Alexander, Samuel (1859-1938) Space, Time and Deity:
The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow, 1916-1918, Vol II.
Book III. The Order and Problems of Empirical Existence
Chapter IV. Mind and Knowing
A. The Cognitive Relation
...We have therefore to distinguish between objects which are the finite existents revealed to mind in any act of mind and those groupings of objects within a certain spatio-temporal contour which are known as things.
Sometimes the distinction is called that of the contents of mind and the objects respectively, but, for certain reasons already touched on and to be explained more fully, this usage seems to me undesirable and entirely confusing. Now in the simpler cases, there is no difficulty in the proposition that a thing, described as the space-time which exhibits at any moment and from moment to moment different features united in a substantial unity, contains these partial features, and that they are selected by the mind according to circumstances, the selection being understood not as necessarily an active one, as when it is prompted by a purpose, but as varying from passive acceptance or affection upwards to fully active selection.
Book III. The Order and Problems of Empirical Existence
Chapter IV. Mind and Knowing
A. The Cognitive Relation
...We have therefore to distinguish between objects which are the finite existents revealed to mind in any act of mind and those groupings of objects within a certain spatio-temporal contour which are known as things.
Sometimes the distinction is called that of the contents of mind and the objects respectively, but, for certain reasons already touched on and to be explained more fully, this usage seems to me undesirable and entirely confusing. Now in the simpler cases, there is no difficulty in the proposition that a thing, described as the space-time which exhibits at any moment and from moment to moment different features united in a substantial unity, contains these partial features, and that they are selected by the mind according to circumstances, the selection being understood not as necessarily an active one, as when it is prompted by a purpose, but as varying from passive acceptance or affection upwards to fully active selection.