82 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



In the first place, we must remark that from the begin- 

 ning of this phase we are really passing out of the develop- 

 ment of the individual mind strictly considered. It is of 

 course conceivable that the process of analysis and synthesis 

 might arise in the mind of an isolated individual, but as 

 we know it, it is the product of communication between 

 mind and mind, resting on and in turn facilitating the 

 development of language. For the name of common 

 significance involves analysis, and the significant sentence 

 is a synthesis of elements which analysis has rendered dis- 

 tinct. To give a thing a name which will be understood 

 is to select in it a character common to it and to other 

 objects within the experience of the speaker and the hearer, 1 

 and to say anything intelligible about a thing is to render 

 a combination of elements in idea, which combination the 

 words must be able to reproduce in the hearer's mind 

 unaided by perception. Thus analyses and syntheses of 

 perceptual experience are the basis of language, while con- 

 versely they can never go far in advance of language. The 

 meanings which we cannot somehow express we not only 

 fail to propagate among others, we lose them ourselves, 

 they are fleeting impressions, lights and shadows of reality 

 which we cannot fix and unwillingly let go. Language 

 then or more generally the social means of expression 

 forms a kind of sieve catching the expressible and letting 

 go those elements of experience which it cannot render. 

 The degree of adequacy with which it can express meanings 

 is accordingly of the first importance in the development 

 of human thought. 



The common elements which we find in experience and 

 which serve as a basis of interconnection between its parts 

 fall generally into two categories. There is in the first 

 place community of character, or Resemblance, which lies 

 at the basis of all generalisation. The resemblance may 

 be loose and vague or it may be precise, and the advance 

 of exact thought consists on one side in analysing loose 



1 A proper name might seem to be an exception, but is not. The 

 individual is a continuous being running through my experience, 

 recurrent in many of my experiences and common to them, and also, if 

 he name signifies anything to you, common to you and me. 



