ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75 



penetrate the origin of things. He imagined that men and 

 animals sprung from decayed trees. Seeing the map of the 

 world in hemispheres, he imagined it to be two great disks 

 near each other. The sun and moon were brilliant plates 

 endowed with mysterious power. Once being alarmed by 

 thunder, he imagined a great man in the sky. 



At eleven years of age he was delighted with the revela- 

 tion to his mind of a great Creator of the world. Since then 

 his old perplexities have frequently returned when he has 

 taken up the inquiry as to the beginning of existence on 

 the part of the Creator himself. 



Professor Porter, resuming his discussion, remarked that 

 Mr. Ballard's inquiries as to the origin of things were un- 

 aided by signs of any sort. It was argued that they belong 

 to the higher order of conceptual thought. As embracing 

 in thought much more than can be individually represented, 

 they " involve what may be called the compendiary mode of 

 thought. By the capacity of man to arrive at general truths, 

 he is separated by a wide chasm from the brute. 



Professor Porter sought to explain conceptual knowledge 

 in such a manner as to free it from some of its traditional 

 difficulties. A concept was defined as the notion of a group 

 of things recognized as related by certain common features, 

 the things being apprehended as indefinite in number and 

 in respect to individual variations. In handling a general 

 conception, we must have something on which to hang the 

 indeterminate part. A word may serve this end. But with 

 the word goes a mental image which is also capable of serv- 

 ing without a word. 



The notion of a word is itself a general notion. This ad- 

 mitted, the absurdity of the doctrine that general notions 

 cannot exist without words is evident. For the figuration 

 of the conception, words present certain preeminently prac- 

 tical advantages, but this does not invalidate the argument. 



Professor Porter objected to Professor Huxley's reference 

 to Galton's composite portraits as illustrating the generation 



