Mental Processes in Man. 319 



memory. So, too, when I heard a piercing howl in the 

 street, the dog I constructed was a vague presentation of 

 sense ; but the street in which I instinctively placed him 

 was a reconstruct or representation in memory. The 

 difference between a construct or presentation of sense, and 

 a reconstruct or representation in memory, is that the 

 former is directly suggested through the immediate action 

 of some quality or activity of the object, while the latter is 

 indirectly suggested through some intermediate agency. 



Before proceeding further, let us review the conclusions 

 we have thus far reached. Through the action of certain 

 surroundings on our sensitive organization, we receive 

 certain impressions, and among these impressions and 

 others revived in memory we recognize certain similarities 

 or differences in quality, in intensity, in order of sequence, 

 and in source of origin. The sensations which thus 

 originate are mental facts in no sense resembling their 

 causes, but representing them in mental symbolism. The 

 consciousness of similarity or difference is no part of the 

 impression, but a further mental fact arising out of 

 the impression, and with it giving origin to sensation. It 

 deals with the relation of impressions among each other 

 and to the recipient. It involves recognition and dis- 

 crimination. Its basis is laid in memory. The sensations 

 are instantly localized, referred to objects, and projected 

 outwards, mainly through the instrumentality of the 

 muscular sense. The mental symbolism is thus built into 

 the objects around us, and constructs are formed. But 

 into the tissue of these constructs are woven, not only the 

 sensations immediately received, but much that is only 

 suggested through association as the outcome of past 

 experience, individual and ancestral. The constructs and 

 their associated reconstructs are thus endowed with 

 qualities which have practical reality, since they are not 

 for me only, but for you and for mankind. They are, 

 therefore, in a sense independent of me, but nowise 

 independent of man* 



* If it be said that the object does exist independently of man, though not 



