We should gain the
mastery of external things more slowly and painfully, and arrive much
later at a certain conclusion of our external experience than we do
now, and thereby remain perceptibly behind in our mental development.
Like children with their A B C, we should be forced to take careful
note of each word, and not, as now, allow ourselves actually to
perceive only a few words in each sentence. In a word, without
apperception our minds, with strikingly greater and more exhaustive
labor, would attain relatively smaller results. Indeed, we are seldom
conscious of the extent to which our perception is supported by
apperception; of how it releases the senses from a large part of their
labor, so that in reality we listen usually with half an ear or with a
divided attention; nor, on the other hand, do we ordinarily reflect
that apperception lends the sense organs a greater degree of energy, so
that they perceive with greater sharpness and penetration than were
otherwise possible. We do not consider that apperception spares us the
trouble of examining ever anew and in small detail all the objects and
phenomena that present themselves to us, so as to get their meaning, or
that it thus prevents our mental power from scattering and from being
worn out with wearisome, fruitless detail labors.
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