152 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



denerically an idea is distinguished from all the modes of 

 Consciousness which we have considered hitherto, by the 

 fact that in the scope of its reference it goes beyond what 

 /is directly present to our senses. To put the matter in 

 /its most general way, the mind, so far as it is active, 

 / is either concerned with what is immediately present to 

 / it, or is asserting, suggesting, wishing, commanding, etc., 

 I something not present. In all these cases we may 

 I distinguish the content of the act from the way in which 

 the content is entertained (i.e., by way of assertion, 

 command, etc.). The content has always a reference 

 beyond the present, and this is what we call anjclea. [Even 

 where an idea is applied to a present object, as when we 

 name what we see before us, the use of the idea is either 

 to determine the unperceived qualities of the object, or to 

 class it, i.e., bring it into relation with some general 

 characteristic of reality.] Psychologically an idea may take 

 the form of an image, i.e., something actually like a percept, 

 but with less sensational vividness and detail. 1 But we 

 must carefully distinguish in thought between the image 

 as something present to the mind an object of internal 

 consciousness and the idea as containing a reference 

 beyond itself. It is on this reference that the logical or 

 practical function of the idea depends. The image is, at 

 most, the form taken by the mental act in which that 

 function is carried out. 



How ideas first arise is a question to which only a 

 tentative answer can be given, but in all probability their 

 original function is to direct effort, and they may be 

 supposed to arise in the process by which effort acquires 

 definiteness of direction towards something unseen, un- 

 presented to the senses. We can observe in the lower 

 processes two elements which by their fusion would 

 produce this result. On the one hand, in sensori-motor 

 action we have response directed towards a given object, 

 and as soon as the organism possesses " distance receptors," 

 that is to say, the senses of sight, sound, and smell, the 

 objects to which it so reacts may be remote from itself 

 and definite in their place and motions. In the sensori- 

 1 On this see Stout, op. tit. pp. 396-413. 



