§ 1. Ascending Levels of Cognitive Development. — Cognitive development is inseparably connected with cognitive development. If we consider conation in the abstract, we can distinguish its positive from its negative phase, — appetition from aversion. We can also distinguish its varying degrees of intensity and persistence and its feeling-tone. But beyond this all differentiation of cognitive consciousness is differentiation of cognitive consciousness. This does not imply that conation is secondary to and dependent upon cognition. The whole course of exposition in this work refutes such an assumption. What is meant is rather that conation and cognition are different aspects of one and the same process. Cognition gives the process its determinate character: without conation there would be no process at all to have a character.

From this point of view, we may distinguish different levels of cognitive process as connected with different levels of general mental development. On the plane of perception we have the perceptual impulse; this includes instinctive impulses. Its general characteristic is that the activity involved in it finds immediate expression in bodily movement guided by external impressions.

The perceptual impulse without losing its essential character may involve a certain amount of ideal anticipation. But we reach a distinctly higher plane when ideas become "sufficiently selfsustaining to form trains that are not wholly shaped by the circumstances of the present." "We can desire to live again through experiences of which there is nothing actually present to remind us."* The mere ideal representation of an end may be the primary startingpoint of an activity directed to its realisation; and this activity may itself partly or wholly take the form of trains of ideas. It is at this stage that the word desire has its most appropriate application. Perceptual conations are better described as impulses.

* Ward, op. cit., p. 74.

With the development of ideational thought, higher forms of desire arise. The process of generalisation brings withit generalised cognitive tendencies. We aim at the fulfilment of rules of conduct instead of the production of this or that special result in this or that particular case. Ideal construction sets before us ends which have never been previously realised. These ends may be so complex that they can only be realised gradually by activities persistently renewed as opportunity allows. The writing of a book and sometimes the reading of it, may serve as an example. Sometimes the ideally constructed ends are such as the individual recognises to be unattainable in his own lifetime. He can only contribute his share towards bringing them to pass. Sometimes there is a doubt whether they can be completely attained, or even a certainty that they cannot be completely attained. Ends of this last kind are the highest, and are generally called "ideals."