58 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



affirms * that " this large and important territory of idea- 

 tion is, so to speak, unnamed ground. ... So completely 

 has the existence of this intermediate land been ignored, 

 that we have no word at all which is applicable to it." 

 On this account he coins his word " recept." We have 

 no objection to the term in itself, although as he uses it, 

 error is connected with it. He says f that " in order to 

 form a concept, the mind must intentionally bring to- 

 gether its percepts (or the memories of them), for the 

 purpose of binding them up as a bundle of similars, and 

 labelling the bundle with a name. But in order to form 

 a recept, the mind need perform no such intentional 

 actions." The distinction is surely here drawn in the 

 wrong place. The mind must be active in either case, 

 but need act intentionally in neither — and, certainly, in 

 forming general ideas, or true universals, it never collects 

 and builds up its sensuous cognitions into bundles. 



On the occurrence of the requisite reiterated sensa- 

 tions, a sensuous cognition, or "recept" (an entity of the 

 same essential nature as sensations) is formed. 



On the occurrence of the requisite sensuous cogni- 

 tions, an intellectual general idea, or concept (an entity 

 of an essentially different nature from sensations) springs 

 forth spontaneously in the mind, without the need of 

 our exerting any intentional activity. 



In introducing his list % of ideas at the end of his 

 second chapter, he tells us that for the sake of avoiding 

 confusion he makes use of the term generic instead of 



Weismann refer to no matters the principles of which were not, 

 in principle, discussed by the Scholastics of the Middle Ages. 

 * P- 35- t pp. 36-37. X p. 39. 



