ABSTRACTION.  —  A  term  of  logic  meaning
the  separation,  for  intellectual  purposes  only,  of  a
quality  from  the  thing  to  which  it  belongs,  or  a
relation  from  the  pair  of  things  between  which  it
subsists.  Its  possibility  rests  upon  capacity  for
selective  attention,  in  virtue  of  which  some  trait
not  sensuously  conspicuous  or  intense  is  dwelt
upon  because  of  its  importance  in  relation  to
some  conceived  end.  While  the  brutes  have
great  power  of  concentration,  there  is  great
doubt  whether  (except  perhaps  in  the  case  of
some  of  the  higher  apes  and  monkeys)  they  have
the  power  of  selective  attention.  Since  reason-
ing depends  upon  the  capacity  to  treat  an  ex-
tracted quality  or  relation  as  a  sample  or  typical
instance,  rational  thought  is  dependent  on  ab-
straction or  selective  attention.  The  consider-
ation of  some  quality  or  relation  irrespective
of  the  particular  context  in  which  it  is  found
is  obviously  an  indispensable  prerequisite
for  all  generalization  (q. v.),  so  much  so  that  it
may  be  put  down  as  a  general  principle  that
abstraction  exists  for  the  sake  of  a  resulting
generalization.  If  this  principle  were  uniformly
borne  in  mind  in  education,  there  would  be
little  occasion  for  the  attacks  which  educational
reformers  have  made  upon  the  proneness  of  in-
struction to  run  into  abstractions;  for  it  will
be  found  that  the  abstract  in  the  sense  of  the
unduly  abstruse,  the  excessively  theoretical
and  useless,  always  means  abstraction  arrested,
so  that  it  has  become  an  end  in  itself  instead  of  a
preliminary  to  recognition  of  a  general  principle.
J.  D.
See  Concrete  and  Abstract.
ABSTRACTION.  —A  term  used  along  with
"comparison"  to  describe  the  "third  step"  in


the  procedure  of  the  recitation,  or  "  inductive
development  lesson."

See  Comparisons  and  Abstraction;  Reci-
tation, Method  of.
