LOGIC OF RECEPTS. 4 1 



ample, is so great and striking that when a child, already 

 familiar with one of these animals, sees a second, he recognizes 

 it as identical with the first in certain obvious respects. The 

 representation of the first combines with the representation 

 of the second, bringing into distinct relief the common dog 

 features, more particularly the canine form. In this way the 

 images of different dogs come to overlap, so to speak, giving 

 rise to a typical image of dog. Here there is very little of 

 active direction of the mind from one thing to another in 

 order to discover where the resemblance lies : the resemblance 

 forces itself np07t tJie mind. When, however, the resemblance 

 is less striking, as in the case of more abstract concepts, a 

 distinct operation of active comparison is involved!' * 



Similarly, M. Perez remarks, " the necessity which children 

 are under of seeing in a detached and scrappy manner in order 

 to see well, makes them continually practise that kind of 

 abstraction by which we separate qualities from objects. 

 From those objects which the child has already distinguished 

 as individual, there come to him at different moments particu- 

 larly vivid impressions. . . . Dominant sensations of this kind, 

 by their energy or frequency, tend to efface the idea of the 

 objects from which they proceed, to separate or abstract them- 

 selves. . . . The flame of a candle is not always equally bright 

 or flickering ; tactile, sapid, olfactory, and auditive impres- 

 sions do not always strike the child's sensorium with the 

 same intensity, nor during the same length of time. This is 

 why the recollections of individual forms, although strongly 

 graven on their intelligence, lose by degrees their first pre- 

 cision, so that the idea of a tree, for instance, furnished by 

 direct and perfectly distinct memories, comes back to the 

 mind in a vague and indistinct form, which might be taken 

 for a general idea." t 



Again, in the opinion of John Stuart Mill, " It is the 

 doctrine of one of the most fertile thinkers of modern times, 



• Outlines of Psychology, p. 342. The italics are mine. It will be observed 

 hat Mr. Sully here uses the term "generic " in exactly the sense which I propose. 

 t First Three Years of Childhood^ English trans., pp. 1S0-1S2. 



