464 PSYCHOLOGY. 



CONCEPTIONS ARE UNCHANGEABLE. 



The fact that the same real topic of discourse is at one 

 time conceived as a mere 'that' or 'that which, etc,,' aud 

 is at another time conceived with additional specifications, 

 has been treated by many authors as a proof that concep- 

 tions themselves are fertile and self-developing. A concep- 

 tion, according to the Hegelizers in philosophy, * develops 

 its own significance,' ' makes explicit what it implicitly con- 

 tained,' passes, on occasion, ' over into its opposite,' and in 

 short loses altogether the blankly self-identical character 

 we supposed it to maintain. The figure we viewed as a 

 polygon appears to us now as a sum of juxtaposed triangles ; 

 the number hitherto conceived as thirteen is at last noticed 

 to be six plus seven, or prime ; the man thought honest is 

 believed a rogue. Such changes of our opinion are viewed 

 by these thinkers as evolutions of our conception, from 

 within. 



The facts are unquestionable ; our knowledge does 

 grow and change by rational and inward processes, as well 

 as by empirical discoveries. Where the discoveries are 

 empirical, no one pretends that the propulsive agency, the 

 force that makes the knowledge develop, is mere con- 

 ception. All admit it to be our continued exposure to the 

 thing, with its j^ower to impress our senses. Thus strychnin, 

 which tastes bitter, we find will also kill, etc. Now I say 

 that where the new knowledge merely comes from tMnking, 

 the facts are essentially the same, and that to talk of self- 

 development on the part of our conceptions is a very had 

 way of stating the case. Not new sensations, as in theem- 



same space may appear of two colors if, by optical artitice, one of the 

 colors is made to appear as if seen through the other. — Whether any two 

 attributes whatever shall be compatible or not, in the sense of appearing 

 or not to occupy the same place and moment, depends simply on de facto 

 peculiarities of natural bodies and of our sense-organs. Logically, any one 

 combination of qualities is to the full as conceivable as any other, and has 

 as distinct a meaning for tliought. What necessitates this remark is the 

 confusion deliberately kept up by certain authors (e.g. Spencer, Psychol- 

 ogy, §§ 42f)-7) between the inconceivable aud the not-distinctly-imagin- 

 able. How do we know which things we cannot imagine unless by first con 

 ceiving them, meaning them and not other things? 



