a principle of action, a power of suggestion, and an agent of change.
It might, then, be supposed that the consciousness here finds a compensation for the rôle that has been withdrawn from it. If it is not the thing that creates the relation, it will be said, at least it is that which creates its efficacity of suggestion. Many psychologists have supposed that a relation has the power of evocation only when it has been perceived. The perception of resemblance precedes the action of resemblance. It is consequently the consciousness which assembles the ideas and gives them birth by perceiving their relations.
This error, for it is one, has long been wide-spread—indeed, it still persists.[1] We have, however, no difficulty in understanding that the perception of a resemblance between two terms supposes them to be known; so long as only one of the terms is present to the consciousness, this perception does not exist; it cannot therefore possess the property of bringing to light the second term. Suggestion is therefore distinct from recognition; it is when suggestion has acted, when the resemblance in fact has brought the two
- ↑ Pilon is the psychologist who has the most forcibly demonstrated that resemblance acts before being perceived. I refer the readers to my Psychologie du Raisonnement, where I have set forth this little problem in detail.
