we have to press home the old question. The "now," it is said, is a moment of actual experience. But which moment of actual experience is it? For there are an indefinite multiplicity of these; the mental life of each of us from the cradle to the grave includes an incessant succession of moments of actual experience. How is the particular one which we refer to in saying "now" singled out from the others? Evidently no general conception of actual experience, and no mere thought of there being particular instances of actual experience, will help us in the least. Mere thought leaves us moving round in the old circle. The moment of actual experience referred to is the present moment; the "now" is the time of that actual experience which is now existing. If there is any way out of this impasse except the one I propose, I should be exceedingly glad to know what it is. The only escape that I can discover lies in frankly admitting that there is a direct apprehension of particular existence as it is actually existing. The application of the word " now" is determined, not by any mere thought of it, but by our immediate experiences in the way of sensation, sensuous imagery, pleasure, pain, etc., directly cognized in the moment of their existence as they cannot be cognized at any other moment.' , With the fundamental contention of this passage I should be in cordial agreement. But I would put in a plea against the suggestion that certain ultimate meanings are indefinable. 'It is impossible,' says the writer, 'without a logical circle to define adequately in language what it is we refer to when we say "now" or "I." Is this strictly true? Has not the passage just quoted shown us rather that it is impossible without a logical circle to define in adequate language what it is we refer to by such terms as 'now' and 'I' when they are used as symbols of immediate personal experience? But is it, we ask, justifiable to attempt a definition of the self-evident qua immediately self-evident? And if we do not attempt this, deeming the task uncalled for, may we not still live in the hope that the self-evident, when sufficiently reflected on, so as to reveal an inner spiritual structure, may prove in the end to be self-defining ? The adequate definition of these experience-concepts is, no doubt, a philosophical ideal, but, as such, it is surely a problem of supreme interest and importance. With regard to the nature and conditions of such a problem, we cannot do more than throw out one central suggestion. Is not the essential condition this-that the definitions can be grasped only in proportion as the experiences are experienced? Just as the definitions of 'here' and 'now' must be formulations of actual experience, so there can be no genuine definitions of religious concepts except such as express genuine religious experience; no genuine definitions of art-concepts which do not express genuine artistic experience. The definer who would understand his definitions will, in such case, be compelled to experience and, in some sense, sympathetically to live out what his definitions may subsequently attempt to formulate and express. Experience must, in his definitions, relive in conceptual form, otherwise the definitions are mere deceptive formule which cannot possibly mean what they say. An adequate definition of the selfevident 'now' of immediate experience will, at any rate, not be given till our human nature has realized in its own time-experience how past, present, and future stand related not only to each other, but also to the eternal Present which in some way transcends them. CHAPTER VIII. II. (viii.) CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT TERMS. A TERM may be said to be concrete when it refers us to concrete objects, abstract when it refers us to an abstract object. Whether a term is concrete or abstract depends, then, on the nature of its objective reference. Now, an object is concrete when it is regarded as possessing an immediacy either for sense or for feeling, or individuality in time or space, and is thought of as thus 'immediate' or 'individual.' Abstract objects are derivative. They are derived from concrete objects through a process (1) of discrimination, (2) of analysis. Discrimination alone cannot give us an abstract object. It can only differentiate the concrete object. In a yellow orange we may discriminate the yellowness and the roundness. But the yellowness of the orange is not an abstract yellowness; it is a quality, a discriminated quality, of the concrete orange. 'A Whether we use the adjectival or the substantival form makes no difference in the nature of the discrimination, and therefore no difference in regard to the question of abstract and concrete. yellow orange' and 'the yellowness of an orange' are equally concrete in their reference, and accordingly are both concrete terms. But if, after having discriminated the yellowness as a quality or feature of the orange, we proceed to analyze it out of its concrete context, so that it can no longer be said to be an inherent feature of the orange, but is withdrawn by the abstracting power of thought and brought under the conditions of thought-existence, we have yellowness as an abstract object-an object which has immediacy for thought, but no longer any relevant sense-immediacy, nor yet any immediacy for feeling in the ordinary acceptance of that term. An abstract conception or meaning is thus a common quality as such, a universal, detached from all reference to individual objects, and considered solely qua universal. Terms which indicate or otherwise refer to these abstract objects, these products of mental analysis, are called abstract. They are the names of detached attributes and relations, of attributes and relations mentally isolated, of attributes and relations per se. The merely discriminated attribute or relation which is not mentally severed from the concrete object which it qualifies or relates is, as we saw, still concrete in its reference. (See 1, b below.) We obtain, then, the following distinctions : 1. A term is concrete (a) When it serves to indicate* individual existents (things, persons, events, etc.); (b) When it serves to indicate an attribute presented as actually qualifying individual existents, or a relation considered in connexion with the individuals related. 