m.

=But Conception is Involved in Perception.=--From what has been seen,
however, it is evident that the development of our concepts does not
proceed in any such formal way. If the mind perceives an individual
object with any degree of clearness, it must recognize the object as
possessing certain qualities. If, therefore, the child can perceive such
an object as a dog, it implies that he recognizes it, say, as a hairy,
four-footed creature. To recognize these qualities, however, signifies
that the mind is able to think of them as something apart from the
object, and the child thus has in a sense a general notion even while
perceiving the particular dog. Whenever he passes to the perception of
another dog, he undoubtedly interprets this with the general ideas
already obtained from this earlier percept of a dog. To say, therefore,
that to gain a concept he compares the qualities found in several
individual things is not strictly true, for if his first percept becomes
a type by which he interprets other dogs, his first experience is
already a concept. What happens is that as this concept is used to
interpret other individuals, the person becomes more conscious of the
fact that his early experience is applicable to an indefinite number of
objects. So also, when an adult first perceives an individual thing, say
the fruit of the guava, he must apprehend certain qualities in relation
to the individual thing. Thereupon his idea of this particular object
becomes in itself a copy for identifying other objects, or a symbol by
which similar future impressions may be given meaning. In this sense the
individual idea, or percept, will serve to identify other particular
experiences. Such being the case, this early concept of the guava has
evidently required no abstraction of qualities beyond apprehending them
while perceiving the one example of the fruit. This, however, is but to
say that the perception of the guava really implied conception.

=Comparison of Individuals Necessary for Correct Concepts.=--It is, of
course, true that the correctness of the idea as a class symbol can be
verified only as we apply it in interpreting a number of such individual
things. As the person meets a further number of individuals, he may even
discover the presence of qualities not previously recognized. A child,
for instance, may have a notion of the class triangle long before he
discovers that all triangles have the property of containing two right