latent intellectual nature is called forth into manifestatation by the incidence of sense-impressions. This we all agree in asserting. We say, however (as we laid down in our introduction), that the ultimate outcome proves the intellectual energy to have been latent from the first. * Mr. Romanes truly asserts that "analogies which do not strike animals strike men." A child will say Bowwow successively of the house-dog, all other dogs, toydogs, models of dogs, and pictures of dogs. He adds † that in this "we have a clear exhibition, in a simple form, of the development of a connotative name within the purely receptual sphere." But this we altogether deny. Such naming by the child is truly and formally conceptual. Instead, then, of its being "absurd to suppose that the child was thus raising the name Bow-wow to any conceptual value," it would be absurd to suppose it was not the sign of a direct universal and a perfect concept. It is true that for this purpose, as Mr. Romanes says,§ "there is no need for any introspective regarding of the name as a name;" there is, indeed, no need of any such reflex action, in order that a perfect concept may exist. All that is needed is that direct consciousness which accompanies all our ordinary mental activity, without our at all adverting to it. Truly may Mr. Romanes say, "Nevertheless, it is evident that already the child has done more than the parrot." "Names," indeed, "may be . . . connotative in the absence of self-consciousness," that is, of reflex con sciousness, but direct consciousness there must be, otherwise the names only connote practically and materially -as a sieve practically and materially sorts. Such sorting, however, is fundamentally different from the sorting performed by a man. Mr. Romanes urges,† "If we say that a child is connoting resemblances when it extends the name Bow-wow from a particular dog to dogs in general, clearly we say the same thing of a parrot when we find that thus far it goes with the child." No assertion could well be less warranted than this one. The material resemblance between the two cases need mean no more than the material resemblance between, say, a sentence as spoken by a parrot, and the same sentence as spoken by a grown man. To serve his purpose and explain his meaning fully, Mr. Romanes distinguishes four classes of psychical acts as follows: "(1) Lower Recepts, comprising the mental life of all the lower animals, and so including such powers of receptual connotation as a child when first emerging from infancy shares with a parrot. "(2) Higher Recepts, comprising all the extensive tract of ideation that belongs to a child between the time when its powers of receptual connotation first surpass those of a parrot, up to the age at which connotation, as merely denotative, begins to become also denominative. "(3) Lower Concepts, comprising the province of conceptual ideation where this first emerges from the * See above, pp. 64, 67. pp. 184, 185. † p. 183. higher receptual, up to the point where denominative connotation has to do, not merely with the naming of recepts, but also with that of associated concepts. "(4) Higher Concepts, comprising all the further excellencies of human thought." For us, as before said, the first of these four categories belongs to merely sensitive, consentional life. All the other three are fully and truly conceptual. Mr. Romanes seems to have some inkling of this from the fact that he proposes † to term his Higher Recepts, Preconcepts, although he deems that they mark a stage of psychical life anterior to the advent of concepts and consciousness. He asks where else can he place the limit between brute and man except at the point "where the naming powers of a child demonstrably excel those of a parrot or any other brute," and he adds, "If this place happens to be before the rise of conceptual powers, I am not responsible for the fact." Nor, of course, is he. He is only responsible for making the mistake of considering such children as being “below the use of the conceptual powers," when they are nothing of the kind. Having made this statement as to concepts, Mr. Romanes naturally proceeds to extend his distinction to judgments, and classifics them § "as receptual, pre-conceptual, and conceptual." By the first, he says, he means the "practical inferences" allowed by us to animals. "Also," he tells us,¶ "if a brute which is able to name each of two recepts separately ‡ p. 186. * See above, pp. 56, 59. † p. 185. || p. 191. ¶p. 189. (as is done by a talking bird), were to name the two recepts simultaneously when thus combined in an act of 'practical inference,' although there would then be the outward semblance of a proposition, we should not be strictly right in calling it a proposition. It would, indeed, be the statement of a truth perceived; but not the statement of a truth perceived as true." But in a true and formal judgment we need by no means distinctly advert to its truth, though it must implicitly contain the idea of truth, as Mill says. And if such a judgment of a brute did this, which it must do if it stated a truth perceived, it would be a true, formal, conceptual judgment. But the junction of two things felt as related, is by no means what we mean by a "practical inference." As we before pointed out,* such an inference is only the revival of certain sensuous elements in the imagination, occasioned by the fresh occurrence of certain actual sensations, whercof such imagined ones were, in past experience, the complement. We are confident, moreover, that no brute ever united vocal or other gestures so as to form the semblance of a proposition. Mr. Romanes, indeed, tells us "that this possibility of receptual predication on the part of talking birds is not entirely hypothetical, and then proceeds to cite, as evidence in his favour, the absurd tale about the cockatoo "Cockie" which was before † quoted and commented on. We find it thus quite easy "to meet " Mr. Romanes's contention, although he thinks we shall not find it an easy task so to do. We also venture to think that we * See above, p. 63. † See above, p. 136. p. 191. have made good our complaint by showing that “there is something wrong in " his "psychological analysis." * He finally tells us, "In the result, I claim to have shown that if it is possible to suggest a difference of kind between any of the levels of ideation which have now been defined, this can only be done where the advent of self-consciousness enables a mind, not only to know, but to know that it knows; not only to receive knowledge, but also to conceive it; not only to connotate, but also to denominate; not only to state a truth, but also to state that truth as true." The advent of the faculty of intellect does, we hold, enable the mind to do all this, but it is enough to show its presence if this be done with direct consciousness; a reflex act of consciousness not being necessary to prove the presence of intellect. To make our relative position clear, Mr. Romanes's views and our own may be contrasted in a tabular form as follows: |