that have persisted unchanged historically in the face of profound
changes in the ideal of knowledge.

The concept in Aristotelian logic. The Aristotelian logic, in its
general principles, is a true expression and mirror of the Aristotelian
metaphysics. Only in connection with the belief upon which the
latter rests, can it be understood in its peculiar motives. The con-
ception of the nature and divisions of being predetermines the con-
ception of the fundamental forms of thought. In the further
development of logic, however, its connections with the Aristotelian
ontology in its special form begin to loosen; still its connection with
the basic doctrine of the latter persists, and clearly reappears at
definite turning points of historical evolution. Indeed, the basic
significance, which is ascribed to the theory of the concept in the
structure of logic, points to this connection. Modern attempts to
reform logic have sought in this regard to reverse the traditional
order of problems by placing the theory of the judgment before the
theory of the concept. Fruitful as this point of view has proved to
be, it has, nevertheless, not been maintained in its full purity against
the systematic tendency which dominated the old arrangement.
The intellectual tendency still shaping these new attempts revealed
itself in that features crept into the theory of judgment itself, which
could only be understood and justified by the traditional theory of
the generic concept (Gattungsbegriff). The primacy of the concept,
which they sought to lay aside, was once more implicitly ac-
knowledged. The actual center of gravity of the system had not
been changed but merely the external arrangement of its elements.
Every attempt to transform logic must concentrate above all upon
this one point: all criticism of formal logic is comprised in
criticism of the general doctrine of the construction of concepts
(Begriffsbildung).

Purpose and nature of the generic concept. The chief features of
this doctrine are well-known and do not need detailed exposition.
Its presuppositions are simple and clear; and they agree so largely
with the fundamental conceptions, which the ordinary view of the
world consistently uses and applies, that they seem to offer no foot-
hold for criticism. Nothing is presupposed save the existence of
things in their inexhaustible multiplicity, and the power of the mind
to select from this wealth of particular existences those features that
are common to several of them. When we thus collect objects
characterized by possession of some common property into classes,

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