Abstraction

As for the intellect (*ʻaql*), it apprehends things stripped bare of matter (*hayūlā*), and renders what is material immaterial by abstracting it from its individuating marks — as with Suqrāṭ and Aflāṭūn, whom it abstracts and apprehends under the form of humanity [25] stripped of matter.

the particulars universal things (1), stripped of matters, firmly rooted in the essence of the soul and acquired by it.

This is the point which, of all others, it is practically most necessary that the student should bear in mind, because it does most to show what the Austinian view of Sovereignty really is—that it is the result of Abstraction.

To put the same thing in another way, that which we reject in the process of abstraction by which the conception of Sovereignty is reached is the entire history of each community.

It is strictly philosophical, but the practical value of all sciences founded on abstractions depends on the relative importance of the elements rejected and the elements retained in the process of abstraction.

We consider its shape only in respect of its roundness, and we retain from it a standard of roundness — that is, the conception of roundness alone, as was done above in abstraction — and we keep this abstracted shape and match it against everything we have seen;

namely, that we think upon the acquired image, or upon part of it, without thinking upon that of which it is the attribute — as when we count five apples and then think upon the number alone, leaving out of account what is numbered.

and if it is by the way of abstraction, it is the conceiving of that image while leaving its matter out of account .