2 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



very highest and noblest thoughts of man reveal the compositeness 

 of his nature. They spring from his reason or intelligence, of 

 course, but no single thought of his is an act of reason or intellect 

 pure and simple. All his intellectual acts are dependent, both in 

 their origin and in their actual exercise, on the antecedent and con 

 comitant activity of other cognitive faculties of the lower or sense 

 order, faculties which man possesses in common with animals, 

 faculties which act only in and through some bodily organ. Of 

 those faculties of sense knowledge or sense cognition, as they are 

 called, some are known as external senses, others as internal 

 senses. The external senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tast 

 ing, feeling or touching are our channels of information about 

 the outer world. The internal senses of imagination, sense 

 memory and sense consciousness recall or reproduce in our minds, 

 and modify in many ways, the experiences of our external senses. 

 All those sense faculties, external and internal, subserve and min 

 ister to the faculty of thought proper the reason, intelligence, 

 intellect, understanding, as it is variously called. I cannot think 

 of a thing unless some of these senses has already perceived it. 

 Nor can I continue to think of it unless some of them continues 

 to assist me. If I want to recall it to mind I must conjure up 

 some sort of image of it : a natural image ; or an outline or 

 scheme or formula, such as the mathematician forms in geometry ; 

 or an imaginary model or design, such as the artist constructs in 

 his imagination to help him in the conception and execution of his 

 work. All this deserves a little reflection. 



2. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SENSE PERCEPTION AND IN 

 TELLECTUAL CONCEPTION : DEPENDENCE OF INTELLECTUAL 

 THOUGHT UPON THE SENSE FACULTIES. The first or simplest 

 exercise of the faculty of thought is called, in logic, Simple Appre 

 hension or Conception. It is the process by which we form a concept 

 or idea of any thing or object. To do this we need the assist 

 ance of the external senses ; each of these seizing and presenting 

 to our reason some sensible quality or other of external things. 

 Here, for example, is a table-bell upon my desk ; I look at it 

 and ring it ; my eye receives an impression which enables me to 

 see the outline and colour of the bell, my ear an impression which 

 enables me to hear a sound, my fingers the tactile impression 

 which makes me conscious of the shape and resistance of the 

 button pressed, and so on. These are so many distinct external 

 sensations. But evidently these various sensible qualities of 



