Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/207

196 G. S. FULLEETON : clearly intimates, although he does not distinctly say, that the elements before the mind during the formation or use of a concept are in consciousness in the same way in which the whole complex or object may be in consciousness. But, to recur to the before-mentioned analogy of the purely visual element in vision, we know that, although we may so con- centrate the attention as to distinguish the blue colour of one object from the red colour of another, and so must have compared in some rapid manner these purely visual sensa- tions, yet when we try to call into clear consciousness the mere sensation of colour, we cannot do it without imagining the colour as 011 a surface, or as combined with psychic elements not purely visual. That is to say, the single and separate sensations cannot be called into a clear conscious- ness, and their presence when we use the concept, or have occasion to compare them singly with each other, is some- thing quite distinct and different from the presence in consciousness of the complex which is knowable as an object. And such would seem also to be the case wherever we call before the mind single psychic elements which can yet not be represented alone in the imagination. The element must have been grasped separately, but it can be brought into a clear consciousness only in combination. If now we recognise in each of two objects presented to us a certain quality or complex of qualities upon which we can fix the attention ; and if we discover that, so far as these qualities go, there is an undistinguishable similarity in the objects, the differences arising altogether from other quali- ties ; why may we not call the complex of qualities in point a general notion or ijnici-c.l -iilea ? Of course, whether we should call the qualities, in the two instances, the same, even if undistinguishably similar, would depend on our use of the word ' same,' and our ideas of what constitutes sameness or identity : but I can see no objection to using the words ' general notion ' to indicate the fact that a certain complex of qualities is to be found in many different combinations with other qualities. Should it still be insisted that, since we cannot bring separately into clear consciousness these elements of objects known, we have no reason to assume that we actually conceive them or think them separately, I will not quarrel over the use of a word, but will simply state that I find the word ' conceive ' a useful one to express that concentration of the attention upon certain qualities of an object, which takes place when objects are coinpjnvd, and which eliminates from consciousness, or at least subordinates, all other qualities of the objects : and I will so use the word,