ABSTRACT
From the standpoint of psychology the development of conscious cognition, with the power of thought that this development has brought about, has been of such supreme importance that we have come to regard thought as the chief characteristic of mind. Habit-memory, on the other hand, is all important in the acquisition of the elements of knowledge, and in the formation of the mental habits that provide the machinery of thought. Thus it is habit-memory that is the chief factor in perception, and normally furnishes the greater part of the expected meaning of any object or event that is perceived. A distinction of some importance for clearness of thought is that between general ideas, such as ‘tree’, and the impressions that we receive from particular trees; the former are termed ‘concepts’ and the latter ‘percepts’. Imaginative thought may also be of the same kind, but deals with images instead of actual percepts.
