THE ORIGIN OF

HUMAN REASON

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

R£cently Published.

ON TRUTH.

A SYSTEMATIC INQUIRY.

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London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

THE ORIGIN OF

HUMAN REASON

BEING AN EXAMINATION OF
RECENT HYPOTHESES CONCERNING IT

BY

ST. GEORGE MIVART

Ph.D., M.D., F.R.S.

UNIVERSITY

LONDON

KEG AN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB

I. Introductory ... ... ... ... i

II. Mental States and Processes ... ... 35

III. Reason and Language ... ... ... 120

IV. Reason and Consciousness ... ... 193

V. Reason and the Infant ... ... ... 214

VI. Reason and Divers Tongues ... .... 228

VII. Reason and Primitive Man ... ... ... 282

VIII. Concluding Remarks ... ... ... 295

n.>

THE ORIGIN OF

H U MAN REASON.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

The question of evolution by the agency of natural
selection has now been debated for one whole genera-
tion. The result of the battle, so far, has been to
concentrate almost the entire interest of the struggle
upon the question whether or not the mind of man can
have been evolved from the psychical faculties of the
lower animals. We have not hesitated to declare, again
and again,* that such an evolution is necessarily impos-
sible ; but our critics and opponents, from Professor
Huxley t downwards, have evaded, rather than com-

* See " The Genesis of Species " (Macmillan, 1870) ; " Lessons
from Nature" (John Murray, 1876) ; " On the Development of the
Individual and the Species," Proceedings of the Zoological Society^
June 17, 1884; "A Limit to Evolution," Nineteenth Century^
August, 1884; and "Nature and Thought" (Burns and Gates,
1885 : 2nd edit.).

t See his article entitled " Mr. Darwin's Critics," in the Con-
temporary Review, 1 871, and reprinted in 1873 in Professor
Huxley's " Critiques and Addresses " (Macmillan and Co.), p. 251.

B

2 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

bated, the arguments whereby we supported our
position.

We hail, then, with much pleasure and very sincere
satisfaction, the publication by Mr. Romanes of his
recent work on human mental evolution.* In him
we have at last a Darwinian who, with great patience
and thoroughness, applies himself to meet directly
and point-blank the most formidable arguments of the
anti-Darwinian school, as well as to put forward per-
suasively the most recent hypotheses on his side. Mr.
Romanes is exceptionally well qualified — amongst the
disciples of Mr. Darwin — to assume the task he has
assumed. For a long time past he has made this
question his own, and has devoted his energies to the
task of showing that there is (as Mr. Darwin declared)
no difference of kind, but only one of degree, between
the highest human intellect and the psychical faculties
of the lowest animals. Mr. Romanes has become the
representative of Mr. Darwin on this special and most
important field of inquiry, and he has accumulated, in
defence of the position he has taken up, an enormous
mass of facts and anecdotes, which he regards as offering
decisive evidence in his favour. His new book on this
subject is written with great clearness and ability, and
though it is, of course, possible that other advocates
might have avoided this or that erroneous inference and
mistaken assertion (as we deem them) of Mr. Romanes,
we are convinced that no one could, on the whole, have

* " Mental Evolution in Man : Origin of Human Faculty," by
G. J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. (Kegan Paul, Trench and
Co., I

INTRODUCTORY.

made out a better case for his side than he has done ;
no other naturalist could, we are persuaded, have done
more, or done better, to sustain Mr. Darwin's great thesis.
We say " Mr. Darwin's great thesis," because in main-
taining it the modern Darwinian school are faithful
followers of their master. For the late Mr. Darwin de-
clared that to admit the existence of a distinction of kind
between the origin of man and that of other animals
" would make the theory of ' Natural Selection ' value-
less," and that, under such circumstances, he " would
give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural
Selection," adding, '' I think you will be driven to reject
all or admit all." That Mr. Romanes is a faithful
exponent of his master's views is certain, for Charles
Darwin has told us again and again that he saw no
distinction of " kind," but only one of "degree," between
our highest intellectual faculties and the feelings of a
brute. He has also proclaimed the doctrine which
denies to us the possession of any intellectual and
moral faculties that could not have been evolved by the
chance action of natural forces, from the powers pos-
sessed by brutes, to be a doctrine which " rests upon
ground that will never be shaken." *

The question to which Mr. Romanes applies himself
— the question as to the existence of any essential
distinction between the lowest human intellect and the

* This shows how little justified Mr. Alfred R. Wallace was
in bestowing on his recent work, the name of " Darwinism " — a
work which, however fully it may maintain the doctrine of the
origin of species of plants and animals by " Natural Selection,"
culminates in a distinct denial of that which we thus see Mr.
Darwin regarded as an essential part of his whole contention.

4 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

highest psychical powers of any brute — is, as he says,
"a most interesting and important" one, and is, in
Professor Huxley's words, an "argument fraught with
the deepest consequences."

The doctrine which Mr. Romanes, Professor Huxley,
Professor Haeckel, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and others
agree in asserting — the doctrine of the essential bestiality
of man — is declared by one of the ablest and most
honest and outspoken teachers of that school. Professor
Ray Lankester — to be the very flower and culmination
of modern philosophy.*

Very worthy, then, in our opinion, is Mr. Romanes's
work of the most careful and candid consideration — a
work on which he has lavished so much time and labour.

