74 MENTAL EVOLUTION LX MAN. 



named recepts {i.e. sundry other concepts) grouped as a class. 

 The word "red," for example, is my name for a particular 

 recept ; but the word *' colour " is my name for a whole 

 group of named recepts. And similarly with words signifying 

 objects, states, and actions. Hence, we may broadly distinguish 

 between concepts as of two orders — namely, those which have 

 to do with recepts, and those which have to do with other 

 concepts. For a concept is a concept even though it be 

 nothing more than a named recept ; and it is still a concept, 

 even though it stands for the highest generalization of 

 thought. I will make this distinction yet more clear by 

 means of better illustrations. 



Water-fowl adopt a somewhat different mode of alighting 

 upon land, or even upon ice, from that which they adopt 

 when alighting upon water ; and those kinds which dive from 

 a height (such as terns and gannets) never do so upon land or 

 upon ice. These facts prove that the animals have one recept 

 answering to a solid substance, and another answering to a 

 fluid. Similarly, a man will not dive from a height over hard 

 ground or over ice, nor will he jump into water in the same 

 way as he jumps upon dry land. In other words, like the 

 water-fowl, he has two distinct recepts, one of which answers 

 to solid ground, and the other to an unresisting fluid. But, 

 unlike the water-fowl, he is able to bestow upon each of these 

 recepts a name, and thus to raise them both to the level of 

 concepts. So far as the practical purposes of locomotion are 

 concerned, it is of course immaterial whether or not he thus 

 raises his recepts into concepts ; but, as we have seen, for 

 many other purposes it is of the highest importance that he is 

 able to do this. Now, in order to do it, he must be able to 

 set his recept before his own mind as an object of his own 

 thought : before he can bestow upon these generic ideas the 

 names of " solid " and " fluid," he must have cognized t\\&Tc\ as 

 ideas. Prior to this act of cognition, these ideas differed 

 in no respect from the recepts of a water-fowl ; neither for 

 the ordinary requirements of his locomotion is it needful that 

 they should : therefore, in so far as these requirements are 



