Page:The Distinction between Mind and Its Objects.djvu/51

 they represent a behaviour within the universe, and are capable of being inferred by thought and of being an object of mind, is one thing; to say that they partake of a mental nature and have a claim to substantive self-existence per se would be quite another thing.

You can consider a portion of the behaviour of a system on its own merits, with reference to its special function, without committing yourself to the belief that it could be real apart from the whole system, or that it adequately displays, within itself, the quality of the system. Objects of finite mind, in short, and finite minds themselves, are bound, after our discussion of physical realism, to strike us as details of reality essentially continuous with each other and reciprocally indispensable. But yet any object picked out and isolated within the whole is eo ipso not-mental, for you have taken it apart from the life of the whole, and have, by abstraction, killed and stuffed it for examination.

To put a point upon our conclusion as