Bibliography

On Collections [R]

A collection is a thing to which everything of a certain description peculiar to the individual collection stands in an existential relation essential to the collection. By saying that the relation is existential I mean that anything of that description is by logical necessity in that relation to the collection by virtue of its existence. By saying that the relation is essential to the collection, I mean that by logical necessity if there be nothing of the given description, the collection does not exist, but remains, like the description, in the world of pure ideas; while every object of the given description by being in this relation to the collection imparts to this collection a higher grade of existence than if[,] other things being unchanged[,] that object did not exist.

A quota (which, it is to be remembered, is, in English, a noun in the singular) is an object of experience which seems to be a collection, although it may not be easy precisely to state what the determining description is.

The difference between a collection and a quota is, then, merely that a collection is an ens rationis, a creation of logic which retains its nature as a collection just the same whether it exists or not; while a quota is an object of experience whose existence is indubitable, and however perfect may be our assurance that it is a complete collection, yet it is not the fact that it really is so, but the fact that it appears to be so which makes it a quota.