The Concept of Nature | Page 5

in elliptical phraseology, the expositor sticks to his original
proposition when he replies,
'Anyhow, it is commodious.'
Note that the recipient's answer accepts the speculative demonstration
of the phrase 'This college building.' He does not say, 'What do you
mean?' He accepts the phrase as demonstrating an entity, but declares
that same entity to be the lion-house in the Zoo. In his reply, the
expositor in his turn recognises the success of his original gesture as a
speculative demonstration, and waives the question of the suitability of
its mode of suggestiveness with an 'anyhow.' But he is now in a
position to repeat the original proposition with the aid of a
demonstrative gesture robbed of any suggestiveness, suitable or
unsuitable, by saying,

'It is commodious.'
The 'it' of this final statement presupposes that thought has seized on
the entity as a bare objective for consideration.
We confine ourselves to entities disclosed in sense-awareness. The
entity is so disclosed as a relatum in the complex which is nature. It
dawns on an observer because of its relations; but it is an objective for
thought in its own bare individuality. Thought cannot proceed
otherwise; namely, it cannot proceed without the ideal bare 'it' which is
speculatively demonstrated. This setting up of the entity as a bare
objective does not ascribe to it an existence apart from the complex in
which it has been found by sense-perception. The 'it' for thought is
essentially a relatum for sense-awareness.
The chances are that the dialogue as to the college building takes
another form. Whatever the expositor originally meant, he almost
certainly now takes his former statement as couched in elliptical
phraseology, and assumes that he was meaning,
'This is a college building and is commodious.'
Here the demonstrative phrase or the gesture, which demonstrates the
'it' which is commodious, has now been reduced to 'this'; and the
attenuated phrase, under the circumstances in which it is uttered, is
sufficient for the purpose of correct demonstration. This brings out the
point that the verbal form is never the whole phraseology of the
proposition; this phraseology also includes the general circumstances of
its production. Thus the aim of a demonstrative phrase is to exhibit a
definite 'it' as a bare objective for thought; but the modus operandi of a
demonstrative phrase is to produce an awareness of the entity as a
particular relatum in an auxiliary complex, chosen merely for the sake
of the speculative demonstration and irrelevant to the proposition. For
example, in the above dialogue, colleges and buildings, as related to the
'it' speculatively demonstrated by the phrase 'this college building,' set
that 'it' in an auxiliary complex which is irrelevant to the proposition
'It is commodious.'

Of course in language every phrase is invariably highly elliptical.
Accordingly the sentence
'This college building is commodious'
means probably
'This college building is commodious as a college building.'
But it will be found that in the above discussion we can replace
'commodious' by 'commodious as a college building' without altering
our conclusion; though we can guess that the recipient, who thought he
was in the lion-house of the Zoo, would be less likely to assent to.
'Anyhow, it is commodious as a college building.'
A more obvious instance of elliptical phraseology arises if the expositor
should address the recipient with the remark,
'That criminal is your friend.'
The recipient might answer,
'He is my friend and you are insulting.'
Here the recipient assumes that the phrase 'That criminal' is elliptical
and not merely demonstrative. In fact, pure demonstration is impossible
though it is the ideal of thought. This practical impossibility of pure
demonstration is a difficulty which arises in the communication of
thought and in the retention of thought. Namely, a proposition about a
particular factor in nature can neither be expressed to others nor
retained for repeated consideration without the aid of auxiliary
complexes which are irrelevant to it.
I now pass to descriptive phrases. The expositor says,
'A college in Regent's Park is commodious.'
The recipient knows Regent's Park well. The phrase 'A college in

Regent's Park' is descriptive for him. If its phraseology is not elliptical,
which in ordinary life it certainly will be in some way or other, this
proposition simply means,
'There is an entity which is a college building in Regent's Park and is
commodious.'
If the recipient rejoins,
'The lion-house in the Zoo is the only commodious building in Regent's
Park,'
he now contradicts the expositor, on the assumption that a lion-house in
a Zoo is not a college building.
Thus whereas in the first dialogue the recipient merely quarrelled with
the expositor without contradicting him, in this dialogue he contradicts
him. Thus a descriptive phrase is part of the proposition which it helps
to express, whereas a demonstrative phrase is not part