ABSTRACT
We have argued that apprehension, rightly understood, makes us aware of concrete wholes in which qualities are given to us in relation to one another. So far, however, we have shown only that these relations are given in the concrete contents apprehended; and this is not a peculiarity of relation. Whatever characteristics of reality are given in apprehension, appear always as characters of some concrete content. An effort of abstraction is required to separate them in thought from their “context.” Has this effort any connection with the act of apprehension, or is it carried on entirely by thought working on the basis of the given? We are here confronted with the rise of general knowledge, and our question is, What basis can we find for such knowledge in apprehension? or, perhaps better, what medium can we find through which the momentary apprehension of the particular concrete now present passes into those general judgments which compose the system of permanent knowledge? Of the connecting links one at least can be observed and described in close connection with the act of apprehension, and the discussion of it will also serve to illustrate some important characteristics of that function to which we have not yet alluded.
