=Besides images the content of ideas includes “Meaning”.=—What I have said thus far refers to perception and idea as the content of consciousness—a group of conscious states. But this is not all when perception is regarded as a _process_. The objects of experience have associative relations to other objects, actions, conduct, stimuli, constellated ideas, etc., i.e., past experiences represented by conserved (unconscious) complexes. As a result of previous experiences various associations have been organized with ideas and these complexes form the setting or the “context” (Tichener) which gives ideas meaning. As the secondary images give meaning to sensations to form ideas (or perceptions), so these associated complexes as settings give meaning to ideas. This setting in more general terms may be regarded as the attitude of mind, point of view, interest, etc. Just as the context in a printed sentence gives meaning to a given word, and determines which of two or more ideas it is meant to be the sign of, so in the process of all perceptions the associated ideas give meaning to the perception. Indeed it is probable that the context as a process determines what images shall become incorporated with sensations to form the nucleus of the perception. Perception thus takes one meaning when it is constellated with one complex and another meaning when constellated with another complex. “Meaning” plays such an important part in the mental reactions of pathological and everyday life that I feel we must study it a little more closely before proceeding with our theme. The idea horse[158] as the content of consciousness includes more than the primary and secondary sensory images which constitute a perception of an animal with four legs distinguished anatomically from other animals: The idea includes the meaning of a particular kind of animal possessing certain functions, useful for particular purposes and occupying a particular place in civilization, etc. We are distinctly conscious of this meaning; and although we may abstract more or less successfully the visual image of the animal from the meaning, and attend to the former alone, the result is an artifact. Likewise we may as an artifice abstract, to a large degree, the meaning from the image, keeping the latter in the background, and attend to the meaning.