INTRINSIC LAW OF APPREHENSION. 139 



of a quality or part of a thing, could not at that 

 time be effected, although special and specific ideas 

 gradually found their way into thought and speech. 

 All the terms for form and relation in primitive 

 speech, and also among modern savages, confirm this 

 assertion, as linguists are aware ; the form and rela- 

 tion now expressing an abstract reference to actions 

 and passions in the verbs, nouns, and adverbs, origin- 

 ally referred to a concrete object. 



Three modes or degrees of abstract representa- 

 tions occur in the progressive exercise of the intel- 

 lectual faculty ; these, combined with the special 

 apprehensions of the individual memory, and with 

 imaginative types, constitute the life of human 

 thought, and are the conditions by which we attain 

 to rational knowledge. While the specific mythical 

 type may take the place of the general type in the 

 logical exercise of thought, and may suffice for an 

 imaginative comprehension of the system of the 

 world, the abstract conception intervenes in the daily 

 necessity for communication between these general 

 mythical types, and serves to cement them together, 

 thus rendering the commerce of ideas among men 

 and in the human mind more easy. 



The abstract conceptions which are formed in this 

 way may be divided into three classes physical, 

 moral, and intellectual. To begin with the first ; it 

 is impossible for human speech to point out and 

 define a subject or phenomenon in the series to which 



