332 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



thesis of two distinct cases before the common element can 

 be selected and named. Such synthesis certainly exists, 

 and is expressed in the Comparative Judgment (Jem is as 

 tall as Jack. These two ribbons do not match). But 

 explicit comparison is not essential in the lowest stages of 

 the evolution of the concept. It is enough that similarity 

 is operative. Now similarity, the presence of a common 

 element in several experiences, is also operative in the 

 stage of concrete experience. The difference is that, not 

 necessarily the similarity relation, but the common element 

 which is the basis of the similarity is in this higher stage 

 made explicit. Here, as throughout mental evolution, what 

 is before operative without being recognised is now recog- 

 nised, and is more effectively operative than before. The 

 practical experience of the lower stage is really a form of 

 argument from particulars to particulars. Based on a re- 

 semblance, the foundation of which is not clearly brought 

 before consciousness, it is loosely and unsystematically 

 applied according as the resemblance happens or does not 

 happen to strike the mind. When the point of resem- 

 blance is analysed out, and a general proposition is founded 

 thereon, we get, in substitution for this loose and hap- 

 hazard procedure, a fixed rule, stating what we can and 

 what we cannot infer from our data. As the <4 major 

 premiss " becomes explicit, inference becomes exact. 



It will be seen that the formation of the general concept 

 implies no new " faculty." It merely brings into clear 

 consciousness the common element in diverse experiences 

 which was already at work in guiding practical inference. 

 And in so doing it relies on the analytic movements of 

 attention which were equally necessary at the earlier stage. 

 But it does imply that analysis has taken a new turn, that 

 it is applied to distinguishing the qualities or attributes of 

 things, and it does bring into consciousness a new kind 

 of relation. The characteristic affinities of things form 

 the basis of the whole world of ideas, with its generalisa- 

 tions, qualifications, definitions, and classifications. These 

 affinities in a humble sphere are operative in guiding prac- 

 tical inference. But that stage is most easily understood 

 if we conceive the mind as actively occupied with the 



