Direct object

“ Or again that, since an object necessarily implies a subject, and since the whole world must be an object, we must conceive it to belong to some subject or subjects, in the same sense in which whatever is the object of our experience belongs to us. ”

“ Connected with the distinction just made between ‘object’ in the sense of the qualities actually before the mind and ‘object’ in the sense of the whole thing which possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost importance for a correct analysis of the constituents necessary to a valuable whole. ”

“ Even those attributes of an object which might seem with greatest propriety to be called states of the object itself, its sensible qualities, its [pg 349] colour, hardness, shape, and the like, are, in reality, (as no one has pointed out more clearly than Brown himself,) phenomena of causation, in which the substance is distinctly the agent, or producing cause, the patient being our own organs, and those of other sentient beings. ”

“ When I behold an object, the being of the object and my thought of the object is for me absolutely the same. But in the ordinary intuition, some separate sensible being is posited as one with the thought. ”

“ In both doctrines it is assumed that the phenomenon which takes place in us when we see or touch an object, and which we regard as an effect of that object, or rather of its presence to our organs, must of necessity resemble very closely the outward object itself. ”

“ The qualities of a body, we have said, are the attributes grounded on the sensations which the presence of that particular body to our organs excites in our minds. But when we ascribe to any object the kind of attribute called a Relation, the foundation of the attribute must be something in which other objects are concerned besides itself and the percipient. ”

“ But it is an error to suppose, because we resolve to confine our attention to a certain number of the properties of an object, that we therefore conceive, or have an idea of, the object, denuded of its other properties. We are thinking, all the time, of precisely such objects as we have seen and touched, and with all the properties which naturally belong to them; but, for scientific convenience, we feign them to be divested of all properties, except those which are material to our purpose, and in regard to which we design to consider them. ”

“ In the same way, why should our proposition lead people to infer that that part of the total object of knowledge which is called the subject is that other part of it which is usually called the object, or that that part of it which is usually called the object is that other part of it which is called the subject? ”

“ Accustomed to trace the operation of general causes, and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders: every object which falls in his way elucidates some principle, affords some instruction, and impresses him with a sense of harmony and order. ”

“ In other words, our conceptions, though they may be clear, are not appropriate for our purpose, unless the properties we comprise in them are those which will help us toward what we wish to understand—i.e., either those which go deepest into the nature of the things, if our object be to understand that, or those which are most closely connected with the particular property which we are endeavoring to investigate. ”

“ We have thus defined the object and the truth of an idea. But observe that thus we stand upon the threshold of a new definition of Being. Being, as our Third Conception declared, is what gives true ideas their truth; or in other words, to be real is to be the object of a true idea. We are ready, now that we have defined both object and truth, to assert, as our Fourth and final Conception of Being, this, that What is, or what is real, is as such the complete embodiment, in individual form and in final fulfilment, of the internal meaning of finite ideas. ”

“ And other philosophers have suggested that what we mean by "real" is—"connected in some way with a purpose—helping or hindering, or the object of a purpose." But if we look into their meaning, we find they mean—connected with a real purpose. ”

“ So, then, hypothetical judgments tell us that some ideally defined object, often of very complex structure, finds no place in Being. Even the fantastic examples of the wishes and the bowl involve the same sort of assertion, true or false, as to a real world. ”

“ The object which fulfils this definition, and which is therefore worthy to be called real, is of necessity in itself One and only One; since variety, when consciously faced, calls forth thought, and arouses demands for characterization and explanation. ”

“ To apply the question of cause and effect to our real will means not only that we apply to the real object a standard which belongs to the [Pg 28] artificial or constructed object, but it means above all that we consider as an object something which in reality is not an object at all. ”

“ If it be said that the object does exist independently of man, though not in the phenomenal guise under which we know it, I would reply—Not so; for it is to the existence under this phenomenal guise that we apply the word "object." ”

“ They are, in fact, rather parts of which the object is made up than mere predicates which attach to it. If they were all taken away, no object would be left, not even a bare substance: for they are in themselves substantial and give to the object all the substance that it has. ”

“ In other words, looked at from one point of view, such a consciousness regards the wide expanse of reality according to that association of cause and effect, object and means, and all other categories of the mode of reflection which deals with finite conditions and the objective world generally, that is, the limited categories of science or the understanding. ”

“ In order that it may indicate under the denomination of substance, an object which may be given, in order that it may be a cognition, a constant intuition must be placed at the foundation, as the indispensable condition of the objective reality of a conception, namely, that by which alone the object is given. ”

