The inspection of one printing
establishment suggests others which are brought into comparison till
the general notion, publishing-house, is more clearly conceived. The
same is true in the lumber trade. The concept lumber-business is not
confined to Minneapolis or Chicago, but is common to the great lake
region, Maine, Washington, Norway, and other countries. Concepts
become more varied and complex with the advance of studies, and there
is scarcely anything we learn by observation or reflection that does
not ultimately illustrate and build up our concepts. The observation
of even the miscellaneous objects in a large city leads to a variety of
concepts, and in the end, by comparison, to the general notion, _city_.
How strong the concept-creating tendency of all experience and thought
is, can be seen in the _words_ of language. The processes of thought
become petrified in language. All progress in knowledge and
acquisition of new ideas is reflected in language by an increase of
words. But an examination of words in common use will show that they
are nearly all the names of concepts. Proper names are the principal
exception. Every common noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition
is the name of a concept; for example, horse, beauty, to steal,
running, over, early, yellow, grape, ocean, etc.
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