By such tokens as these we naturally look to see M. Mouret making it his very first concern to explain fully the nature of those primordial data that are relations. Indeed he seems himself to be fully aware of this natural expectation for he says: “What then is a relation; what is a concept or notion? To this double question an answer is necessary and a precise answer not consisting in the substitution of one form of words for another form of words bearing the same meaning or no meaning at all.” We cannot however find that he has done this. Instead of it and almost while saying that every concept and notion ought to resolve in a group of relations he announces, “What I have to examine is the constitution, the structure of these _relation-generating groups_.” Thus he starts with a synthesis when what is needed is analysis. He starts with supposing a group of relational elements indeterminate in number and proceeds to inquire as to the conditions that must subsist with regard to them, respectively and in combination, in order that a _definite_ relation may subsist as to a pair of the relational elements. These conditions he finds to be four in number. First, he finds that— “It is necessary that every one of the terms of the group should be connected one to the other by _definite relations_; that between any two terms there must always be intermediate terms that connect them in a continuous way.” This he calls the condition of “Solidarity.” Secondly, he finds that there must obtain the condition of _Co-Existence_. By co-existence he intends— “Not a definite co-existence in time, that is to say, a relation of simultaneity or concomitance, nor yet that established co-existence which constitutes the causal relation, but an indefinite co-existence independent of the order of its terms and of all consideration of time or duration.” Having thus supposed his group all well stocked with relations, he proceeds to relegate most of them to the limbo of inconsequence by invoking a _principle_ which he calls the principle of _indetermination_. By virtue of this principle in every particular case the _particular determinations_ of all the terms become indeterminate and those of the intermediate terms doubly so. Thus the supposed facts of the case become fit for the existence of the _Third_ condition, that of _Abstraction_, and for the arising of a general concept or notion.