We might, then, confidently expect to find in that animal such higher powers of mere sensitivity as should almost fit it to be the receptacle of a higher nature, which higher nature could not evidently act in conformity with its requirements in the body of some very differently constituted beast, such as a horse, an ant-eater, or a whale. The powers and activities possessed by apes and monkeys are just those we should expect to find in animals closely resembling ourselves in body, but devoid of mind. They exhibit phenomena which are those of the life of a mere brute nature, but yet are the phenomena of a brute nature the sensitive powers of which are somewhat exceptionally developed, as of a brute nature which had been formed in preparation for and as an adumbration of what was to follow.

Mr. Romanes objects*—as from the position he takes up he is forced to object-to our declaration (in which we have the advantage of having the great physiologist, Müller, as well as Hegel, on our side) that the formation of abstract conceptions under the notion of cause and effect, is impossible to animals. He declares t that, in his opinion, "needless obscurity is imported into this matter, by not considering in what our own idea of causality consists. . . . All men and most animals have a generic idea of causality, in the sense of expecting uniform experience under uniform conditions." Here the word "expecting" is used ambiguously, and is therefore misleading. To "expect" in the sense of to perceive what may or should follow, is what we utterly deny any brute can do. To "expect," † p. 59.

* P. 58

meaning thereby an unconscious sense of craving for something needed to complete a harmony amongst sensations and emotions, is what we have not only allowed the brutes, but have distinctly attributed to them.* Mr. Romanes goes on: "A cat sees a man knock at the knocker of a door, and observes that the door is afterwards opened: remembering this, when she herself wants to get in at the door, she jumps at the knocker, and waits for the door to be opened. Now, can it be denied that in this act of inference, or imitation, or whatever name we choose to call it, the cat perceives such an association between the knocking and the opening as to feel that the former as antecedent was in some way required to determine the latter as a consequent?" We have already objected to and denied, upon definite and distinct grounds, the existence of perceptions in animals; but for the purpose of Mr. Romanes the word "feels " might be substituted for the word "perceives," so we will let this passage pass without further protest. However, the whole circumstance referred to can be accounted for simply by the association of feelings-including emotions and desires. Nevertheless we are inclined to believe that the narration is a little exaggerated, and that some further sensuous experience on the part of the cat would be needed than the mere seeing "a man knock at a door" and its being thereupon "opened." But Mr. Romanes continues: "What is this but such a perception of causal relation as is shown by a child who blows upon a watch to open the case-thinking this to On Truth," p. 350.

See

be the cause of the opening from the uniform deception. practised by its parent-or of the savage who plants nails and gunpowder to make them grow?" We say it is something very different indeed, as is shown by the other circumstances respectively attending the action of the cat on the one hand and those of the child and the savage on the other. Some plants move about their tendrils to find a suitable point of support, and a blind man may move about his hands to find suitable support; but the two actions, though materially similar, are very different formally. It is a recognized logical fallacy to conclude because two things are alike in some accidental circumstance, they are alike altogether or essentially. Mr. Romanes further relates to ust some of his own experience of a dog afraid of thunder, in connection with apples shot down on the floor of an apple-room. "My dog," he says, "became terror-stricken at the sound; but as soon as I brought him to the appleroom and showed him the true cause of the noise, he became again buoyant and cheerful as usual."

This is a curious example of reading into an animal what the observer expected to find. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that the dog in this instance. even receptually apprehended causation, or felt any relationship between the noise which had previously frightened him and his feelings in the apple-room when taken there. What could there be to frighten him in

* We confess to some incredulity as to the asserted planting of nails and gunpowder by savages.

† p. 60.

As to the mere feeling of causation, as distinguished from its perception, see "On Truth," pp. 48, 195, 220.

the presence of his master, who had called him and was kindly noticing him?

Still more curious is the tale told about an American monkey which had found out the way to unscrew the handle of that object which is often so much too easily unscrewed, namely, a hearth-brush. He delighted in screwing it on and off, and soon began to unscrew all the unscrewable articles within his reach, so as to become a nuisance to the household. This, we are told, showed that the monkey had "discovered the mechanical principle of the screw"-an "intelligent recognition of a principle discovered by the most unwearying perseverance in the way of experiment" (!). To do what it did, needed as little the "intelligent recognition of a principle" as any white mouse which had learnt to turn rotating objects, or, as a canary, which had learnt to pull up a small vessel of water suspended by a thread, need apprehend "principles " of mechanics and hydrostatics. We are told that the monkey, "however often he was disappointed at the beginning [of the screwing process], never was induced to try turning the handle the other way; he always screwed from right to left." This would seem to show (on Mr. Romanes's method of interpretation) that the monkey had much greater intelligence than is possessed by many human beings, who often do try screwing the wrong way, when their efforts to screw the right way have not succeeded. The misleading language into which Mr. Romanes allows himself to be betrayed by his credulous enthusiasm about his monkey is far more remarkable * p. 61.

than anything else in the anecdote. We are told that after having discovered this "mechanical principle,” his little beast "proceeded forthwith to generalize." Concerning the objects thus mischievously unscrewed, screwed, and unscrewed again and again, we are gravely assured, as to the separated parts, that the monkey "was by no means careful always to replace them "—as if he was ever careful to do so, and as if those which were replaced were replaced by a sort of quasi-ethical, deliberate intention! Next follows an interesting account of the raising by a minute spider of a housefly twenty times its weight, through a very ingenious process, but one in no way really more wonderful than many other curious contrivances of which spiders instinctively avail themselves.

Mr. Romanes afterwards remarks how the gradually increasing receptual power of animals prepares the way for the formation of concepts, a remark with which we agree in our own sense. Knowing, and ever asserting the necessary dependence of the exercise of intellect in us rational animals upon a foundation of associated feelings of all kinds, we also affirm that in animal evolution, mechanism is gradually more and more perfected in anticipation of that intelligence which was to be introduced into the material world with the advent of man. Our author adds,† what is indeed most true, he has not yet proved "that the ideation which we have in common with brutes [our sense-perception] is not supplemented by ideation of some other order, or kind. Presently," he continues, "I shall consider the arguments p. 62. † p. 64.