So we have _the characteristic nucleus; the varying complement; and the brain-habit behind all_. And if we can analyse the perception or idea, nucleus and surroundings both, into its mental elements; if we can say what nervous processes are correlated with these elementary mental processes; and if we can further establish the nature of the guiding and shaping nerve-forces; then our psychological account will be, in strictness, complete. Yet we shall have passed over something that, as we have ourselves admitted, is in everyday life most strikingly characteristic of these experiences; the fact, namely, that they =mean=; that our perception of the tree means the tree, is a perception _of_ that tree, and our idea of snow means the snow, is an idea _of_ that snow. _What, then, from the psychological point of view, is this meaning?_ § 26. =Meaning in Perception and Idea.=—We learned in § 6 that mental processes are not intrinsically meaningful, that meaning is not a constituent part of their nature. We have seen, indeed, that the whole notion of meaning is really foreign to science. When we ask, then, what meaning is, from the psychological point of view, are we not asking an irrelevant and unscientific question? Not necessarily. A science cannot free itself, offhand, from its own history; and, historically, psychology has been much concerned with meaning. Moreover, meaning is of very great practical importance; we communicate meanings, we apprehend meanings, we act upon meanings; and although science is not bound to treat only of what is practically important, yet it can hardly neglect a matter of great practical importance that comes its way. Our question, if we rephrase it a little, merely asks _that a term, familiar to us in our daily life, be translated into the language of science_; and if the translation out of common sense into science is to be made at all, psychology is the science in which the equivalent of meaning will be found. For these reasons we are justified in discussing the matter here; and the question at issue—let us be quite clear about it—is this: What mental processes, in perception and idea, are the scientific equivalent of what we know in everyday life as meaning? _what processes carry the meaning?_