We think of things not in the abstract elements of the things themselves, but in connexion with, and in language which presupposes, other things.
The neuter term brahma is used in the Rigveda both in the abstract sense of "devotion, worship," and in the concrete sense of "devotional rite, prayer, hymn."
Again, in being conscious of myself, I am not conscious of my mind in the abstract without my body.
The ethical end is taken to be the idea of humanity, not in the abstract as formulated by Kant, but in the context of the state and of history.
Thus number in the abstract is the number of times that the act of counting is performed in any particular case.
