ceforth
contributes something to it.

For example, a little child, after learning to draw a man's face, with
two eyes, the nose and mouth, and one ear on each side, will
afterward, when told to draw a profile, still put in two eyes and
affix an ear to each side. The drift of mental habit tells on the new
result and he can not escape it.

He will still put in the two eyes and two ears when he has before him
a copy showing only one ear and neither eye.

In all such cases the new is said to be Assimilated to the old. The
customary figure for man in the child's memory assimilates the
materials of the new copy set before him.

Now this tendency is universal. The mind must assimilate its new
material as much as possible, thus making the old stand for the new.
Otherwise there would be no containing the fragmentary details which
we should have to remember and handle. Furthermore, it is through this
tendency that we go on to form the great classes of objects--such as
man, animal, virtue--into which numbers of similar details are put,
and which we call General Notions or Concepts.

We may understand by Assimilation, therefore, the general tendency of
new experiences to be treated by us in the ways which similar material
has been treated before, with the result that the mind proceeds from
the particular case to the general class.

Summing up our outcome so far, we find that general psychology has
reached three great principles in its investigation of knowledge.
First, we have the combining tendency of the mind, the grouping
together and relating of mental states and of things, called
_Apperception_. Then, second, there are the particular relations
established among the various states, etc., which are combined; these
are called _Associations_ of Ideas. And, third, there is the tendency
of the mind to use its old experiences and habits as general patterns
or nets for the sorting out and distributing of all the new details of
daily life; this is called _Assimilation_.

II. Let us now turn to the second great aspect of the mind, as general
or introspective psychology considers it, the aspect which presents
itself in Action or conduct. The fact that we act is of course as
important as the fact that we think or the fact that we feel; and the
distinction which separates thought and action should not be made too
sharp.

Yet there is a distinction. To understand action we must again go to
introspection. This comes out as soon as