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he goes on to observe that animals are capable of no small degree of ratiocination, "if we use the term Reason in its true, as distinguished from its traditional sense." Here by the word "traditional" Mr. Romanes refers only to views which are not traditional, but modern, and which would limit the use of the term

pronounces "feeble," and adds, "It seems sufficient to ask, in the first place, whether language is not action; and, in the next, whether, as expressive of suffering, articulate speech is regarded by us as more 'eloquent' than inarticulate cries and gestures?" Cries and gestures may, and ordinarily do, denote suffering; but they may occur without it-as during operations under an anæsthetic. However eloquent they may be, they may be ambiguous in a way which conscious verbal declarations cannot be. Moreover, the question did not refer to "suffering" only, but to feelings generally; and it is simply nonsense to say that the feelings we make known by speech, we make known by actions, because all articulations are actions. Breathing and deglutition are made up of action as much as speech, but they are respectively actions of diverse and definite kinds, and it is absurd to confound them with emotional and intellectual gestures, and articulate and inarticulate sounds, under the one indefinite name, "actions." We know quite certainly that men and animals feel, but we are enabled to attain, by conversation, to a knowledge about the feelings of our fellow-men which we can never attain to concerning those of animals or even of infants. It is common enough to hear expressions of regret that a child is too young to be able to describe its feelings, and so guide the judgment and action of a medical man. But Professor Huxley is an ardent admirer of Descartes; we may then cite, as an argumentum ad hominem, the following contradiction of the Professor's assertion by Descartes himself: "Il n'y a aucune de nos actions extérieures qui puisse assurer ceux qui les examinent que notre corps n'est pas seulement une machine qui a remué, de soi même, mais qu'il y a aussi en lui une âme qui a des pensées, excepté les paroles, ou autres signes faits à propos de sujets, qui se présentent, sans se rapporter à aucune passion" ("Euvres de Descartes," par Victor Cousin, vol. ix. p. 724; cited by Professor Max Müller in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889, p. 408, note 5).

66 reason

to processes of "inference." According to views which are really traditional, the word "reason" should denote and include all intellectual perception, whether it be direct and intuitive, or indirect and inferential. Under neither head are to be included, as we shall endeavour hereinafter to point out, the sensuous perceptions and merely practical inferences of animals. Mr. Romanes fails altogether to distinguish between those mere associations of feelings and emotions in animals which may produce an unconscious expectant feeling of sensations to come, occasioned by some feelings already excited (the practical inference † of animals), and true inference. He confounds ‡ them both together under the denomination, “reason properly so called."

Mr. Romanes makes a very grave mistake when he tells us, on the same page, that human immortality can only have become known to us by "revelation." We do not, of course, affirm that man's immortality is directly to be perceived as being a necessary truth like the principle of contradiction or the law of causation ; but we confidently affirm that a scientific analysis of our being, with a consequent perception of the nature of the human soul, make its indestructibility (without a miracle) a reasonable inference.§ When, further, we reflect on God's existence and nature, together with our own ethical perceptions and our observation of the facts. of history, this inference becomes raised to the level of certainty, quite apart from revelation. The value of † Ibid., p. 345.

* See "On Truth," p. 195.
+ p. 12.

§ See "On Truth," pp. 388, 487.

Mr. Romanes's judgment is, however, seriously imperilled by a perfectly amazing assertion he makes in a note on this subject. He there tells us, "The dictum of Aristotle and Buffon, that animals differ from man in having no power of mental apprehension, may be disregarded; for it appears to be sufficiently disposed of by the following remark of Dureau de la Malle: ‘Si les animaux n'étaient pas suscéptibles d'apprendre les moyens de se conserver, les espèces se seraient anéanties.'"

So, then, animals have first to learn how to live, and then go on living afterwards! The sucking action of the new-born infant, the grain pecking of the freshlyhatched chick, and the nutritious properties of the leaves whereon any insect's eggs may be laid, must all be learnt before the creature's impulses are turned to practical account!

This statement could never have been written but for the flagrant ambiguity of the term "to learn" made use of in it. That such a sentence should ever have been written by De la Malle is wonderful, but that it should be quoted nowadays by Mr. Romanes, and supposed by him to overpower the assertions of Aristotle and Buffon, is astounding. It is difficult to imagine how such an intelligent and painstaking author as Mr. Romanes could fall into such a bathos. We shall see, however, shortly that he is led by a correspondent's cockatoo to step over the edge of an abyss of absurdity even more profound.†

But though the zeal with which our author endeavours to establish his thesis thus causes him every now

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and then to commit regrettable indiscretions, we frequently come upon statements as admirably expressed as they are true. Thus in contrasting the views of those he regards as his leading opponents, he makes the following excellent remarks concerning the relation existing between religion and morality, and an intellectual nature: "It is certain that neither of these faculties could have occurred in that species [the human], had it not also been gifted with a greatly superior order of intelligence. For even the most elementary forms of religion and morality, depend upon ideas of a much more abstract, or intellectual, nature than are to be met with in any brute. Obviously, therefore, the first distinction that falls to be considered is the intellectual distinction."

Rightly, therefore, does Mr. Romanes begin his detailed discussion of the subject with a consideration of mental processes, and his second chapter is accordingly devoted to an exposition of his views concerning "ideas."

Before following our author upon his psychological excursion, it may be well to set down certain general considerations bearing upon the question of the existence and origin in man of a nature essentially distinct from that of any other animal whatever.

Now, such a distinct, absolute origin is of course unimaginable; but, then, every absolute origin is unimaginable, and yet both sensitivity and life must have had a beginning. It is a first requisite in our scientific inquiries to distinguish between the imagination and * p. 18.

the reason. Nothing can be imagined by us which has not been directly or indirectly experienced by our sensitive faculty; but many things may be conceived of which have never been thus experienced,* and our inability to "imagine" anything should be no bar to our accepting it as true if reason shows that it necessarily or most probably is such.

Mr. Wallace, in his recent work,† has well pointed out the impossibility of the mathematical, musical, and artistic faculties having been developed by the action of "Natural Selection," and (as before said) has also insisted upon the necessity of a "new cause or power" having "come into action" at the origin of life and sensitivity, as well as at the origin, of man himself.

But if such a new mode of action-an action different in kind is to be admitted as having occurred once, e.g., at the origin of life, why should not new kinds of action and new causes occur several or very many times or even occur constantly and repeatedly?

If once the possibility of such a thing is demonstrated by but a single case of its actual occurrence, new origins and actions not only cease to be improbable, but their probability is thereby established.

Mr. Wallace ‡ also agrees with us § in affirming the active agency of immaterial principles in bringing about the phenomena of nature, organic and inorganic. But if the necessary intervention of an intelligent, immaterial agency be accepted to account for the origin of any part

As to this, see "On Truth," pp. 111-113, 411.

† "Darwinism," pp. 461–476.

Ibid., p. 476.

§ See "On Truth," pp. 507-510.

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