He has been very unreasonably blamed for attaching
the importance he has to the question of " difference
of kind," and for affirming f that such a difference
involves a difference of origin ; and it has been asserted

■^ His words are, " Darwin, by his discovery of the mechanical
principle of organic evolution, namely, the survival of the fittest in
the struggle for existence, completed the doctrine of evolution, and
gave it that unity and authority which was necessary in order that
it should reform the whole range of philosophy. The detailed
consequences of that new departure in philosophy have yet to be
worked out. Its most important initial conception is the derivation
of man by natural processes from ape-like ancestors, and the
consequent derivation of his mental and moral qualities by the
operation of the struggle for existence and natural selection from
the mental and moral qualities of animals. Not the least impor-
tant of the studies thus initiated is that of the evolution of
philosophy itself. Zoology thus finally arrives, through Darwin,
at its crowning development ; it teaches, and may be even said to
comprise, the history of man, sociology, and psychology" (" Encyc.
Brit.," vol. xxiv. p. 820).

t As he does on p. 3, in a note.

INTRODUCTORY.

that creatures really different in kind may have been
continuously produced, in succession, simply by evolu-
tion. To say this, however, is to confound a real,
philosophical difference of "kind" (which, of course, is
what Mr. Romanes has in view) with a mere popular use
of the word. It is as if a man were to say he liked three
" kinds " of toast for breakfast—" dry," " buttered," and
" French." But a real difference of kind, a difference
of essential nature^ cannot be evolved. It cannot
possibly admit of " more " or " less." It simply " is " or
it " is not." Mr. Romanes has rightly apprehended the
task before him, and has vigorously applied himself to
it. He does not "palter with us in a double sense,"
but honestly and honourably strives to meet, point-
blank, the strongest arguments of his adversaries.

Before beginning our examination of Mr. Romanes's
work, we think it well to state distinctly what our own
position exactly is.

We deem this necessary, because, as will shortly
appear, our views have been so singularly misappre-
hended by Mr. Romanes. We therefore cannot but
feel sure that other persons less gifted, or less interested
in the subject than he is, may, not improbably, have
misunderstood us also. It therefore seems to be in-
cumbent on us to take what pains we can to obviate
such misconceptions, by giving as plain and full a state-
ment of our convictions as it is in our power to do.

A careful study of the facts of life (human, animal,
and vegetal) has impressed us with the following con-
victions : —

(i) Although our intellectual and volitional nature

6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

is essentially distinct from that of any mere animal,
there is none the less abundant evidence that certain
physical conditions are necessary for its external mani-
festation. In the absence of those conditions it may,
as in sleep, remain latent. That often, when not
externally apparent, it may for all that really persist in
a latent condition, is plainly shown us by the fact that
it can and does become subsequently manifest — as on
waking — when the needful conditions have been supplied,
as, e.g., through sufficient rest.

(2) Each human being is a true unity which possesses,
simultaneously, the powers of two natures — one animal
and the other rational — both sets of powers * co-operating
in the whole mental life of each individual. We can-
not, therefore, separate, for examination, our intellect
from our sensuous activity, while our intellectual nature
modifies the exercise of even our mere sensitivity.
Nevertheless we can sufficiently distinguish the qualities
of either set of faculties to be aware of the great differ-
ence which exists between them.

(3) We know, both by common sense and careful
observation, that brutes do not make manifest externally
an unequivocally intellectual nature. But though we
know that such manifestations do not occur, we cannot
know all that animals are or may be. We cannot, there-
fore, venture positively to affirm that, in the absence of

♦ In our work "On Truth" (Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1889)
we have described at length— pp. 178-223— both our higher and
our lower mental powers. We shall be compelled again and again
to refer our readers to this work, which was sent to press before
that of Mr. Romanes appeared. Had it not been so sent the
present volume would have been superfluous.

INTRODUCTORY.

intellect, they do not possess one or more powers or
faculties which we do not, and which, therefore, we
cannot imagine or fully understand. Did they possess,
however, an intellectual nature, we are very confident
that they would very soon make us distinctly and un-
mistakably aware of the fact by external signs.

(4) But animals do not make signs ; for a sign is a
token or device addressed to eye or ear, depicting, by
an external manifestation, some newly arising com-
bination of ideas. Such a manifestation must be made
with the intention of conveying to the understanding
of another, a knowledge of the combination of ideas
possessed by the mind of the sign-maker. Otherwise
it is not and cannot be a "sign."

(5) The accounts we sometimes meet with of a quite
exceptional display by animals of psychical powers
which seem to be truly intellectual, must, then (occa-
sional mendacity apart), be due to one of three
causes : —

{a) Errors of observation or mistaken inferences — and
the actions of animals are very easily misapprehended.

ip) The possession by such animals of some power
or faculty which we have not, and therefore cannot
imagine.

{c) The possession by animals of an intellectual
nature like our own (making them truly moral and
responsible beings), which nature they are hindered
from making manifest externally, owing to the absence
of some requisite physical conditions. This view, in-
stead of degrading man to the level commonly assigned
to brutes, raises them to the level of mankind. It is

8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

nevertheless a view which appears to us to be absurdly
unwarranted and one not only without evidence but
against it.

(6) As to infants too young to show intelligence, and
as to savages so degraded (if any such there be) as not
to appear unequivocally intellectual, we judge of their
essential nature by the outcome of education in the first
case, and by the analogy of their fellow-men in the second
case. This outcome and this analogy lead us to credit
such infants and such savages with the possession of
a latent intellectual nature which physical conditions
(their undeveloped frame or their unfavourable environ-
ment) do not allow them to make externally manifest.
We judge the very opposite (also from outcome and
analogy) in the case of brutes.

