The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

tion rests on the world of perception as its ground of knowledge. Hence the class of abstract ideas is in this respect distinguished from other classes; in the latter the principle of sufficient reason always demands merely a relation to another idea of the same class, but in the case of abstract ideas, it at last demands a relation to an idea of another class.

Those concepts which, as has just been pointed out, are not immediately related to the world of perception, but only through the medium of one, or it may be several other concepts, have been called by preference dbstraeta, and those which have their ground immediately in the world of perception have been called concreta. But this last name is only loosely applicable to the concepts denoted by it, for they are always merely dhstracta, and not ideas of perception. These names, which have originated in a very dim consciousness of the distinctions they imply, may yet, with this explanation, be retained. As examples of the first kind of concepts, i.e., cCbslracta in the fullest sense, we may take ‘ relation,’ ‘ virtue,’ ‘ investigation,’ ‘ beginning,’ and so on. As examples of the second kind, loosely called concreta, we may take such concepts as ‘ man,’ ‘ stone,’ ‘ horse,’ &c. If it were not a somewhat too pictorial and therefore absurd simile, we might very appropriately call the latter the ground floor, and the former the upper stories of the building of reflection.^

It is not, as is commonly supposed, an essential characteristic of a concept that it should contain much under it, that is to say, that many ideas of perception, or it may be other abstract ideas, should stand to it in the relation of its ground of knowledge, i.«., be thought through it. This is merely a derived and secondary characteristic, and, as a matter of fact, does not always exist, though it must always exist potentially. This characteristic arises from the fact that a concept is an

^ 01 Oh. S And 6 of the Supplement.

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THE WORLD IDEA.

idea of an idea, its whole nature consists in its rela* tion to another idea ; but as it is not this idea itself, which is generally an idea of perception and therefore belongs to quite a different class, the latter may have temporal, spacial, and other determinations, and in general many relations which are not thought along with it in the concept.

Thus we see that several ideas which are different in unessential particulars may be thought by means of one concept, i.e., may be brought under it Yet this power of embracing several things is not an essential but merely an accidental characteristic of the concept There may be concepts through which only one real object is thought, but which are nevertheless abstract and general, by no means capable of presentation individually and as perceptions.

Such, for example, is the conception which any one may have of a particular town which he only knows from geography; although only this one town is thought under it, it might yet be applied to several towns differing in certain respects.

We see then that a concept is not general because of being abstracted from several objects ; but conversely, because generality, that is to say, non-determination of the particular, belongs to the concept as an abstract idea of the reason, different things can be thought by means of the same one.