actions entirely taken
up in connecting them as whole and parts. A rose, for instance, is
not merely a certain assemblage of curves and straight lines and
colours, seen as the painter sees it, at a certain angle, petals masking
part of stem, leaf protruding above bud: it is the possibility of other
combinations of shapes, including those seen when the rose (or the
person looking) is placed head downwards. Similarly it is the
possibility of certain sensations of resistance, softness, moisture,
pricking if we attempt to grasp it, of a certain fragrance if we breathe
in the air. It is the possibility of turning into a particular fruit, with
the possibility of our finding that fruit bitter and non-edible; of being
developed from cuttings, pressed in a book, made a present of or
cultivated for lucre. Only one of these groups of possibilities may
occupy our thoughts, the rest not glanced at, or only glanced at
subsequently; but if, on trial, any of these grouped possibilities
disappoint us, we decide that this is not a real rose, but a paper rose,
or a painted one, or no rose at all, but some _other thing._ For, so far
as our consciousness is concerned, _things_ are merely groups of
actual and potential reactions on our own part, that is to say of
expectations which experience has linked together in more or less
stable groups. The practical man and the man of science in my fable,
were both of them dealing with _Things_: passing from one group
of potential reaction to another, hurrying here, dallying there, till of
the actual _aspect_ of the landscape there remained nothing in their
thoughts, trams and funiculars in the future, volcanoes and icecaps
in the past, having entirely altered all that; only the material
constituents and the geographical locality remaining as the unshifted
item in those much pulled about bundles of thoughts of possibilities.

Every _thing_ may have a great number of very different _Aspects;_
and some of these _Aspects_ may invite contemplation, as that
landscape invited the third man to contemplate it; while other
_aspects_ (say the same place after a proper course of tramways and
funiculars and semi-detached residences, or _before_ the needful
volcanic and glacial action) may be such as are dismissed or slurred
as fast as possible. Indeed, with the exception of a very few cubes
not in themselves especially attractive, I cannot remember any
_things_ which do not present quite as many displeasing aspec