By “Compound Idea,” “Complex Idea,” or “Mixed Idea,” I understand the combination of simple, particular, or concrete ideas into that kind of composite idea which is possible without the aid of language.
Lastly, by “General Idea,” “Abstract Idea,” “Concept,” or “Notion,” I understand that kind of composite idea which is rendered possible only by the aid of language, or by the process of naming abstractions as abstractions.
Now in this classification, notwithstanding that it is needful to quote at least ten distinct terms which are either now in use among psychologists or have been used by classical English writers upon these topics, we may observe that there are really but three separate classes to be distinguished. Moreover, it will be noticed that, for the sake of definition, I restrict the first three terms to denote memories of particular sensuous perceptions—refusing, therefore, to apply them to those blended memories of many sensuous perceptions which enable animals and infants (as well as ourselves) to form compound ideas of kind or class without the aid of language. Again, the first division of this threefold classification has to do only with what are termed percepts, while the last has to do only with what are termed concepts. Now there does not exist any equivalent word to meet the middle division. And this fact in itself shows most forcibly the state of ambiguous confusion into which the classification of ideas has been wrought. Psychologists of both the schools that we are considering—namely, those who maintain and those who deny that there is any difference of kind between the ideation of men and animals—are equally forced to allow that there is a great difference between what I have called a simple idea and what I have called a compound idea. In other words, it is a matter of obvious fact that the only distinction between ideas is not that between the memory of a particular percept and the formation of a named concept; for between these two classes of ideas there obviously lies another class, in virtue of which even animals and infants are able to distinguish individual objects as belonging to a sort or kind. Yet this large and important territory of ideation, lying between the other two, is, so to speak, unnamed ground. Even the words “compound idea,” “complex idea,” and “mixed idea,” are by me restricted to it without the sanction of previous usage; for, as above remarked, so completely has the existence of this intermediate land been ignored, that we have no word at all which is applicable to it in the same way that Percept and Concept are applicable to the lands on either side of it. The consequence is that psychologists of the one school invade this intermediate province of ideation with terms that are applicable only to the lower province, while psychologists of the other school invade it with terms which are applicable only to the higher: the one matter upon which they all appear to agree being that of ignoring the wide area which this intermediate territory covers—and, consequently, also ignoring the great distance by which the territories on either side of it are separated.
In addition, then, to the terms Percept and Concept, I coin the word Recept. This is a term which seems exactly to meet the requirements of the case. For as perception literally means a taking wholly, and conception a taking together, reception means a taking again. Consequently, a recept is that which is taken again, or a recognition of things previously cognized. Now, it belongs to the essence of what I have defined as compound ideas (recepts), that they arise in the mind out of a repetition of more or less similar percepts. Having seen a number of araucarias, the mind receives from the whole mass of individuals which it perceives a composite idea of Araucaria, or of a class comprising all individuals of that kind—an idea which differs from a general or abstract idea only in not being consciously fixed and signed as an idea by means of an abstract name. Compound ideas, therefore, can only arise out of a repetition of more or less similar percepts; and hence the appropriateness of designating them recepts. Moreover, the associations which we have with the cognate words, Receive, Reception, &c., are all of the passive kind, as the associations which we have with the words Conceive, Conception, &c., are of the active kind. Now, here again, the use of the word recept is seen to be appropriate to the class of ideas in question, because in receiving such ideas the mind is passive, as in conceiving abstract ideas the mind is active. In order to form a concept, the mind must intentionally bring together its percepts (or the memories of them), for the purpose of binding them up as a bundle of similars, and labelling the bundle with a name. But in order to form a recept, the mind need perform no such intentional actions: the similarities among the percepts with which alone this order of ideation is concerned, are so marked, so conspicuous, and so frequently repeated in observation, that in the very moment of perception they sort themselves, and, as it were, fall into their appropriate classes spontaneously, or without any conscious effort on the part of the percipient. We do not require to name stones to distinguish them from loaves, nor fish to distinguish them from scorpions. Class distinctions of this kind are conveyed in the very act of perception—e.g. the case of the infant with the glass bottles,—and, as we shall subsequently see, in the case of the higher animals admit of being carried to a wonderful pitch of discriminative perfection. Recepts, then, are spontaneous associations, formed unintentionally as what may be termed unperceived abstractions.[24]
One further remark remains to be added before our nomenclature of ideas can be regarded as complete. It will have been noticed that the term “general idea” is equally appropriate to ideas of class or kind, whether or not such ideas are named. The ideas Good-for-eating and Not-good-for-eating are as general to an animal as they are to a man, and have in each case been formed in the same way—namely, by an accumulation of particular experiences spontaneously assorted in consciousness. General ideas of this kind, however, have not been contemplated by previous writers while dealing with the psychology of generalization: hence the term “general,” like the term “abstract,” has by usage become restricted to those higher products of ideation which depend on the faculty of language. And the only words that I can find to have been used by any previous writers to designate the ideas concerned in that lower kind of generalization which does not depend on language, are the words above given—namely, Complex, Compound, and Mixed. Now, none of these words are so good as the word General, because none of them express the notion of genus or class; and the great distinction between the idea which an animal or an infant has, say of an individual man and of men in general, is not that the one idea is simple, and the other complex, compound, or mixed; but that the one idea is particular and the other general. Therefore consistency would dictate that the term “general” should be applied to all ideas of class or kind, as distinguished from ideas of particulars or individuals—irrespective of the degree of generality, and irrespective, therefore, of the accident whether or not, quâ general, such ideas are dependent on language. Nevertheless, as the term has been through previous usage restricted to ideas of the higher order of generality, I will not introduce confusion by extending its use to the lower order, or by speaking of an animal as capable of generalizing. A parallel term, however, is needed; and, therefore, I will speak of the general or class ideas which are formed without the aid of language as generic. This word has the double advantage of retaining a verbal as well as a substantial analogy with the allied term general. It also serves to indicate that generic ideas, or recepts, are not only ideas of class or kind, but have been generated from the intermixture of individual ideas—i.e. from the blended memories of particular percepts.
My nomenclature of ideas, therefore, may be presented in a tabular form thus:—
| IDEAS | General, Abstract, or Notional = Concepts. Complex, Compound, or Mixed = Recepts, or Generic Ideas. Simple, Particular, or Concrete = Memories of Percepts. [25] |