330 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



related elements within the complex situation of an 

 experience. If a cat, for example, sees that the lifting of 

 a latch has to do with the opening of a door, it is clear 

 that it has singled out certain elements in the perception, 

 it has distinguished the latch from the rest of the door. 

 There is, however, no reason to think that analysis in this 

 stage goes beyond the point of distinguishing one concrete 

 object or actual event from other objects or events. The 

 handle is still an object of perception : it might theoretic- 

 ally occupy the whole of a perception. Its movement is 

 an event seen, and seen to be followed by another event, 

 the opening of the door. So far as it singles out objects 

 or events in this way, analysis seems to consist in a move- 

 ment of attention towards one percept rather than others 

 that are within the range of the organs of sense at a 

 certain time. 



In the formation of general conceptions, on the other 

 hand, analysis breaks up perception in a different manner. 

 It not merely isolates one object or one series of events 

 from others, but dissects an object or event into com- 

 ponent elements. The child, for example, as it examines 

 the latch, might measure its length and breadth, or learn 

 that it was a lever moving on a fulcrum in accordance with 

 certain mechanical laws. These properties of the latch are 

 no longer concrete percepts. They are certainly elements 

 in a perception, but unlike the latch, which conceivably 

 might fill perceptual consciousness to the exclusion of 

 anything else, they cannot any one of them be given in 

 perception except as elements in or attributes of the whole 

 which they characterise. When analysis breaks up a 

 percept in this manner, it follows a new line of cleavage. 

 In the previous case it merely divided a complex set of 

 percepts into components, each of which was as good a 

 percept as the whole. Now it breaks up the percept into 

 elements which in perception are mere attributes of the 

 whole, and dependent thereon. The object is always 

 concrete. It is the attribute of the object or a relation in 

 which it stands that is general. To distinguish such an 

 aspect or relation as a quality of the concrete whole is to 

 form a concept applicable equally to other concrete 



