Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/356

 340 B. BUSSELL: things which differ quantitatively do not differ conceptually in anything except quantity. Secondly, we saw that quantity is not an inherent conceptual property of quantitative things. From these two propositions it follows that two things which only differ quantitatively do not differ in the concep- tions applicable to them. Nevertheless, since we found that quantity is not an immediate sense-datum, we were forced to admit that quantity is a conception, but a conception of comparison. Hence, in a judgment of more or less, we have a conception of difference without a difference of conception. This seems to constitute a contradiction : between two things which are in all points conceptually alike, there ought to be no difference, but complete and entire similarity. From this contradiction, we can derive a definition of the intensive continuum, and of the kind of things to which quantity is applicable. To begin with, though quantitative comparison is con- ceptual, the terms compared must have no conceptual differences. They must differ, but not in the conceptions applicable to them. Thus measure must apply, not to con- ceptions, but to immediate data as such. These are col- lected by conception into classes, until this process reaches its limit in the infimce species of immediate data. If con- ception were adequate, all the instances of any infima species ought to be precisely similar, but this, it appears, is not the case. Although our instances cannot be concep- tually differentiated, comparison still discovers differences among them. 1 We have, however, a conception by which we can express the result of comparison as to their differ- ences, and this conception is measure, i.e., the more or less. By means of measure, the whole bundle of instances can be arranged in an ordered series of increasing or decreasing magnitude. But if thought were adequate to these data, it would apply a different conception to each : to confess that this cannot be done is to confess that the point of difference is unintelligible. Since every content of consciousness is, in one aspect, necessarily an immediate datum, quantity is applicable to every conceivable content, but only qua im- mediate datum. Thus belief, in Psychology, is subject to quantity, since I may hold a belief with different degrees of conviction ; but judgment, in Logic, is not subject to quantity. It must be maintained, therefore, that quantity 1 This seems to be the point urged by Kant against Mendelssohn's proof of the indestructibility of the soul. Kant regards the soul as an intensive quantity. See Krit. d. r. V., 2nd ed., pp. 413-15.