In apperception we never pass from the known to things which are _entirely new_. Absolutely new knowledge is gained by perception or intuition. When an older person meets with something totally new, he either does not notice it or it staggers him. Apperception does not take place. In many cases we are disturbed or frightened, as children, by some new or sudden noise or object. But most so-called new things bear sufficient resemblance to things seen before to admit of explanation. Strange as the sights of a Chinese city might appear, we should still know that we were in a city. In most "new" objects of observation or study, the familiar parts greatly preponderate over the unfamiliar. In a new reading lesson, for example, most of the words and ideas are well known, only an occasional word requires explanation and that by using familiar illustrations. The flood of our familiar and oft-repeated ideas sweeps on like a great river, receiving here and there from either side a tributary stream, that is swallowed up in its waters without perceptible increase.
So strong is the apperceiving force of familiar notions that they drag far-distant scenes in geography and history into the home neighborhood and locate them there. The _imagination_ works in conjunction with the apperceiving faculty and constructs real pictures. Children are otherwise inclined to substitute one thing for another by imagination. With boys and girls, geographical objects about home are often converted by fancy into representatives of distant places. It is related of _Byron_ that while reading in childhood the story of the Trojan war, he localized all the places in the region of his home. An old hill and castle looking toward the plain and the sea were his Troy. The stream flowing through the plain was the Simois. The places of famous conflicts between the Trojans and Greeks were located. So vivid were the pictures which these home scenes gave to the child, that years later in visiting Asia Minor and the sight of the real Troy, he was not so deeply impressed as in his boyhood. A _German professor_ relates that he and his companions, while reading the Indian stories of Cooper, located the important scenes in the hills and valleys about Eisenach in the Thuringian mountains. Many other illustrations of the same imaginative tendency to substitute home objects for foreign ones are given. But whether or not this experience is true of us all, it is certain that we can form no idea of foreign places and events except as we _construct_ the pictures out of the _fragments_ of things that we have known. What we have seen of rivers, lands, and cities must form the materials for picturing to ourselves distant places.