Conception consists in a conscious act of the understanding, bringing any given object or impression into the same class with any number of other objects or impression, by means of some character or characters common to them all.
Coleridge.
5. The image, idea, or notion of any action or thing which is formed in the mind; a concept; a notion; a universal; the product of a rational belief or judgment. See Concept.
He [Herodotus] says that the sun draws or attracts the water; a metaphorical term obviously intended to denote some more general and abstract conception than that of the visible operation which the word primarily signifies.
Whewell.