Order

Abstract

If order is a category it might seem eminently to be due to the interference of mind. The mind, it might be thought, compares things in respect of certain characters, e.g. magnitude or shades of colour, and arranges them in a scale in which any one thing precedes another and is in general between that other and some term which precedes itself.¹ But a moment’s consideration is enough to show that such comparison depends on the characters and relations of the terms themselves, and, what is more pertinent, the acts which the mind performs in arranging terms in an order are themselves in order, only that the order is enjoyed instead of being contemplated. Thus if lines are ordered according to their increasing magnitude, the successive apprehensions of the lines are also ordered in magnitude.