Abstractive thought, therefore, is not to be regarded as the mere discarding of a sensuous material which does not suffer in the process any impairment of reality; it is rather the sublation and reduction of that material as mere appearance to the essential, which is manifested only in the concept Of course, if what is to be taken up into the concept from the concrete appearance is intended to serve only as a mark or sign, then it may well be anything at all, any mere sensuous singular determination of the subject matter will do, selected from the others because of some external interest but of like kind and nature as the rest.