The word is a label, an invention. It is a response to a felt regularity and arises from experience itself. The definition which follows is an attempt at analysis of what the word refers to. Analysis is not to be despised. It can be abused, particularly when words are substituted for the experience.
Analysis is valuable.
The mind cannot see all even if it is attuned to the seamless web. There are things best seen from afar and things which are best seen in isolation. There are tricks of the mind as well as tricks of the eye. Analysis illuminates in a way that direct perception cannot. It allows to see false regularities that the mind has tricked us into perceiving and to discover how the trick was played.