39^ MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



the mind is able to make of many simple or particular ideas, 

 a complex, a compound, or, as I have called it, a generic idea. 

 Now, a generic idea of this kind differs from what is ordinarily- 

 called a general idea (which we will consider in the next 

 paragraph), in that, although both are generated out of simpler 

 elementary constituents, the former are thus generated as it 

 were spontaneously or anatomically by the principles of merely 

 perceptual association, while the latter can only be produced 

 by a consciously intentional operation of the mind upon the 

 materials of its own ideation, known as such. This operation 

 is what psychologists term conception, and the product of it 

 they term a concept. Hence we see that between the region 

 of percepts and those of concepts there lies a large interme- 

 diate territory, which is occupied by what I have called generic 

 ideas, or rcccpts. A recept, then, differs from a percept in 

 that it is a compound of mental representations, involving an 

 orderly grouping of simpler images in accordance with past 

 experience ; while it differs from a concept in that this orderly 

 grouping is due to an unintentional or automatic activity on 

 the part of the percipient mind. A recept, or generic idea, 

 is imparted to the mind by the external " logic of events ; " 

 while a general idea, or concept, is framed by the mind con- 

 sciously working to a higher elaboration of its own ideas. In 

 short, a recept is received, while a concept is conceived. 



3. The highest class of ideas, which psychologists are 

 unanimous in denying to brutes, and which, therefore, we are 

 justified in regarding as the unique prerogative of man. 

 These are the General, Abstract, and Notional ideas of Locke, 

 or the Concepts just mentioned in the last paragraph. As we 

 have there seen, they differ from recepts — and, a fortiori, 

 from percepts, in that they are themselves the objects of 

 thought. In other words, it is a peculiarity of the human 

 mind that it is able to think about its own ideas as such, con- 

 sciously to combine and elaborate them, intentionally to 

 develop higher products out of less highly developed consti- 

 tuents. This remarkable power we found — also by common 

 consent — to depend on the faculty of self-consciousness, 