(7) Thus we deem that no human state of existence,
however abnormal, can be really " brutal," and that the
psychical activity of no brute, however startling, can be
really " intellectual." We should expect, moreover, that
an adult human being, who could give no evidence of
rationality, would (being in an abnormal condition) be
capable of even less than a mere animal — the non-
intellectual condition of which is noj^mal. Similarly, the
possession of intellect, as well as passions and a power
of will, would lead us to expect to find occasionally
amongst mankind, more perverted and more profoundly
irrational actions than in the case of brutes, which, we
believe, have no voluntary power of applying their intel-
lectual and physical activities in consciously perverted
modes.

(8) We consider that it is congruous and according to

INTRODUCTORY.

analogy that our intellectual nature should require the
exercise of merely animal faculties as a condition pre-
cedent to manifestations of intellect. We so consider
because, in the first place, we find that the world of
plants, in order that they should live, require to possess,
as they do possess, the physical and chemical powers of
inorganic nature ; secondly, because we find that
animals need and possess, not only the physical and
chemical powers of inorganic nature, but also the vital
activities of plants, as well as their own specially animal
powers. We might then expect to find, as we do find,
that we men possess at one and the same time the
powers of the inorganic, vegetal, and animal worlds,
as well as the special faculties of human nature.

Having thus made profession of the biological and
psychological faith that is in us, we may proceed to
address ourselves to our task — an examination of
recent hypotheses, and especially a careful consideration
of Mr. Romanes's arguments. He relies mainly on the
phenomena said to be presented by infants and savages
to justify his assertion that such a gradual series of
transitions in psychical power exists between man and
brute, as suffices to make plain the fact that the differ-
ence between them is not one of " kind " — not a funda-
mental, essential difference — but merely one of "degree."

He starts by urging that there are four a priori
reasons in favour of his contention. Putting aside for
the moment the question as regards man, he tells us*
that "the process of organic and of mental evolution
has been continuous throughout the whole region of life."

* p. 4-

lo THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

*' On grounds of analogy, therefore," he adds, " we should
deem it antecedently improbable that the process of
evolution, elsewhere so uniform and ubiquitous, should
have been interrupted at its terminal phase."

But this continuity we altogether deny as regards
the domain of irrational nature, and whatever force his
argument has, tells (if we are right) directly against his
contention, instead of in favour of it. That there is an
absolute break between the living world and the world
devoid of life, is what scientific men are now agreed
about — thanks to the persevering labours of M. Pasteur.
Those who affirm that though life does not arise from
inorganic matter now, nevertheless it did so " a long time
ago," affirm what is at the least contrary to all the
evidence we possess, and they can bring forward nothing
more in favour of it than the undoubted fact that it is a
supposition which is necessary for the validity of their
own speculative views.* There is, then, one plain evidence
that there has been an interruption of continuity, if not
within the range of organic life, yet at its commence-
ment and origin. But we go further than this, and affirm,
without a moment's hesitation, that there has, and must
necessarily have been, discontinuity within the region of
organic life also. We refer to the discontinuity between
organisms which are capable of sensation and those
which do not possess the power of feeling.t That all the

* Thus, e.^., Dr. A. Weismann says, " I admit that spon-
taneous generation, in spite of all vain efforts to demonstrate it,
remains for me a logical necessity." See his "Essays upon
Heredity, etc." : Oxford, 1889.

t Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his recent work, "Darwinism," p. 475,
does not hesitate also to affirm this ; declaring it to be altogether

INTRODUCTORY.

higher animals " feel " will not be disputed. They give
all the external signs of sensitivity, and they possess
that special organic structure — a nervous system —
which we know supplies all our organs of sensation.
In the absence of any bodily mutilation, then, we
have no reason to suspect that their nervous system and
organs of sense do not act in a manner analogous to our
own. On the other hand, to affirm that the familiar
vegetables of our kitchen-gardens are all endowed with
sensitivity, is not only to make a gratuitous affirmation,
but one opposed to evidence, since no vegetable
organisms possess a nervous system ; and it is a uni-
versally admitted biological law, that structure and
function go together. If, then, there are any organisms
whatever which do not feel, while certain other organisms
do feel, then (as a door must be shut or open) there is,
and must be, a break and distinction between the one
set and the other.

Some persons may object : *' The transition is so
gradual, it is impossible to draw an exact line between
sentient and insentient organisms." Even if this assertion
be true, such an objection would be of no avail, because
an apparently continuous and uninterrupted course of
action is often not really such, but only seems to be
so on account of our organization — our very limited
power of vision. Let us suppose an action to take
place at precisely such a rate as to permit of our seeing

preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of
atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that alone, sensi-
tivity should arise. " Here," he tells us, " all idea of mere
complication of structure producing the result is out of the
question."

