Mental Processes in Man, 323 



Perhaps it may be objected that classification comes 

 much earlier in the mental process than I am now putting 

 it. It may be said that the recognition of a sensation as 

 a touch, or a smell, or a sound involves a classification of 

 sensations in these categories, and that the simple percep- 

 tion of an orange involves the placing of the object in 

 this class of bodies. And, undoubtedly, we have here the 

 germs of the process. Sensation and perception give us 

 the materials for classification ; the perception of similarity 

 and difference gives us the sine qua non of the process. 

 Nevertheless, although there may be an earlier unconscious 

 grouping of phenomena, it is only when the mind is 

 specially directed to these materials, with the object of 

 grouping them according to their similarities, that we can 

 speak of classification proper — conscious and intentional 

 classification, as opposed to unconscious grouping. And 

 this involves the intentional selection of the points of 

 similarity, and discarding or neglecting the points of 

 difference. It involves the process of analysis or isolation. 

 There is a vast difference between the perceptual recogni- 

 tion of objects as similar, and conceptual classification 

 on grounds of similarity. Just as the recognition of a 

 sensation as now and not then, or here and not there, or 

 as due to something outside us, gives us the germs from 

 which, on ultimate analysis, our ideas of time, space, and 

 causation are reached; so does the recognition of these 

 sensations as of this kind and not that give us the germ 

 from which, on analysis, the process of classification may 

 arise. True, conscious, scientific classification is late in 

 development. 



And here let us notice that the conclusions we have 

 reached in this chapter are the outcome of analysis and 

 classification. The sensations with which we started are 

 isolates. In considering their quality, intensity, sequence, 

 we were isolating and classifying these special modes of 

 their existence. Localization and outward projection in- 

 volved isolation. We simply see the orange before us. To 

 understand and explain how we come to see it as we do 



