There is one way of avoiding at least partly the occult appearance of the process of thinking, and it is, to replace in these processes any working of the imagination by looking at real
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objects. Thus it may seem essential that, at least in certain cases, when I hear the word “red” with understanding, a red image should be before my mind's eye. But why should I not substitute seeing a red bit of paper for imagining a red patch? The visual image will only be the more vivid. You can easily imagine a man carrying a sheet of paper in his pocket on which the names of colours are coordinated with coloured patches. You may say that it would be a nuisance to carry such a table of samples about with you, and that the mechanism of association is what we always use instead of it. But this is irrelevant; and in many cases it is not even true. If, for instance, you were ordered to paint a particular shade of blue, called “Prussian Blue”, you might have to use a table to lead you from the word “Prussian Blue” to a sample of the colour, which would serve you as a copy.