vii ASSIMILATION AND READJUSTMENT 131 



seems to corroborate this view, inasmuch as itpostulates sen- 

 sation and feeling as the data on which it works. Its most 

 characteristic product in the human mind is the state often 

 familiarly described as an act of Recognition, though it 

 does not involve the presence of ideas. Now what is the 

 character of an act of " Recognition " not involving ideas ? 

 The object a recognised " is something more for the mind 

 than that one of its qualities which happens to be present 

 to sense. The orange is for the child more than the colour 

 or the smell. In what way is it more ? If we attribute 

 to the child definitely formed ideas (as of "acid," "juicy," 

 &c.) then the orange is a possible subject for any of these 

 ideal qualities as predicates. But these are ideas, and lie 

 outside sense-perception. What is there then in " Recog- 

 nition " of this kind more than the sense-qualities and yet 

 less than these ideal qualities ? The answer seems to be, 

 a character which association with the ideal qualities has 

 lent to the presented quality. In s/5me cases this character 

 can be pointed out in the sense-content itself. Thus, we 

 " see " a thing at a distance at which without previous 

 experience we should not know it to be. The rumble that 

 comes in at the open window " sounds " far off. If I had 

 no experience of the effect of distance on sound, it would 

 presumably be indistinguishable from a low rumble near 

 by. In each instance the stimulus has " assimilated " a 

 character, such characters having been associated with 

 similar stimuli in past experience. In other cases we may 

 say that the character assimilated shows itself in action. 

 That the orange is more than a yellow ball to the child 

 appears in the fact that the child tries to suck it. The 

 coming tennis ball follows a path of which I have not time 

 to form an idea, but which guides me as I spring and 

 strike none the less. In short, in these cases of assimila- 

 tive recognition, the " crude " sensation has assimilated 

 certain characters which, if disentangled, form the contents 

 of ideas, but which are not disentangled as long as they are 

 assimilated. Prominent among these are motor impulses. 

 These differ from reflex or instinctive impulses in being 

 guided by present stimulus in accordance with the results 

 of previous experience. We may call them acquired 



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