First Principles

* * * * * § 113. Among mental phenomena it is difficult to establish the alleged law without an analysis too extensive for the occasion. To show satisfactorily how states of consciousness, originally homogeneous, become heterogeneous through differences in the changes wrought by different forces, would require us carefully to trace out the organization of early experiences. Were this done it would become manifest that the development of intelligence, is, under one of its chief aspects, a dividing into separate classes, the unlike things previously confounded together in one class—a formation of sub-classes and sub-sub-classes, until the once confused aggregate of objects known, is resolved into an aggregate which unites extreme heterogeneity among its multiplied groups, with complete homogeneity among the members of each group. If, for example, we followed, through ascending grades of creatures, the genesis of that vast structure of knowledge acquired by sight, we should find that in the first stage, where eyes suffice for nothing beyond the discrimination of light from darkness, the only possible classifications of objects seen, must be those based on the manner in which light is obstructed, and the degree in which it is obstructed.