138 CONSCIOUSNESS 



does the process of analysis stop here. In the 

 light of consciousness we perceive and regard as 

 properties the fundamental links between one im- 

 pression and another, by which we instinctively 

 weave our impressions together. These links 

 are idealized into relationships in space, in 

 number, in appearance, or in sequence : so we 

 obtain conceptions of geometry, of arithmetic, 

 of classification, of logic, and of cause and effect. 

 These conceptions, refined again and again by this 

 process of discrimination, yield us the materials 

 for the most abstract investigations of science 

 and philosophy. By this dissection of properties 

 we perceive, for instance, the relations which are 

 expressed by grammatical sentences : we analyse 

 an occurrence into agent (nominative) action 

 (verb), and affected (accusative), and apprehend 

 the various conditions, qualifications, and possi- 

 bilities that are expressed by varying the verb 

 in mood and tense, and by the use of adverbs, 

 prepositions, and conjunctions. We can trace 

 the process of this analysis by observing its im- 

 perfections amongst backward races. Some of 

 the indigenous tribes of South America have never 

 completed the dissection from which the verb 

 emerges : they have, for instance, a word for 

 washing clothes, but none for washing in the 

 abstract. 



But man would have remained as dumb as 

 the brutes had conscious reason not brought 

 him to perceive the property of symbols, and 

 to understand that a thing may be represented 

 by a sound, a gesture, or a sign, which is not 

 inseparably connected with it, but can be dis- 

 sociated from it if we please. In primitive 

 stages of reason, symbol and object are merged 

 indissolubly together : to a terrier the word 

 " rats " is linked inseparably with the memory 



