Psychology : normal and morbid / by Charles A. Mercier.
- Charles Arthur Mercier
- Date:
- [1901]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Psychology : normal and morbid / by Charles A. Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![progress, and forms no part of the actual process in being, then occurs a process of thought which may be termed proportional inference, the type of which is {a \ b) is like (a' : b'). As an instance we may give the comparison between the boiler power required to heat two green- houses with the power required to heat three similar houses to the same extent. In this case it is evident that before the process of thought can begin, the homologous terms of the relations must already be assimilated. There could be no comparison between the boiler power required to heat the houses by hot water and the quantity of current necessary to heat them by electricity. Nor could there be a comparison between heating two greenhouses and walking ten miles. But the assimilation of the homologous terms is no part of the act of thought by which the conclusion is reached that more power is required in the one case than in the other. The assimilation is effected before this process of thought begins. It is evident that this type of reasoning may be still further compli- cated, and that either or both the terms of the subsidiary relations may themselves be relations. For instance, we may desire to find the pro- portion between the boiler power required to heat two greenhouses to twenty degrees above the outside air and that required to heat three greenhouses to fifteen degrees above the same standard. The form of the thought will then [a \ {b \ c)] '. {c^ \ {b' \ c')], and further complica- tions can easily be introduced, as in the compound rule of three sums in the arithmetic books. Throughout all this complication the character of the thought, as the direct comparison of two ratios, remains the same, however complicated the ratios become. The next form of thought is like the last in that two relations are compared and their homologous terms are assimilated; but in this case the homologous terms are not given alike. Their assimilation is a part of the very act of thought by which the relations themselves are assimilated, and is the means by which this assimilation takes place. A'.B The form of thought now is : The relation a \ b is, as a whole, a : b assimilated to A : B; but in order to effect this assimilation it is necessary first of all to liken a to A, whereupon the rest of the assimi- lation follows as of course. This case differs from the last in that the process of thought, the effort of mind, the active part of the process, is the assimilation of the homologous terms a and A, after which the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21294793_0062.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
