It is unnecessary to insist on the external aspect of institutions as facts in the material world; but it will be worth while to gather up the leading conceptions of our analysis by tracing the nature of some prominent “institutions,” as ideas, constituent elements of the mind, which are also purposes; that is, as ethical ideas. An institution may have grown up without special ordinance, or may have been called into existence by an act of public will. But it has always the character of being recognised _as if_ it had been “instituted” or established to fulfil some public or quasi-public {298} purpose. [1] An old servant is sometimes said to be “quite an institution”--he is characterised by the function of keeping alive certain common traditions of a school, perhaps, or a family--an annual custom may be an institution in virtue of the same kind of recognition; Sunday is an institution; the word is indeed very vaguely applied, for obviously almost every object or event can have a significance of this kind attached to it in jest or earnest. But for all that, we can see pretty plainly what usage is driving at. An institution implies a purpose or sentiment of more minds than one, and a more or less permanent embodiment of it. “Of more minds than one,” because it is to fix the meeting points of minds that the external embodiment is necessary. [1] Why is not a memorial statue or building, which expresses a public idea, an “institution” apart from its uses? Apparently because it has not the notion of bringing persons together or inducing persons to act in some definite way. An “institution,” then, belongs to the level of society, as such, conceived as a number of persons. Thus, a work of art is hardly an institution, though it expresses the “universal” of many minds; but a weekly concert is an institution, because many persons act together in giving and attending it.