140 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



it belongs by resemblance, identity, or analogy, unless 

 there is already in the mind a conception which in- 

 cludes the general qualities, or quality proper to the 

 series of similar phenomena ; this is essentially an 

 abstract type, but it primarily assumes a concrete 

 form. I cannot say that anything is white or 

 heavy, until by repetitions of the same sensation I 

 have been able to combine in a single conception the 

 sensations diffused over an infinite number of objects. 

 The genesis of these conceptions is found in the 

 comparative explicit judgment which depends on the 

 memory for the necessary conditions of its formation. 



The typical and abstract idea of white has not 

 merely a nominal value, as it is asserted in some 

 schools of thought, for an empty term could express 

 no idea, whereas this idea is perfectly clear. Neither 

 is it a real thing, but rather an ideal reality, not a 

 pure abstraction of the spirit, extracted, so to speak, 

 from the material substance. The conception of 

 whiteness formed by the comparative judgment is 

 limited by the perception of the concrete, external 

 fact perceived as one special quality among all other 

 qualities in nature, and it is therefore a physiological 

 fact of inward consciousness. 



In the abstract idea of white or whiteness we do 

 not only picture to ourselves a quality common to 

 many things, but by this term, and by the idea which 

 corresponds to it, the same sensation is actually pre- 

 sent to our inward intuition, or the same quality of 



