[84] The results of the investigation were published, partly in the _Revue Philosophique_, October, 1891, partly at the International Congress of Psychology, second session, London, 1892 (_International Congress of Experimental Psychology._ London: Williams & Norgate, pp. 20, et seq.). [85] Thus Taine, who is usually regarded as a Nominalist, tells us that, “A general idea is a name, nothing more than a name, a name which _signifies_ and _comprehends_ a sequence of similar facts, or class of similar individuals, accompanied usually by the sensory but vague representation of some of these facts or individuals.” (The words italicised for emphasis are not so distinguished in the text.) [86] We are dealing only with comprehension, and not with invention (discovery of a law, or of general features in nature). Invention requires quite different mental processes. [87] Cournot, _Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances_. I., § 109, p. 231. [88] Dugas. _Du Psittacisme et de la pensée symbolique_, pp. 121 et seq. [89] Paulhan. _Revue philosophique._ July, 1889, pp. 77 et seq. [90] Höffding. _Psychologie._ Eng. tr., p. 168. [91] Maclellan & Dewey (_Psychology of Number and Its Application to Methods of Teaching Arithmetic_, New York, 1895) made pedagogical deductions from this fact. They ask, for beginners, that the examples should be borrowed from continuous quantity, and that number be considered as a particular species of measure.—In his book _Our Notions of Number and Space_ (Boston, 1894) Nichols, taking a theory of James about judgments of number as the basis of his experiments, tries to show that the simultaneous sensation of two points applied to the skin originates in the successive sensation of a distinct contact upon two separate tactile circles. [92] I do not insist on any such rash thesis. A discussion of it will be found in the _Report of the Int. Congress of Exp. Psychol. in London_ (_cit._, pp. 35-41). [93] _Psychology_, II., p. 653. [94] Liard, _La science positive et la métaphysique_, p. 226. It should be remarked that the process by subtraction is met with even among uncivilised people, though very rarely. The plan of making numerals by subtraction, says Tylor (_op. cit._, I., p. 264), is known in North America, and is well shown in the Aino language of Yesso, where the words for 8 and 9 obviously mean “two from ten,” “one from ten.” [95] “The childish and savage practice of counting on the fingers and toes lies at the foundation of our arithmetical science. Ten seems the most convenient arithmetical basis offered by systems founded on hand-counting, but twelve would have been better, and duodecimal arithmetic is in fact a protest against the less convenient decimal arithmetic in ordinary use. The case is the not uncommon one of high civilisation bearing evident traces of the rudeness of its origin in ancient barbaric life.” (Tylor, _loc. cit._, I. p. 272)