2. A term is abstract (a) When it serves to indicate an attribute considered apart from the individuals (things, persons, events, etc.) of which it is the attribute; or a relation considered in severance from the individuals related; (b) When it serves to indicate an attribute or other qualification of an abstract object. As illustrations of the distinction between Abstract and Concrete Terms regarded from the point of view of objective reference, let us consider the subject-terms of the following propositions : 'A tyrant's hate is a thing we need not fear.' Here the subject-term is concrete (1, b). 'The hate of my fellows is a force I dare not face.' Concrete (1, b). 'Hate is old wrathe' (Chaucer). Abstract (2, a). 'The hate of hate is the Poet's dower.' Abstract (2, a). 'The hatefulness of sin is an eternal fact.' Abstract (2, 6). 'The hatefulness of Mr. Hyde is a haunting horror.' Concrete (1, 6). 'A hateful thought is a crime.' Abstract (2, a). 'That hateful thought of yours is a disgrace.' Concrete (1, 6). 'All the Virtues are personified qualities.' Abstract (2, a). 'Virtue is a self-rewarding activity.' Abstract (2, a). 'A man's virtue is to be truly a man.' Concrete (1, 6). 'Some virtuous people are not pious people.' Concrete (1, α). 'All virtuous activities are forms of happiness. Abstract (2, a). 'The virtue of suffering is the fostering of sympathy. Abstract (2, 6). 'This man's thoroughness is an acquired characteristic. Concrete (1, 6). * Thus 'Being' or 'Person' is, from this point of view, as concrete as 'Welsh. man' or 'John Jones.' 'Thoroughness is a test of efficiency.' Abstract (2, a). 'The thoroughness of this work is an admirable quality.' Concrete, (1, 6). 'Thoroughness of work is a praiseworthy quality.' Abstract (2, 6). Question. Examine whether the italicized terms in the following propositions are abstract or concrete: 1. 'Truth is not mercy.' 2. 'What I ask of you is mercy.' 3. 'Mercy is the sister of Justice.' 4. 'A light is a characteristic of the glow-worm.' 5. 'Light is a necessity of plant-life.' 6. 'Light is a mode of motion.' 7. 'This figure is a square.' 8. 'This square is not that square.' 9. 'The square is a rectangle.' 1. 'Truth is not mercy.' 'Mercy' is here used abstractly, apart from any reference to a stated individual possessing it as a quality of character. Abstract (2, α). 2. 'What I ask of you is mercy.' 'Mercy' is here used as 'What I ask of you is your mercy.' qualifying the person referred to by 'your.' Concrete (1, 6). 3. 'Mercy is the sister of Justice.' The personification of 'mercy' only makes its abstract use more evident. If the proposition had been 'Mercy is the sister of Charity,' with a reference to 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' 'Mercy' would have been used as a concrete term. The personified virtues that are not of flesh and blood are the sheerest abstractions. Abstract (2, a). 4. 'A light is a characteristic of the glow-worm.' Here 'a light' is a concrete term. It refers to individual things. Concrete (1, а). 5. 'Light is a necessity of plant-life.' 'Light,' as a necessity for plant-life, indicates radiant energy manifested at definite times and places. The term is therefore concretely used. Concrete (1, a). 6. 'Light is a mode of motion.' It is true that 'Light,' as a mode of motion, can be neither sensed nor felt. But the word has reference to undulatory movements passing through definite spaces at definite times. Concrete (1, a). 7. 'This figure is a square.' Here 'a square' is used abstractly. Despite the fact that a particular figure is indicated, what is implied is that this particular figure stands for an ideal square. However badly it may have been drawn, it still represents that ideal form. Abstract (2, a). 8. 'This square is not that square.' Here both subject and predicate terms are concrete. The meaning is that the given square ABCD, as drawn or constructed, without reference to the ideal mathematical square, is not identical with the given square EFGH. Of course, if the 'squares' indicated are of the 'Trafalgar Square' kind, the concrete nature of the terms is still more obvious. Concrete (1, а). 9. 'The Square is a rectangle.' Here the reference is to the ideal square, not to any particular representation of it. Abstract (2, a). Since it is the nature of the objective reference which decides whether a term is abstract or concrete, it would seem to follow that the degree of generality which a class-term as such may possess, though it involves a certain kind of abstraction-namely, 'generalization '-has nothing to do with its being ranked as an abstract or concrete term. The objection may, indeed, legitimately be raised that classmeanings are as such abstract, and that one class meaning is more abstract than another. 'Animal,' ' mammal,' 'lion,' it may be urged, are abstract in the sense that they are general classes and not individual things; and, again, 'animal' is more abstract than 'mammal,' 'mammal' more abstract than the typical 'lion.' As we pass from lion to carnivore, from carnivore to mammal, from mammal to vertebrate, each higher class-higher in the sense of being more general-is at the same time more abstract, and the summum genus in any system of classification will be the most general and most abstract of all. That the distinctions here referred to are real enough cannot be denied. The presence of degrees of generality among concepts is essential to the existence of a classification. But the word 'general' is surely good enough to enable us to dispense, in this connexion, with the word 'abstract.' There is, moreover, a more appropriate word still-namely, 'indeterminate.' This word is, in fact, forced upon us by the construction we have put on 'meaning' and its logical evolution from the indeterminate to the determinate, or involution from the determinate to the indeterminate. From this point of view, every concept has its place within a certain conceptual system. What this system precisely is depends on the interest which controls our use of the concept in question. This system we may call the logical topic, or universe of discourse, and in so far as it is allowed to develop itself logically-i.e., in the direction determined by the growth of the logical interest itself-it takes its start from a summum genus as its indeterminate fountain-head, and differentiates itself in an orderly conceptual way, till it reaches the limit of determinacy in the infimæ species. The concept 'Carnivore' represents, from this standpoint, a stage in the logical |