This is well brought out in Herbart's view that the general idea is the result of "apperception," or the coalescence of a new presentation with previous like representations (apperceptive masses). Such apperceptive fusion or assimilation would according to Herbart help to explain the prominence or distinct emergence of the common element in a new presentation, and the falling back of the particular or variable features into indistinct consciousness.[115]
[115] See Mr. Stout's account of Herbart's view. Mind, Vol. xiv. p. 15.
Use of Names in Early Life.—In the beginning of life linguistic signs are used in close connection with the process of automatic assimilation. Thus the recurrence of the presentative complex answering to a particular animal as the dog, calls forth, by a process analogous to a reflex movement, the articulation, let us say, of the sound 'bow-wow.' This use of words by the child to mark likeness is partly spontaneous, partly imitative. As is well known, children often invent names of their own, as their pet names for nurse, doll, and so forth, and their names for classes of objects, as when one child used the sound 'mum' as a name of eatables, generally, and another, the sound 'appa' as a name for this, that, and the other animal (kitten, chick, etc.). They also spontaneously extend the use of names supplied by others as when the sound "ba" (ball) was extended to a bubble and other round objects. This spontaneous use of names gives place in time to an imitative use of names as heard by others.[116]
[116] For interesting illustrations of children's spontaneous invention, as also of their extension of names, see Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, 3er Theil; Pérez, The First Three Years of Childhood, Chap. xii; Taine, On Intelligence, Book iv, Chap. i, § 1; and Darwin's Notes on his child, Mind, Vol. ii. p. 285, et seqq.
From what we said above we have to suppose that names are used at the beginning neither as proper or Singular, nor as General names. They merely serve to mark off and register common features of the child's experience. As the processes of comparison gain in strength and the difference between the individual and the general class becomes distinct, the two uses of names as singular and general grow clearly differentiated. Thus the names Charles, Papa, Rose, and so forth, come to be marks of particular things, those organised experience-unities which are thought of as having continued existence independently of our intermittent percepts. Similarly, the general name, dog, man, and so forth, come to be consciously applied to a number of such object-unities on the ground of common attributes.
How Names Further Conception.—At first we find this use of general names confined to classes of objects having numerous points of similarity and so easily representable in the pictorial form of Generic Image, as "dog," "house," etc. Here, as pointed out above, the name is not used with a clear consciousness of its general character or function. Yet the very application of one and the same name to a number of percepts is an important aid to those processes of reflective comparison and selection of common features by which the apprehension of generality arises. To begin with, any use of a name to mark the result of an assimilative process, serves to call attention to and to emphasise the existence of like features. Not only so, the name being applied to each of a number of percepts is a valuable means of recalling these together, and so furthering that extended process of comparing a number of things which underlies generalisation. More than this, since the name from the beginning serves to emphasise and register the fact of likeness, it greatly facilitates the subsequent careful analysis and definition of the points of likeness. Of special service here is the hearing of names applied by others to a variety of things, as when a multitude of unlike things are called 'plants' and so on. Such announcement of likeness as yet undiscovered by the child serves as we know as a powerful stimulus to a comparative examination of the things and this urges the child on along the conceptual path.
The greatest use of general names, however, in connection with general ideation or conception is in definitely marking off and rendering permanent each new result of analysis and comparison. Thus on reflecting upon dogs with a view to see in what exactly they do agree in spite of their differences, and on gradually gaining clear consciousness of this, that, and the other characteristic features of form, action, etc., a child demarcates and definitely registers these results of abstraction by help of the name. That is to say, the name is used as a defining mark as one might mark off an ill-defined local feature in a piece of board by drawing a chalk circle about the spot. When the name is thus definitely and exclusively applied to such products of comparison and abstraction it henceforth serves as a means of recalling these and keeping them distinctly before the mind.
When thus definitely attached by association to the points of similarity singled out by abstraction from a number of particular objects, the name is used as a true general sign. The image now takes on a much more definite function as a typical or representative image, through the circumstance that by help of the demarcating sign certain of its features stand out distinctly, and are at the same time realised as belonging not merely to one particular thing, but to what we call a general class. Thus the name dog, though probably still calling up an image of a more or less concrete character, that is, including traits of some individual dog or variety of dogs, becomes a general sign inasmuch as it throws prominently forward, and so secures special attention to certain definitely apprehended common class-features (the common canine form, action of barking, etc.).[117]
[117] Since the result of abstraction though representing concrete things does not represent them fully and explicitly we may, with Mr. Spencer, call the general or abstract idea a re-representation. See his Principles of Psychology, ii, p. 513.
Used now in this way as a general sign of certain definitely apprehended points of likeness or common qualities, the name acquires the double function attributed to it by logicians. That is to say, it denotes any one of a certain order or class of things: the class or group being determined in respect not of the number of things included, but only of the common qualification or description of its number, that is to say of the qualities which the name is said to connote.[118]