[79] Agassiz, op. cit., gives a summary of the successive improvements. They are of interest not merely to the zoölogist, but also from our own point of view, as showing the increasing preponderance of analysis, and search for fundamental characteristics, to the exclusion of the external resemblances which served as basis for the more primitive classifications.
[80] Under the heading “Observations on General Terms” the American Journal of Psychology, III. i, p. 144 (Jan., 1890) gives the results of an investigation conducted upon 113 school children aged 13 to 18. The words being, the infinite, literature, abstraction, number, play, coldness, horror, etc., were written down, and a few moments were given the pupils to transcribe their impressions in each case.
The summarised answers are not devoid of interest, but the object of the inquiry is evidently very different from our own.
[81] The word “law” was purposely chosen for its ambiguity; physical laws, moral or social laws. The immense majority of answers were in the juristic sense. Ex., Code, Law of the Twelve Tables, a judge, woman with scales, etc.
[82] For the word infinity, those who fall under this type see the printed word, or the mathematical sign ∞.
[83] It should be noted that he lived among these animals and experimented with them almost daily.
[84] The results of the investigation were published, partly in the Revue Philosophique, October, 1891, partly at the International Congress of Psychology, second session, London, 1892 (International Congress of Experimental Psychology. London: Williams & Norgate, pp. 20, et seq.).
[85] Thus Taine, who is usually regarded as a Nominalist, tells us that, “A general idea is a name, nothing more than a name, a name which signifies and comprehends a sequence of similar facts, or class of similar individuals, accompanied usually by the sensory but vague representation of some of these facts or individuals.” (The words italicised for emphasis are not so distinguished in the text.)
[86] We are dealing only with comprehension, and not with invention (discovery of a law, or of general features in nature). Invention requires quite different mental processes.
[87] Cournot, Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances. I., § 109, p. 231.