LOGIC OF KECEPTS, 65 



knoivn purpose of conipositioji. To do this requires powers of 

 introspective reflection ; therefore it is a kind of mental 

 activity impossible to infants or animals, since it has to do 

 with concepts as distinguished from rcccpts. But, as we have 

 now so fully seen, it docs not follow that because ideas cannot 

 be thus compounded by infants or animals intaitiojially^ there- 

 fore they cannot be compounded at all. Locke is very clear 

 in recognizing that animals do '* take in and retain together 

 several combinations of simple ideas to make up a complex 

 idea : " he only denies that animals " do of tliemselves ever 

 compound them and make complex ideas." Thus, Locke 

 plainly teaches my doctrine of recepts as distinguished from 

 concepts ; and I do not think that any modern psycho- 

 logist — more especially in view of the foregoing evidence — will 

 so far dispute this doctrine. But the point now is that, in my 

 opinion, many psychologists have gone astray by assuming 

 that the most primitive order of ideation is concerned only with 

 particulars, or that in chronological order the memory of 

 percepts precedes the occurrence of recepts. It appears to 

 me that a very little thought on the one hand, and a very 

 little observation on the other, is enough to make it certain 

 that so soon as ideas of any kind begin to be formed at all, 

 they are formed, not only as memories of particular percepts, 

 but also as rudimentary recepts ; and that iw the subsequent 

 development of ideation the genesis of recepts everywhere 

 proceeds pari passu with that of percepts. I say that a very 

 little thought is enough to show that this must be so, while 

 a very little observation is enough to show that it is so. For, 

 a priori, the more unformed the powers of perception, the less 

 able must they be to take cognizance of particulars. The 

 development of these powers consists in the ever-increasing 

 efficiency of their analysis, or cognitio7i of smaller and smaller 

 differences of detail ; and, consequently, of their recognition 

 of these differences in different combinations. Hence, the 

 feebler the powers of perception, the more must they occupy 

 themselves with the larger or class distinctions between 

 objects of sensuous experience, and the less with the smaller 



