GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY 



reproduce copies of his own vanished states of 

 consciousness, and of those of his fellows, that 

 enables the civilized man to adjust his actions 

 to sequences occurring at the antipodes. It is 

 this same power of representation which under- 

 lies his power of forming abstract and general 

 conceptions. For the peculiarity of abstract 

 conceptions is that " the matter of thought is 

 no longer any one object, or any one action, 

 but a trait common to many ; " and it is, there- 

 fore, only when a number of distinct objects or 

 relations possessing some common trait can be 

 represented in consciousness that there becomes 

 possible that comparison which results in the 

 abstraction of the common trait as the object 

 of thought. Obviously, then, the greater the 

 power of abstraction and generalization which 

 is observed, the greater is the power of repre- 

 sentation which is implied. The case is the 

 same with that definiteness of the intellectual 

 processes which we have noted as distinguish- 

 ing modern from primitive thinking. For the 

 conception which underlies definiteness of think- 

 ing is the conception o^ exact likeness^ — a highly 

 abstract conception which can only be framed 

 after the comparison of numerous represented 

 cases in which degree of likeness is the com- 

 mon trait that is thought about. Hence not 

 only the improvidence of the savage, but like- 

 wise the vagueness of his conceptions, his in- 



87 



