Common sense, as we saw, tells us that when we distinguish qualities in any given fact we obtain fuller knowledge than was given in the mere unanalysed fact, and this knowledge is supposed to become fuller still when we go on to classify these qualities into “real things.” Bergson, on the contrary, says that common qualities are arrived at by leaving out much of the fact originally known, while each successive stage in the process of abstraction by which we explain facts, though it enables us to apply more and more general laws, yet leaves out more and more of the actual fact itself. Analysis begins this whittling away of the actual fact by confining our attention to qualities which do not exhaust the whole content of the actual fact. At this preliminary stage, however, though we concentrate our attention on the quality, we still remain aware of the whole fact in which the quality has its setting. Classification carries the work of limitation a stage further. “Things” are a stage further removed from actual fact than qualities are since, while qualities are classes of facts, “things” are only classes of qualities. For classification into “things” therefore only the qualities in a fact will be of any use, and so, when we have reached the stage of classification, we need no longer burden our attention with the actual facts themselves in their entirety, we need pay attention only to the qualities which distinguish one group from another, For the purpose of classification into “things” the quality can stand for the whole fact: thus, as Bergson points out, we begin to lose contact with the whole fact originally known, since all the rest of it except the respects in which it can be analysed will henceforth tend to be ignored. The third stage in explaining facts in terms of general laws is called induction and consists in observing and formulating the relations of “things.” “Things” are related to each other through their qualities. Qualities do not give us the whole fact, because, when we have distinguished qualities, we are inclined to concentrate our attention on the quality at the expense of the rest of the fact; nevertheless while we attend to actual qualities we have not lost contact with fact altogether. Induction, which consists in framing general laws of the relations of “things,” though it does not involve attention to the whole fact, does at least demand attention to qualities, and so, while we are occupied with induction, we do still keep touch with fact to some extent.