Full Idea
It is not a law of our intellect that in comparing things and noting their agreements we recognise as realized in the outward world something we already had in our minds. The conception found its way to us as the result of such a comparison.
Gist of Idea
We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons
Source
John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.2)
Book Reference
Mill,John Stuart: 'System of Logic (9th ed, 2 vols)' [Longmans, Green etc 1875], p.196
A Reaction
He recognises, of course, that this gradually becomes a two-way process. In the physicalist view of things, it is not really of great importance which concepts are hard-wired, and which constructed culturally or through perception.