tions. From this it is evident that the
knowledge of an orange, although a unity of experience in adult life, is
really a complex, or synthesis, made up of a large number of different
elements.

What is true of our idea of an orange is true of every other idea.
Whether it be the understanding of a plant, an animal, a city, a
picture, a poem, an historical event, an arithmetical problem, or a
scientific experiment, the process is always the same. The apperceptive
process of interpreting the new by selecting and relating elements of
former experience, or the process of analysis-synthesis, is universal in
learning. Expressed in another form, what is at first indistinct and
indefinite becomes clear and defined through attention selecting, for
the interpretation of the new presentation, suitable old ideas and
setting up relationships among them. Analysis, or selection, is
incomplete without an accompanying unification, or synthesis; synthesis,
or organization, is impossible without analysis, or selection. It is on
account of the mind's ability to unify a number of mental factors into a
single experience, that the process of unification, or synthesis, is
said to imply economy within our experiences. This fact will become even
more evident, however, when later we study such mental processes as
sense perception and conception.

INTERACTION OF PROCESSES

It is to be noted, however, that the selecting and the relating of the
different interpreting ideas during the learning process are not
necessarily separate and distinct parts of the lesson. In other words,
the mind does not first select out of its former knowledge a whole mass
of disconnected elements, and then later build them up into a new
organic experience. There is, rather, in almost every case, a continual
interplay between the selecting and relating activity, or between
analysis and synthesis, throughout the whole learning process. As soon,
for instance, as a certain feature, or characteristic, is noted, this
naturally relates itself to the central problem. When later, another
characteristic is noted, this may relate itself at once both with the
topic and with the formerly observed characteristic into a more complete
knowledge of the object. Thus during a lesson we find a gradual growth
of knowledge similar to that illustrated in the case of the scholar's
knowledge of the triangle, involving a continual interplay of analysis
and synthesis, or of selecting and relati