“The function by which we mark-off, discriminate, draw a line round,
and identify as a numerically distinct subject of discourse is called
_conception_.” We may therefore have conceptions of objects, people,
qualities, abstract ideas, etc. Each conception is unique, separate,
and distinct for the subject thinking it. No two conceptions can ever
be quite alike; for no two individuals conceive things in a similar
manner, and the same individual, conceiving the same thing twice,
conceives it in a different way. The original conception _plus_, is
always conceived the second time. For, from the purely physiological
point of view, the brain has been already modified somewhat by the
first impression, and the second one reacts upon a modified, and not
an unmodified, substratum. “History never repeats itself;” and no two
thoughts, and no two conceptions, can thus ever be _precisely_ alike.