“ The object of which I have spoken as the object, about which, in each particular case, such a judgment as this always is a judgment, is, of course, always an object of the kind which some philosophers would call a sensation, and others would call a sense-datum. Whether all philosophers, when they talk of sensations, mean to include among them such objects as these, I do not know. ”

“ According to the view that I am suggesting, a physical object or piece of matter is the collection of all those correlated particulars which would be regarded by common sense as its effects or appearances in different places. On the other hand, all the happenings in a given place represent what common sense would regard as the appearances of a number of different objects as viewed from that place. All the happenings in one place may be regarded as the view of the world from that place. I shall call the view of the world from a given place a "perspective." ”

“ This throwing of the whole body of possible inferences from a given set of particulars, into one general expression, operates as a security for their being just inferences, in more ways than one. First, the general principle presents a larger object to the imagination than any of the singular propositions which it contains. ”

“ Here also we should immediately find ourselves in a world of relations between subject and object, of a regularly arranged abundance of subjective and objective qualities, states and processes, of which the objective only come to our knowledge through the medium of the subjective, and of regularly arranged laws to which both the subjective and the objective are commonly subordinate. ”

“ Now in this extremely elementary consideration, namely, in the consideration that unless ideas first voluntarily bind themselves to a given task, and so, by their internal purpose, already commit themselves to a certain selection of its object, they are neither true nor false, — in this consideration, I say, there may be hidden consequences that we shall later find momentous for the whole theory of Being and of truth. ”

“ Another group of categories that offer a field of fruitful investigation are those of object and attribute. The concepts of primitive man make it quite clear that the classes of ideas which we consider as attributes are often considered as independent objects. ”

“ At bottom the process is one of conception, and is everywhere, even in the sphere of simple sensible qualities, the same as that by which we are usually understood to attain to the notions of abstract goodness, perfect felicity, absolute power, and the like: the direct perception of a difference between compounds, and the imaginary prolongation of the direction of the difference to an ideal terminus, the notion of which we fix and keep as one of our permanent subjects of discourse. ”

“ Necessity may be defined two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understanding from one object to another. ”

“ The object of the sensuous instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is named Life in the widest acceptation; a conception that expresses all material existence and all that is immediately present in the senses. The object of the formal instinct, expressed in a universal conception, is called shape or form, as well in an exact as in an inexact acceptation; a conception that embraces all formal qualities of things and all relations of the same to the thinking powers. ”

“ The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet. For the time being, it is plain, unqualified actuality, or existence, a simple that. ”

“ The sole object of Logic is the guidance of one's own thoughts: the communication of those thoughts to others falls under the consideration of Rhetoric, in the large sense in which that art was conceived by the ancients; or of the still more extensive art of Education. ”

“ The objects of philosophy, it is true, are upon the whole the same as those of religion. In both the object is Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and God only is the Truth. ”

“ But a thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. ”

“ Logic aims to instruct the human mind as to its own nature and processes; it will lay bare the interior working of our mind for our guidance. The object of [Pg 182] the study of logic is thought, its nature, and its proper classification. ”

“ We have seen that it is the subjective world that rules the objective. Change the subject, and the object is bound to change; purify yourself, and the world is bound to be purified. ”

“ For, as we define a concrete name by enumerating the attributes which it connotes, and as the attributes connoted by a concrete name form the entire signification of the corresponding abstract name, the same enumeration will serve for the definition of both. Thus, if the definition of a human being be this, “a being, corporeal, animated, rational, shaped so and so,” the definition of humanity will be corporeity and animal life, combined with rationality, and with such and such a shape. ”

“ In this sense, then, the distinction of the primary and secondary qualities of matter is just,—that, whatever qualities we refer to a material cause must be, in reference, secondary to those qualities that are essential to our very notion of the body, to which the subsequent reference of the other qualities is made. We have formed our definition of matter; and, as in every other definition of every sort, the qualities included in the definition, must always, in comparison of other qualities, be primary and essential, relatively to the thing defined. ”

“ But when we are studying objects not for any special practical end, but for the sake of extending our knowledge of the whole of their properties and relations, we must consider as the most important attributes those which contribute most, either by themselves or by their effects, to render the things like one another, and unlike other things ”

“ Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them. ”

“ If it be remembered that every attribute is grounded on some fact or phenomenon, either of outward sense or of inward consciousness, and that to possess an attribute is another phrase for being the cause of, or forming part of, the fact or phenomenon upon which the attribute is grounded; we may add one more step to complete the analysis. ”