This one thing is the combining, or holding together, of the elements which first come to it as sensations, so that it can act on a group of them as if they were only one and represented only one external thing.

Let me illustrate this single and peculiar sort of process as it goes on in the mind.
We may ask how the child apprehends an orange out there on the table before him.

It can not be said that the orange goes into the child's mind by any one of its senses.

By sight he gets only the colour and shape of the orange, by smell he gets only its odour, by taste its sweetness, and by touch its smoothness, rotundity, etc.

Furthermore, by none of these senses does he find out the individuality of the orange, or distinguish it from other things which involve the same or similar sensations--say an apple.