CONCEPTION. 481 



if the vehicle of the same thing-known must be the same re- 

 current state of mind, and as if the having over again of the 

 same ' idea ' were not only a necessary but a sufficient con- 

 dition for meaning the same thing twice. But this recur- 

 rence of the same idea would utterly defeat the existence of 

 a repeated knowledge of anything. It would be a simple re- 

 version into a pre-existent state, with nothing gained in the 

 interval, and with complete unconsciousness of the state 

 having existed before. Such is not the way in which we 

 think. As a rule we are fully aware that we have thought 

 before of the thing we think of now. The continuity and 

 permanency of the topic is of the essence of our intellection. 

 We recognize the old problem, and the old solutions ; and 

 we go on to alter and improve and substitute one predicate 

 for another without ever letting the subject change. 



This is what is meant when it is said that thinking con- 

 sists in making judgments. A succession of judgments may 

 all be about the same thing. The general practical postuhxte 

 which encourages us to keep thinking at all is tluit by going 

 on to do so we shall judge better of the same things than if 

 we do not.* In the successive judgments, all sorts of new 

 operations are performed on the things, and all sorts of 

 new results brought out, without the sense of the main 

 topic ever getting lost. At the outset, we merely hcwe the 

 topic ; then we operate on it ; and iinall}^ we have it again 

 in a richer and truer way. A compound conception has 

 been substituted for the simple one, but with full conscious- 

 ness that both are of the Same. 



The distinction between having and ojDerating is as 

 natural in the mental as in the material world. As our 

 hands may hold a bit of wood and a knife, and yet do 

 naught with either ; so our mind may simply be aware of a 

 thing's existence, and yet neither attend to it nor discrimi- 

 nate it, neither locate nor count nor compare nor like nor 

 dislike nor deduce it, nor recognize it articulately as having 

 been met with before. At the same time we know that, 

 instead of staring at it in this entranced and senseless way, 

 we may rally our activity in a moment, and locate, class, 



* Compare the admirable passage in Hodgsou's Time and Space, p. 810. 



