imply that without action, when thoughts are not carried out that is, there can for us be neither good nor bad, as these are relations pertaining to individuals, and dependent, not upon any universal law but, upon social institutions; but that truth, being the same for ever, is, even when not exercised, in an absolute relation to all men, and in opposition to all falsehood.
Note 4, p. 166. The mind dwells upon abstractions, &c.] The term abstractions here, as in an earlier passage, signifies mathematical questions, which, from not being referrible to any particular body, admit of being treated as such; and so a snub-nose, as the realisation of a particular form, may, by that form apart from matter, be regarded as an abstraction. The argument is then resumed that the mind, when thinking, is, when active or in act, the subject thought upon. The closing passage, by its questioning whether "the mind, without being itself immaterial, can comprehend abstractions," seems to militate against the arguments adduced to prove that it is impassive and homogeneous, freed, that is, from all the conditions of matter; but it is yet doubtful where (whether or not in "the metaphysics") this argument may, according to promise, have been continued.
