_Two Modes of Operation._--As the relations of object to object may all be comprised under the general category of comprehension, or the whole and its parts, there are manifestly two modes or processes in which the reflective faculty may put forth its activity. It may combine the several parts or elements to form a complex whole, or it may divide the complex whole into its several parts and elements. In the one case, it works from the parts, as already resolved, to the whole; in the other, from the whole, as already combined, to the parts. The one is the compositive or synthetic, the other, the analytic or divisive process. Each will claim our attention. CHAPTER I. THE SYNTHETIC PROCESS--GENERALIZATION. § I.--NATURE OF THE SYNTHETIC PROCESS. _Our Conceptions often Complex._--If we examine attentively the various notions or conceptions of the mind, we find that a large part of them are in a sense complex--comprising, in a word, a certain aggregate of properties, which, taken together, constitute our conception of the object. Thus, my notion of table, or chair, or desk, is made up of several conceptions, of form, size, material, color, hardness, weight, use, etc., etc., all which, taken together, constitute my notion of the object thus designated. _Originally given as discrete._--These several elements that enter into the composition of our conceptions of objects, it is further to be noticed, are, in the first instance, given us in perception, not as a complex whole, but as discrete elements. Thus, sight gives us form and color; touch gives us extension, hardness, smoothness, etc.; muscular resistance gives us weight, and so, by the various senses, we gather the several properties which make up our cognizance of the object, and which, taken together, constitute our conception of it. _Conceptions of Classes._--But a large part of our conceptions, if we carefully observe the operations of our own minds, are not particular, but general, not of individual objects, but of classes of objects. Of this, any one may satisfy himself on a little reflection. How are these conceptions formed? _Such Conceptions, how formed._--The process of forming a general conception, I take to be this: The several elements that compose our conception of an individual object, being originally presented, as we have already said, one by one, in the discrete, and not in the concrete, it is of course in our power to conceive of any one of these elements by itself. No new power or faculty is needed for this. By the usual laws of suggestion any one of these elements may be presented to the mind, distinct from those with which, in perception, it is associated, and as such it may be the object of attention and thought. I may thus conceive of the color, the form, the size, or the fragrance of a flower.