certain words which have accumulated such evil
implications that they must either be aban-
doned, or withdrawn for a period of purifica-
tion. Two such words, 'phlogiston' and 'ether,'
we shall have occasion to discuss in later lec-
tures. However, in its best sense metaphysics
might well be defined as the study of the major
abstractions of the human mind, such as space,
time, matter, life, love, duty, patriotism,--we
need not enumerate further. A more or less
complete list of our major and minor abstrac-
tions is furnished by any unabridged diction-
ary. There is not a word that we use which is
not a product of the remarkable process of
abstraction which is always associated with
thought, and which perhaps is thought. This
process of abstracting or idealizing or refining
the raw material of experience is one which we
shall have frequent occasion to discuss.

When we speak of the major abstractions we
mean those which have been derived from a
great mass of raw material through a vast num-
ber of these refining processes. The same mate-
rial of which cheese is made is also used for
making chess sets, but in the latter case the
nature of the raw material is of little impor-
tance. The value of the chess set depends upon

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