12 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

its steps separated from each other by just appreciable
intervals ; then we have but to suppose the period
needed for our nervous activity to be slightly increased,
and it would necessarily follow we could no longer
perceive the intervals, and the supposed action would
seem to be continuous — as does that of the hour-hand
of a clock. Let us next assume that a really interrupted
action is so slow that we cannot detect any separate
intervals and acts in its course ; we have but to suppose
the rapidity of our nervous activity increased, and we
should be able to clearly perceive them. So much for
continuity as to conditions of succession. As to the con-
tinuity of conditions of simultaneous existence, it is
notorious that the microscope is continually showing us
the existence of intervals and interruptions in what, to
our unaided senses, appears continuous. It is also
notorious that the universal presence of intervals and a
perpetual absence of continuity, is set forth as the real
condition of material existence by those thinkers who
are most earnest in denying the existence of an interval
between human and brute intelligence — namely, by all
those who uphold the mechanical theory of the universe.
For they believe that everything we know, even every
gas, is made up of a cluster of more or less widely
separated molecules and atoms.

But that absolute interruptions and really instan-
taneous actions do take place on all sides of us in nature,
is indisputable. Such is the case in every act of impreg-
nation, wherein there is, and must be, an instant before
and an instant after the contact of the ultimate sexual
elements. We have again, at a later reproductive stage.

INTRODUCTORY. 13

the final separation of the embryo from the body of the
parent. Universal and persistent continuity in nature
does not exist. There are distinct interruptions, some
of which our senses can perceive, while others are only
evident to our intellect through reasoning and mature
reflection.

But reason assures us, as we have already pointed
out, that if any real distinctions of " kind " exist at all,
there must be distinct steps and absolute breaks. For
the very essence of a nature or kind, is that it does not
admit of *' greater" or "less" — of augmentation or
diminution. It absolutely " is " or it absolutely " is not."
There is no possibility of any intermediate condition.
To assert that there may be a really intermediate con-
dition between death and life, or between absolute non-
sensitivity and sensuous existence, or between feeling
and thought, is covertly to beg the question and cate-
gorically to deny the absolute possibility of any dis-
tinctions of kind whatever. Just as the atomist writers,
before referred to, assert the existence of real material
breaks and differences of kind in what appears to our
senses to be one existing material whole, so we assert
the existence of real dynamic breaks and differences
of kind in what appears to our senses to be one
evolving dynamic whole. If any one chooses to assert
that stones are living things, accidentally prevented by
circumstances from showing forth their latent life, and
that all plants are sensitive beings, accidentally hin-
dered from making their sensitivity manifest, we cannot,
of course, refute him ; but we also cannot but regard
him as superstitious and credulous. We need not trouble

14 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

ourselves to controvert him, because " quod gratis
asseritur gratis negatur" and he has, and can have,
nothing but an d priori prejudice to bring forward in
support of his assertion.

Because we cannot actually see or feel the origin of
an intellectual nature or any other nature, no argument
thence arises against such origins, for we have no
experience and can know nothing, save by rational
inference, of any origin whatever. It may well be that
there have been a countless multitude of breaks and
distinct origins — one even for every species — hidden
beneath a process of evolution that appears to be
continuous to our sense perceptions. Reversing, there-
fore, Mr. Romanes's declaration, we say, " On grounds
of analogy we should deem it to be antecedently
probable that the process of evolution at its terminal
phase (the advent of the rational animal — man) had
been interrupted because it is continually interrupted
now, and has notably been interrupted at the intro-
duction of life, and again at that of sensitivity."

Mr. Romanes's second a priori analogical argument
reposes on the fact that every human individual goes
through " a process of gradual development and evolu-
tion, extending from infancy to manhood ; and that in
this process, which begins at a zero level of mental life
and may culminate in genius, there is nowhere and
never observable a sudden leap of progress, such as the
passage from one order of psychical being to another
might reasonably be expected to show. Therefore,"
he adds, " it is a matter of observable fact that, whether
or not human intelligence differs from animal in kind,

INTRODUCTORY. 15

it certainly does admit of gradual development from a
zero level."

But, as we have said, this is covertly to affirm the
very thing to be proved — that intellect can be gradually
developed from a zero level. We altogether deny that
it can, though a nature of a certain kind, existing ab
initio^ may only make its real nature plainly manifest
as impediments disappear and needful conditions for
its showing itself, become provided. No "order of
psychical being " is perceptible by us in itself, but only
through its effects ; and we know quite well (through
persons who, from accident or disease, are temporarily
or permanently deprived of speech or even reason) that
an "order of psychical being" may be certainly in
existence, and nevertheless unable, from accompanying
physical conditions, to make that existence manifest ;
while we also know (through the further education of
children already plainly intellectual) that one and the
same "order of psychical being" may become better
able to manifest its latent power through changes in its
environment, e.g., through education. Therefore the
indisputable fact that no " sudden leap " in individual
human evolution takes place, is an argument that the
same intellectual nature has existed from birth, and that
it is only changes in environmental agencies and bodily
growths — i.e. physical conditions — which have enabled
powers latent from the first, to more and more plainly
make themselves manifest. The fact that the psychical
differen(ie between the immature and the mature human
being is marked by no obvious and conspicuous interval,
while the difference between the psychical manifestations

1 6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

of man and brute is marked by an obvious and con-
spicuous interval, constitutes an d, priori argument in
favour of the existence of a difference of kind in the
second case, and not in the first.

