Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/42

types of fundamental things. The danger of all these fundamental notions is that we are apt to assume them unconsciously. When we ask ourselves any question we will usually find that we are assuming certain types of entities involved, that we are assuming certain modes of togetherness of these entities, and that we are even assuming certain widely spread generalities of pattern. Our attention is concerned with details of pattern, and measurement, and proportionate magnitude. Thus, the laws of Nature are merely all-pervading patterns of behaviour, of which the shift and discontinuance lie beyond our ken. Again, the topic of every science is an abstraction from the full concrete happenings of natures. But every abstraction neglects the influx of the factors omitted into the factors retained. Thus, a single pattern discerned by vision limited to the abstractions within a special science differentiates itself into a subordinate factor in