an by schematic images, let us
represent by a line, _PC_, the scale of images according to the degree
of complexity, from the percept, _P_, to the concept, _C_.

P------------X----G----S----C

As far as I am aware, this determination of all the degrees has never
been made. The work would be delicate; I do not regard it as impossible.
I have no intention to undertake it, even as I do not pretend that I
have given above the complete list of the various forms of images.

If, then, we consider the foregoing figure merely as a means of
representing the gradation to the eye, the image in moving, by
hypothesis, from the moment of perception, _P_, is less and less in
contact with reality, becomes simplified, impoverished, and loses some
of its constitutive elements. At _X_ it crosses the middle threshold to
approach nearer and nearer to the concept. At _G_ let us locate generic
images, primitive forms of generalization, whose nature and process of
becoming are well-known;[134] we should place farther along, at _S_,
schematic images, which require a higher function of mind. Indeed, the
generic image results from a spontaneous fusion of like or very
analogous images--such as the vague representation of the oak, the
horse, the negro, etc.; it belongs to only one class of objects. The
schematic image results from a voluntary act; it is not limited to exact
resemblances--it rises into abstraction; so it is scarcely accompanied
by a fleeting representation of concrete objects--it is almost reduced
to the word. At a higher level, it is freed from all sensuous elements
or pictures, and is reduced, in the present instance, to the mere notion
of value--it is not different from a pure concept. While the artist and
the mechanic build with concrete images, the commercial imagination can
act directly neither on things nor on their immediate representations,
because from the time that it goes beyond the primitive age it requires
a substitution of increasing generality; materials become values that
are in turn reducible to symbols. Consequently, it proceeds as in the
stating and solving of abstract problems in which, after having
substituted for things and their relations figures and letters,
calculation works with signs, and indirectly with things.

Aside from the first moment of invention, the finding of the idea--an
invariable psychological state--it must be recognized that in its
development and detailed construction the commercial im