The third a priori argument of our author * is the
following one : it is an "undeniable psychological fact "
that the human mind, in its individual development,
" ascends through a scale of mental faculties which are
parallel with those that are permanently presented by
the psychological species of the animal kingdom." Here
Mr. Romanes relies upon his own views as expressed by
his initial diagram. According to that diagram, an
infant of a week old has the memory of a starfish ; at
twelve weeks it is comparable in intelligence with a
frog, but in a fortnight more has mounted to the
mental level of a lobster ; at five' months it can " com-
municate its ideas" as freely as a bee, and in three
months more understands words and pictures as well as
a bird. All this we regard as quite fanciful and base-
less, and really unsustained by any of the arguments
adduced either in his previous works or in the present one.
We shall, by-and-by, meet with f facts brought forward
by Mr. Romanes himself (with respect to his own and
other children) which abundantly prove that infants of
a few months old, give unmistakable evidence that they
possess a really intellectual nature and true abstract
ideas.

Man is an animal,J and, therefore, he might be

* P- 5- t See below, chaps, iv. and v.

We cannot in this chapter afford space to consider at length
Mr. Romanes's assertions about animals ; but we may most briefly
advert to the entirely unsatisfactory nature of some of them.

INTRODUCTORY.

expected to undergo (as he does undergo) an anatomical
and sensuous development similar to what we find in
those animals, the adult condition of which he most
nearly resembles. But even here there is a startling
difference. In no known apes are the young nearly so
slow in their bodily development as children are, and in
no mere animals do the psychical powers shoot forward
so wonderfully in advance of bodily evolution as they
do in man. These facts we rely upon with confidence
as affording another strong a priori probability the
exact reverse of that for which Mr. Romanes believes
he has found evidence.

The fourth and last ci priori argument of our authof
is drawn from the fact that " the intelligence of the
[human] race has been subject to a steady process of
gradual development" in the arts and appliances of life.
Therefore, he urges, since mental evolution has con-
tinued in man since he first appeared, we must deem it
probable that it continued before he appeared, and so
produced him. But here again the facts seem to us to

Birds are compared for intelligence with infants eight months old ;
but how great is the divergence between different birds as to their
psychical powers! Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants, aphides,
ichneumons, etc.) are compared with infants of five months : but
how great, again, is the difference between an entirely sluggish
cochineal insect and an ant ! Instead of these circumstances
tending to prove that there is no difference of kind between man
and brute, it might rather indicate that different kinds of animals
have a radically different fundamental nature, and that however
their bodily form may have been — to our sense perceptions — ■
continuously evolved from that of antecedent species, the formation
of their really essential nature has been due to some discon-
tinuous action parallel with, however inferior in intensity or degree
to, that which has formed the essential nature of man himself.

i8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

establish an d priori probability of an exactly opposite
kind.

Though it is not true that all races of men, or that
most of them, are and still less have ever been, thus
continuously progressive ; and though it is true that a
certain enlargement of brain, and probably an increase
in practical intelligence, have taken place in animals,
yet the difference as to psychical advance between men
and animals is vast. In no species of mere animal have
we an approximation towards the evidence of advance —
since that species existed as a species — which is com-
parable with the advance which some races of men
have made.

Herein we find a difference which we cannot measure,
and the probability which thence naturally arises is
that there must be a difference of kind, and not of
degree, between creatures whose capacities are so
extraordinarily diverse.

Taking, then, these several a priori considerations
together, they must, in our opinion, be fairly held to
make out a very strong prima facie case in favour of
the view that there has been a positive interruption of
the developmental process in the course of psychological
history, and that the mind of man can never have been
evolved from the sensitive faculties of any brute. For
these considerations show, not only that on analogical
grounds such an interruption must be held to be in
itself probable, but also that there are facts with respect
to the human mind which are quite incompatible with
the supposition of its having been slowly evolved ;
seeing that no race in human history is known to have

INTRODUCTORY. 19

undergone the process in question, and that no indi-
vidual mind does undergo it now.

In order to overturn so great a presumption as is
thus created on d, priori grounds, the biologist may fairly
be called upon to supply some very powerful considera-
tions of an i posteriori kind, tending to show that the
general consent of civilized mankind * is wrong in
denying to brute beasts those truly intellectual, voli-
tional, and moral faculties which it is commonly
supposed that they do not in fact possess.

In proceeding with his argument, Mr. Romanes re-
marks on the emotional resemblance between animals
and man. This we have always not only admitted, but
affirmed, as being a necessary consequence of the
corporeal nature common to man and beast. Never-
theless, though the sensations and lower emotions of
both are probably similar, it is not so with the higher
emotions,! which depend upon distinct intellectual and
moral perceptions. Thus we are convinced that Mr.
Romanes errs in attributing to animals % the emotion
of the "ludicrous," since that emotion essentially de-
pends on an intellectual perception ; though emotional
excitement and facial contortions more or less like
those of man, may be induced in some animals, espe-
cially in apes, by tickling. Such " laughter," however,
is radically § different from a feeling of the ludicrous

* Some of the lower races of mankind think little of the
distinction between themselves and the brute creation (see "On
Truth," p. 497). The appreciation of man's exceptional dignity
has grown with civilization.

t See " On Truth," p. 221. | p. 7.

§ See the Forum for July, 1887, p. 492.

20 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

— always accompanied by some perception of incon-
gruity.

Similarly with regard to the instincts which are con-
cerned in nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, and
the rearing of progeny, Mr. Romanes says,* " No one
has ventured to dispute that all these instincts are
identical with those which we observe in the lower
animals/' But, so far from wishing to dispute this
identity, we have again and again affirmed it to be a
necessary result of similarity of bodily organization.
Reason, however, is one thing and instinct another,! a
matter we shall have to deal with later on.

