Still, as we have said, the whole difference lies in this--that, besides the intuitive representations examined in the last chapter, which are shared by animals, other, abstract representations derived from these intuitive ones, are lodged in the human brain, which is chiefly on this account so much larger than that of animals. Representations of this sort have been called _conceptions_,[115] because each comprehends innumerable individual things in, or rather under, itself, and thus forms a complex.[116] We may also define them as _representations drawn from representations_. For, in forming them, the faculty of abstraction decomposes the complete, intuitive representations described in our last chapter into their component parts, in order to think each of these parts separately as the different qualities of, or relations between, things. By this process, however, the representations necessarily forfeit their perceptibility; just as water, when decomposed, ceases to be fluid and visible. For although each quality thus isolated (abstracted) can quite well be _thought_ by itself, it does not at all follow that it can be _perceived_ by itself. We form conceptions by dropping a good deal of what is given us in perception, in order to be able to think the rest by itself. To conceive therefore, is to think less than we perceive. If, after considering divers objects of perception, we drop something different belonging to each, yet retain what is the same in all, the result will be the _genus_ of that species. The generic conception is accordingly always the conception of every species comprised under it, after deducting all that does not belong to _every_ species. Now, as every possible conception may be thought as a _genus_, a conception is always something general, and as such, not perceptible. Every conception has on this account also its _sphere_, as the sum-total[117] of what may be thought under it. The higher we ascend in abstract thought, the more we deduct, the less therefore remains to be thought. The highest, _i.e._ the most general conceptions, are the emptiest and poorest, and at last become mere husks, such as, for instance, being, essence, thing, becoming, &c. &c.--Of what avail, by the way, can philosophical systems be, which are only spun out of conceptions of this sort and have for their substance mere flimsy husks of thoughts like these? They must of necessity be exceedingly empty, poor, and therefore also dreadfully tiresome. [115] _Begriff_, _comprehensive_ thought, derived from _begreifen_, to comprehend. [Tr.] [116] _Inbegriff_, comprehensive totality. [Tr.] [117] _Inbegriff._