The Art of Logical Thinking; Or, The Laws of Reasoning. Atkinson William Walker
and training, temperament and taste, habit and custom. For instance, the familiar story of the boy who climbed a tree and watched the passers-by, noting their comments. The first passer-by noticing the tree, says aloud: "That would make a good stick of timber." "Good morning, Mr. Carpenter," said the boy. The next man said: "That tree has fine bark." "Good morning, Mr. Tanner," said the boy. Another said, "I bet there's a squirrel's nest up in that tree." "Good morning, Mr. Hunter," said the boy.
The woman sees in a bird something pretty and "cunning." The hunter sees in it something to kill. The ornithologist sees it as something of a certain genus and species, and perhaps also as something appropriate for his collection. The farmer perceives it to be something destructive of either insects or crops. A thief sees a jail as something to be dreaded; an ordinary citizen, something useful for confining objectionable people; a policeman, something in the line of his business. And so on, the apperception differing upon the previous experience of the individual. In the same way the scientist sees in an animal or rock many qualities of which the ordinary person is ignorant. Our training, experience, prejudices, etc., affect our apperception.
And so, we see that in a measure our concepts are determined not only by our simple perceptions, but also materially by our apperceptions. We conceive things not only as they are apparent to our senses, but also as colored and influenced by our previous impressions and ideas. For this reason we find widely varying concepts of the same things among different individuals. Only an absolute mind could form an absolute concept.
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