Soon, however, we come to a startling misstatement
as to the cognitive powers.J Mr. Romanes says, §
"Enormous as the difference undoubtedly is between
these faculties in the two cases, the difference is con-
ceded\ not to be one of kind ab initio!' But with
our utmost power of insistance we deny this, and
affirm that man's nature is intellectual, and absolutely
differs in kind from that of the highest brute, from
the first moment of his existence.

Another noteworthy assertion occurs on the same
page. Mr. Romanes says, "It belongs to the very
essence of evolution, considered as a process, that

* pp. 7, 8.

t See "On Truth," pp. 175, 184, 358-365, 427, 515-518.

% We say " cognitive powers " to avoid any possibility of in-
justice to Mr. Romanes. He, indeed, speaks of " the faculties
of the intellect," but in a note (p. 8) declares that he does not use
that term in a " question begging sense," but only to avoid " coin-
ing a new term." Without doing this, he might have availed
himself of our term, "sense perception,*' or "sensuous cognition."

§ p. 9. I! The itaUcs are ours.

INTRODUCTORY. 21

when one order of existence passes on to higher grades
of excellence, it does so upon the foundations already
laid by the previous course of its progress." This is
equivalent to saying that it is of the essence of evolu-
tion that there is no such thing as a distinction of kind
at all, so that to assert evolution is, for him, to assume
as certain the very point which he has to prove.

The true statement of the case should, we think, be
very different, and we would express it as follows :
When a higher order of existence succeeds to others
of lower grades, it does so upon the foundation already
laid by preceding existences of lower orders. Thus
the vegetative nature of a plant manifests itself upon
the foundation already laid by the preceding inorganic
world, in the powers and properties of which it participates.
The sensitive nature of an animal manifests itself upon
the foundation already laid by the preceding inorganic
and vegetative worlds, in the powers and properties of
both of which it participates. Similarly the rational
nature of man manifests itself upon the foundation
already laid by the preceding inorganic, vegetative, and
animal worlds, in the powers and properties of all three
of which man, in turn, participates.

Moreover, although each distinction of kind is abso-
lute, and must be due to a distinct origin, nevertheless
the higher forms of each superior kind present us, in a
way for which " natural selection " will not account, with
a sort of adumbration of the superior kind which has
to follow it, and the advent of which it thus, as it were,
predicts. Thus in crystals and such forms as dolomite
and spathic iron, we have an adumbration of organic

22 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

forms ; in the insectivorous plants (^Drosera and Dioncea,
and various others *) we have an adumbration of animal
life ; in the relatively complex higher Protozoa we have
structures (radically different in kind) which are an
adumbration of the organs of the Metazoa ; in the
Marsupials we meet with adumbrations of various
orders of placental mammals. Again, amongst the
latter, the lowly organized lemurs so prepare the way
for the apes that they were classed in one order
with them, and not even separated into a sub-order
by themselves, till we ourselves so separated them.f
However distinct, then, man may be, analogy would
lead us to expect to find amongst animals, some which
so far approach, and simulate in a lower order, human
characteristics, as to constitute a foreshadowing, or
adumbration, of man himself

After quoting,J with seeming approval, a passage
from a presidential address delivered by us (to the
British Association, at Sheffield, in 1879), but objecting
to a criticism on Professor Huxley therein contained,§

* See " On Truth," p. 335.

t See " Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1864," P- 635.

X p. 10.

§ Speaking of the sensations of animals, Professor Huxley had
said (" Critiques and Addresses," p. 282), " What is the value of
the evidence which leads one to believe that one's fellow-man feels ?
The only evidence in this argument from analogy is the similarity
of his structure and of his actions to one's own, and if that is good
enough to prove that one's fellow-man feels, surely it is good
enough to prove that an ape feels," etc. We (who assert as
much as Professor Huxley can do) that animals truly feel, had
criticized this statement, saying, " Surely it is not by similarity of
structure or actions, but by language that men are placed in com-
munication with one another." This criticism of ours Mr. Romanes

INT ROD UCTOR V. 23

he goes on to observe that animals are capable of no
small degree of ratwdnatwn, "if we use the term
Reason in its true, as distinguished from its tradi-
tional 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 sufferings 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 anaes-
thetic. However eloquent they may be, they may be ambiguous
in a way which conscious verbal declarations cannot be. More-
over, 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 hotninem, the following contradiction of the
Professor's assertion by Descartes himself : " II n'y a aucune de
nos actions extdrieures qui puisse assurer ceux qui les examinent
que notre corps n'est pas seulement une machine qui a remu^, de
soi meme, mais qu'il y a aussi en lui une ame qui a des pens^es,
except^ les paroles, ou autres signes faits k propos de sujets, qui
se prdsentent, sans se rapporter k aucune passion " (" (Euvres de
Descartes," par Victor Cousin, vol. ix. p. 724 ; cited by Professor
Max Miiller in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889, P- 4oSj
note 5).

24 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

" 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 in-
ferential. 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 filtogether to distinguish between
those mere associations of feelings and emotions in
animals which may produce an unconscious ex-
pectant feeling of sensations to come,* occasioned by
some feelings already excited (the practical inference f
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

* See " On Truth," p. 195. f Ibid., p. 345-

J p. 12. § See " On Truth," pp. 388, 487.

