"Mind starts from Discrimination. The consciousness of
difference is the beginning of every intellectual exercise."
"Our intelligence is, therefore, absolutely limited by our
power of discrimination; the other functions of intellect,
the retentive power, for instance, are not called into play
until we have first discriminated a number of things."
"The minuteness or delicacy of the feeling of difference is
the measure of the variety and multitude of our primary
impressions and therefore of our stored-up recollections."
"Bear in mind the fact that until a difference is felt
between two things, intelligence has not yet made the first
step."
"The higher arts of comparison to impress difference are best
illustrated when both differences and agreements have to be
noted, i. e., similarities and dissimilarities."
"Discrimination is the necessary prelude of every
intellectual impression as the basis of our stored-up
knowledge or memory."
Definition of the state of mind significantly named
_Indifference_,--"the state where differing impressions fail
to be recognized as distinct."
"The retentive power works up to the height of the
discriminative power; it can do no more."
ALEX. BAIN.
"The most delightful and fruitful of all the intellectual
energies is the perception of similarity and agreement, by
which we rise from the individual to the general, trace
sameness in diversity, and master instead of being mastered
by the multiplicity of nature."
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.
"It is by comparisons that we ascertain the difference which
exists between things, and it is by comparisons, also, that
we ascertain the general features of things, and it is by
comparisons that we reach general propositions. In fact,
comparisons are at the bottom of all philosophy."
LOUIS AGASSIZ.