Chapter1: Building Abstractions with Procedures

• The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three
  
  • 1.Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made.
  • 2.The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations.
  • 3.The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.

• 一个能通过简单思路就能发挥力量的思维过程，通常包含其下三步
  
  • 1.把多个简单思路组织起来形成一个复杂思路，从而形成复杂思路（compound idea）。
  • 2.当想到两个思路时，无论它们是简单还是复杂，不要因为它们之间的联系，就将它们归于一类，而应该分别去看待这两个思路。
  • 3.最后把它们与其它思路之间存在的相同特性抽离(separating)出来（抽象），从而形成一个大概的思路。

• exert
  
  • vt. 运用，发挥;施以影响
• compound
  
  • n. [化学] 化合物；混合物；复合词
  • adj. 复合的；混合的
  • v. 合成；混合；恶化，加重；和解，妥协
• take view of
  
  • 检查；观察， 视察
• separate
  
  • vt. 使分离；使分开；使分居
  • vi. 分开；隔开；分居
  • adj.单独的；分开的；不同的；各自的；
  • n. 分开；抽印本

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• The value of a combination is obtained by applying the procedure specified by the operator to the arguments that are the values of the operands

• 整个组合体的值，取决于将特定的运算符施加在其参数列表数值上，所得到结果。
• 比如,下面的组合体的值为75
  
  • (+ 21 35 12 7)

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• To evaluate a combination, do the following:
  
  • Evaluate the subexpressions of the combination
  • Apply the procedure that is the value of the leftmost subexpression(the operator) to the arguments that are the values of the other subexpressions(the operands)
• example:
  
  • (* (+ 2 (* 4 6)) (+ 3 5 7))