INTROJPUCrORY. 25

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 dis-
regarded ; for it appears to be sufficiently disposed of by
the following remark of Bureau de la Malle : * Si les
animaux n'etaient pas susceptibles d'apprendre les mo-
yens de se conserver, les especes se seraient aneanties.' "

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 freshly-
hatched 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 sup-
posed 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.f

But though the zeal with which our author endea-
vours to establish his thesis thus causes him every now
* p. 12. t See below, chapter iii.

26 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

and then to commit regrettable indiscretions, we fre-
quently 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 intel-
lectual 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 con-
sidered 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 accord-
ingly 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 exist-
ence 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 un-
imaginable, 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. i8.

INTRODUCTORY, 27

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,t 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 t

If once \hQ 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. 1 1 i-i 13, 41 1.

t " Darwinism," pp. 461-476. % Ibid., p. 476.

§ See " On Truth," pp. 507-510.

28 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

or power of the material world, why not also for the
origin of man ? It is impossible for us to picture such
action and agency, because the requisite anterior ex-
perience is lacking to us, and we cannot imagine what
we have never had any experience of Whatever mental
picture we frame for ourselves of such action and agency
must, our reason assures us, be unreal and false ; but
that is no ground for our not accepting the real existence
of an action and agency which we cannot picture. It has
been objected, by Professor Tyndall, against such con-
ceptions, that they cannot be " mentally visualized ; "
but so far is this condition from being a proof of
delusion, that we may rather say, whatever in such
matters can be " mentally visualized " is necessarily
untrue, and it is often the more untrue the better it can
be so " visualized."

If such a prejudice, such a gross and manifest delu-
sion of the mere imagination, thus possesses the mind
of a distinguished physicist, a general commander in
science, it is no wonder that it besets the rank and file
of the scientific regiments. When we say that reason
indicates the existence of an immaterial principle as
forming that in every material existence which is
active and dynamical (so that in each organism it is
rather that principle than any combination of matter,
which may be said to constitute such organism),* we
are met by the protest, " Such teaching is not science."
But the protest is an unreasonable one, and directly
contradictory of the truth. For what is science } It is
and must be the highest and most certain knowledge
* See " On Truth,' p. 432.

INTRODUCTORY. 29

attainable by us. Now, our most careful and complete
investigations in all departments of nature are science —
physical sciences of different kinds— but they are not
and cannot be the highest science, or science par
excellence^ for they do not embody the " most certain
knowledge." Observations and experiments are of the
greatest value ; nevertheless, in the last resort, when we
have done observing and experimenting, we depend for
the result entirely on our knowledge of absolute and
necessary truths. Were it not for our implicit know-
ledge of such truths, we could not know that we had
ascertained the facts we had ascertained ; neither could
we know their necessary bearings and the most certain
deductions from them.

Science has to do with self-evident, necessary truths
— first principles which underlie and maintain every
kind of physical science. When, then, truths seen by
the intellect to contain their own evidence, or which
result from reasoning logically carried on, are declared
to be uncertain, or even false, because they do not agree
with what is (by a confusion of terms) called " the
scientific imagination," as great an absurdity is com-
mitted as if it were said that it must be false that any
vessel has gone directly against the wind, because a
sailing vessel is unable so to do.

It is, of course, true that mechanical conceptions
have been and are of great utility. It is, therefore, not
only permissible, but laudable, to make use of them as
working hypotheses. But it is a very different thing
to represent them as absolute truths. Yet much of
what is often spoken of as "science" is really un-

30 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

deserving of that name — it is an attempt to inculcate
the truth of such hypotheses, and to "picture" and
" visualize," in terms of sense perceptions, matters which
reason tells us are altogether beyond the power of sense-
perception.* Thus it is deemed especially " scientific "
to regard all the phenomena of nature as being essen-
tially nothing but matter and motion. Whereas, in trying
so to regard them we are but " following the line of least
resistance," and yielding to the temptation of dwelling
upon those imaginations which experience has made
easiest for us. f It is this which causes the mind to take so
readily to the idea of motion, and to feel "at home" therein.
Hence the favour with which mechanical theories of
the universe are accepted, and vibrating molecules and
atoms regarded with special favour. A firm faith in
"small balls in motion" is deemed a faith which unless
a man keep whole and. undefiled he shall without doubt
perish everlastingly from the roll of scientific worthies.
It is, indeed, a short cut to seeming knowledge when
a man can allow his imagination to " visualize " variously
moving balls of various sizes, and then with mental satis-
faction exclaim, " That is feeling ! " " That is thought ! "
Yet to say that the fidelity and affection of the dog, the
maternal care of the nesting bird, or the actions of the
insect which prepares food it cannot eat for a progeny
it will never behold — to say that such things (to say
nothing of intellectual conceptions) are but minute
motions to be explained by mechanics, is to mock us
with unmeaning or delusive phrases.

* See " On Truth," pp. 89, loi, 127, 128.
t Ibid., pp. 193,410,411,443.

IN TROD UCTOR Y. 3 1

We are in this nineteenth century only beginning to
get free from that dark cloud of materialism which
shrouded the latter half of the eighteenth. But the
cloud is passing, and we may already, here and there,
catch a glimpse of its silver lining. When it has finally
vanished, thinking men will once more appreciate what
science really means, and look back with even more
wonder than contempt at not a few of the so-called
"scientific speculations" of our day — as Aristotle
despised the materialism his system combated and
ultimately for ages subdued.

