Or, to put the matter in yet another light, if we think it sounds less paradoxical to speak of the process of classification as everywhere the same in kind, we must conclude that the groupings of recepts stand to those of concepts in much the same relation as the groupings of percepts do to those of recepts. In each case it is the lower order of grouping which furnishes material for the higher: and the object of this chapter has been to show, first, that the unintentional grouping which is distinctive of recepts may be carried to a wonderful pitch of perfection without any aid from the intentional grouping which is distinctive of concepts; and, second, that from the very beginning conscious ideation has been concerned with _grouping_. Not only, or not even chiefly, has it had to do with the registration in memory of particular percepts; but much more has it had to do with the spontaneous sorting of such percepts, with the spontaneous arrangement of them in ideal (or imagery) systems, and, consequently, with the _spontaneous reflection in consciousness_ of many among the less complex _relations_—or the less abstruse _principles_—which have been uniformly encountered by the mind in its converse with an orderly world. CHAPTER IV. LOGIC OF CONCEPTS. The device of applying symbols to stand for ideas, and then using the symbols as ideas, operates to the formation of more highly abstract ideas in a manner that is easily seen. For instance, because we observe that a great many objects present a certain quality in common, such as redness, we find it convenient to give this quality a name; and, having done so, we speak of redness in the abstract, or as standing apart from any particular object. Our word “redness” then serves as a sign or symbol of a quality, apart from any particular object of which it may happen to be a quality; and having made this symbolic abstraction in the case of a simple quality, such as redness, we can afterwards compound it with other symbolic abstractions, and so on till we arrive at verbal symbols of more and more abstract or general qualities, as well as qualities further and further removed from immediate perception. Thus, seeing that many other objects agree in being yellow, others blue, and so on, we combine all these abstractions into a still more general concept of Colour, which, _quâ_ more abstract, is further removed from immediate perception—it being impossible that we can ever have a percept answering to the amalgamated concept of _colour_, although we have many percepts answering to the constituent concepts of _colours_.