1 72 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



of experiences. These nascent associations, which remain nas- 

 cent unless called out by attention, would seem to be a constitu- 

 tive characteristic of the percept, giving it its distinctive qualita- 

 tive tone. All this may be expressed by the statement, that 

 existence and meaning are correlative aspects of perceptual ex- 

 perience; that in inattentive perception the meaning tends to 

 drop away, though this separation is perhaps never complete, 

 mere existential givenness being then a limit which is not reached 

 in any actual experience. 



No less important than the distinction between the concept 

 and the percept, is the corresponding distinction between the 

 concept and its second kind of representative, the idea. Just as 

 in perception all the members of the group of possible associa- 

 tions are not present to consciousness, so they are never, except 

 perhaps at an early stage of cognitive development, all present 

 in the idea. Here again we meet a problem which has not been 

 fully solved the psychological structure of the idea. In general 

 it may be said that as compared with the percept its representa- 

 tive character is far more essential to it. The elements, which 

 on any particular occasion stand as the nucleus around which the 

 associations cluster, are far less prominent. It is certainly mis- 

 leading to suppose the idea to be a revival of a particular percept, 

 in which reappear the same sensation-qualities which figure so 

 prominently in perception. We may, indeed, have ideas ap- 

 proaching this type some of us have many such. But they 

 certainly appear but seldom in our trains of reflective thought. 

 Most of our ideas are schemata. The nucleus about which as- 

 sociations cluster may be the faintest image of a word, or other 

 symbol, perhaps peculiar to the individual. 1 Here perhaps to a 

 greater degree than in attentive perception there is conflict be- 

 tween alternatively possible tendencies to revival. The nascent 

 associations are, so to speak, in a state of irritability. Many 



a We are of course here speaking of the highest type of cognitive experience, and 

 not of a stage prior to the development, of universal concepts. The appearance of 

 language marks a nodal point in mental evolution which involves important modi- 

 fications of both perceptual and ideational processes . 



