must in its usage contain at least a potential reference to them all. But, consistently with this, the overt and immediate interest of the concept may vary as between any points lying within the data. And if the overt and explicit purport of the concept is used as the basis of a theoretical interpretation of its meaning, interpretations will vary according to the bias of individual minds and the nature of the instances on which the analyses are based. Broadly we may say that there are three aspects of the data 1 Of course the more concrete the content the less important the func- tion of analysis. The limiting case is where a content is taken up just as it comes (e.g., in immediate Apprehension, or as the conclusion of an in- ferential process), and turned into a general content. Even here the content used must have some sort of context (e.g., the previous sense object) from which it must be kept distinct. And to treat it apart from this context is, so far, to analyse.