ABSTRACT
Whenever a gradation in apprehension or response is indefinite or equivocal, the configuration it establishes is subject to consolidation in the direction of greater simplicity. This simplification has been previously referred to as the law of precision (p. 237). The complicated perceptions of human beings are not always characterized by gradations that can be laid down upon a simple linear scale of opposites, such as high and low, bright and dark, large and small, intense and weak; there are many other gradations, the scale of which cannot be so readily and exactly determined. Perceptions may be hard or soft, sharp or blunt, smooth or rough, warm or cold, exciting or depressing, simple or compound, articulate or inarticulate, contoured or vague. Indeed, we might go on indefinitely with this list of descriptive opposites, many of which overlap because the terms are not capable of exact definition. But aside from the adequacy of these terms, each of them describes a functional gradient which retains its formal identity throughout the range of experience. In other words, what we mean by any opposition transcends the particular modality of sense in which the adequacy of the term is most pronounced. Hard and soft, for instance, may seem more adequate in describ ing experiences of contact with the skin than experiences of sight; yet the formal significance of the term soft makes it applicable to a nebulous spring day, and the term hard is equally appropriate to a clear bright day of winter. Although the employment of hardness and softness in the description of a landscape indicates a transfer of meaning, we are dealing not merely with the transfer of tactual impressions into the field of vision, but also with the transfer of a relevant perceptual configuration. As simple qualities of visual sensation, hardness and softness may be altogether inappropriate terms of description; but in a landscape the effects of hardness and softness are just as marked as they are in a perceived contact with the skin.
