eption 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. The secret of its
extraordinary success lies in the fact that it refers the new to the
old, the strange to the familiar, the unknown to the known, that which
is not comprehended to what is already understood and thus constitutes
a part of our mental furniture; that it transforms the difficult and
unaccustomed into the accustomed and causes us to grasp everything new
by means of old-time, well-known, ideas. Since, then, it accomplishes
great and unusual results by small means, in so far as it reserves for
the soul the greatest amount of power for other purposes, it agrees
with the general principle of the least expenditure of force, or with
that of the best adaptability of means to ends.

"As in the reception of new impressions, so also in working over and
developing the previously acquired content of the mind, the helpful
work of apperception shows itself. By connecting isolated things with
mental groups already formed, and by assigning to the new its proper
place among them, apperception not only increases the clearness and
definiteness of ideas, but knits them more firmly to our consciousness.
_Apperceiving ideas are the best aids to memory_. Again, so often as
it subordinates new impressions to older ones, it labors at the
association and articulation of the manifold materials of perception
and thought. By condensing the content of observation and thinking
into concepts and rules, or general experiences and principles, or
ideals and general notions, apperception produces connection and order
in our knowledge and volition. With its assistance there spring up
those universal thought complexes, which, distributed to the various
fields to which they belong, appear as logical, linguistic, aesthetic,
moral, and religious norms or principles. If these acquire a higher
degree of value for our feelings, if we find ourselves heartily
attached to them, so that we prefer them to all those things which are
contradictory, if we bind them to our own self, they will thus