But the name of a thing, runs the argument, meant originally that by which we know a thing. And how do we know things? Knowing is more than perceiving by our senses, which convey to us information about single things only. 'To _know_ is more than to feel, than to perceive, more than to remember, more than to compare. We know a thing if we are able to bring it, and [or?] any part of it, under more general ideas.' The facts of nature are perceived by our senses; the thoughts of nature, to borrow an expression of Oersted's, can be conceived by our reason only. The first step toward this real knowledge is the '_naming of a thing_, or the making a thing knowable;' and it is this step which separates man forever from all other animals. For all naming is classification, bringing the individual under the general; and whatever we know, whether empirically or scientifically, we know it only by means of our general ideas. Other animals have sensation, perception, memory, and, in a certain sense, intellect; but all these, in the animal, are conversant with single objects only. Man has, in addition to these, reason, and it is his reason only that is conversant with general ideas. 'At the very point where man parts company with the brute world, at the first flash of reason as the manifestation of the light within us, there we see the true genius of language. Analyze any word you like, and you will find that it expressed a general idea peculiar to the individual to which the name belongs. What is the meaning of moon?--the measurer. What is the meaning of sun?--the begetter ...