The name of Aristotle suggests an answer to yet
another prejudice which the candid seeker after truth
has now to struggle against, and about which a few
preliminary words need saying. We refer to theological
prejudice. The popular science of the day is truly
*' denominational." The odium antitheologicum has be-
come established and endowed, and, as men are ordinarily
under the temptation to consider others like themselves,
the opponents of a mechanical theory of the universe
are accused of working, not in the interest of philosophic
truth, but of a creed. We ourselves have had such
accusations hurled against us, with others who have
been declared to be scientific workers for whom things
" ought to be made unpleasant."

With a view, therefore, to guarding against such a
system of *' poisoning the wells," we think it incumbent
upon us to make a brief statement concerning this
matter.

No one has more decidedly and uncompromisingly
asserted the difference of nature between man and beast

32 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

than has Aristotle. Yet no one can pretend that he
was actuated by theological prejudice in arriving at the
conclusions he did arrive at. It is quite otherwise with
the most prominent advocates of the bestiality of man
That doctrine has again and again been declared to be,
for them, a necessary doctrine. They speak truly ; for
to establish the separate and essentially distinct nature
and origin of man, is practically to refute the me-
chanical theory of the universe. With the proclamation
of man's essential rationality, the folly of the main-
tainers of that theory is simultaneously proclaimed.

Thus the assertion of man's bestiality is the very
artiadus stantis vel cadentis eccelsicB for the whole school
which numbers amongst its followers, Darwin, Haeckel,
Vogt, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, and Prof. Lan-
kester. But it is very different as regards their opponents.
We, at least, are by no means bound, in the interest of
any Church or system, to maintain that an essential
difference of nature and origin does exist between
man and brute. We are free, the most Ultramontane
Catholic is absolutely and entirely free, to hold that
the saint and the philosopher, the faithful hound and
the tormenting parasite, all possess a fundamentally
common nature, and that an analogous immortal des-
tiny awaits them all. This we do not believe ; but
our disbelief is grounded upon science and philosophy
alone, and theological convictions have no part or share
therein.

Again, as to early man, the most fervent Catholic,
who deems that man has an essentially distinct nature,
is none the less absolutely and entirely free to hold that

INTRODUCTORY. 33

creatures in all minute degrees and shades of physical
distinction between an anthropoid ape and man, might
have existed for untold ages, such creatures approxi-
mating more and more by the increasing complexity of
their actions, and perhaps by their articulate cries, to
man who was yet " to be." He is, further, perfectly free
to hold that when at last the time came for the
advent of the human anirpal, that animal, possessing an
essentially rational nature, might nevertheless have long
existed before the circumstances of his environment
rendered it possible for him to display in act his potential
rationality as set before us in Adam. His progeny,
again, the men of long prehistoric times, may be deemed*
to have dwelt in lands entirely uncultivated, with no
weapons but sticks and unchipped stones, as unable to
hunt as to till, and destitute of every kind of art. He
also not only may, but should, further hold that speech
was the spontaneous product of a being of the kind —
that he evolved a language insignificant as to the
number of its terms, it may be at the lowest grade
possible for a creature who could think at all.

What more " freedom of thought " in this direction
can science possibly require ?

But although, in the interests of truth and fairness,
we have thus drawn out what such a believer may
consistently hold, we desire distinctly to state that we
ourselves do not hold it. We attribute to early man

* That the reader may see this is no exaggeration, he is referred
to a paper (first published in Le Museon) by the Rev. Mon-
seigneur de Harlez (Professor of Sanscrit at the University of
Louvain), entitled, "La Civilisation de I'humanitd Primitive"
(Charles Peeters, Louvain, 1886).

D

34 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

higher powers and more developed faculties ; but most
assuredly we attribute such powers to him, not on the
strength of, or as a concession to, any theological dogma,
but simply because, in our poor judgment, the balance
of argument seems to incline that way.

We do not, of course, for a moment wish dogmati-
cally to affirm that early man was so conditioned ; but
we believe him to have been so — while we remain quite
ready to reject that belief and accept the opposite view
as soon as ever we meet with evidence which seems to
us sufficient to justify our so doing.

Having made this preliminary statement and expla-
nation of our own views and position, we will proceed,
without further preface, to address ourselves to the
examination of Mr. Romanes's psychological views.

( 35 )

CHAPTER 11.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES.

The whole attempt of Mr. Romanes to show that the
intellect of man is but a development from the psychical
power of brutes, reposes upon his mode of representing
the various orders and degrees of cognition and intelli-
gence, and this again rests upon his analysis and
classification of mental states and processes. By
dividing and subdividing these according to a certain
system, by ignoring various more important distinctions
which exist between some of them, and by exaggerating
the significance of some minor differences, he is enabled
to draw out what, to the unwary, may look like a tran-
sitional series of psychical states. On this account it is
absolutely necessary that we should examine with great
care the whole of the three chapters (his second, third
and fourth chapters) which he devotes mainly to psycho-
logical analysis. In this section, however, he anticipates,
to a certain extent, what has to follow in his section on
language,* while in the latter he carries out further
and more completely elucidates, his own psychological
views. In our present chapter, therefore, we also cannot
quite neglect the subject of language, nor, when we
* His chaps, v., vi., vii., viii., and ix.

^6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

come to treat of the latter, can we be altogether dis-
pensed from reverting occasionally to questions about
mental states and processes.

Although he does not treat of "self-consciousness"
till he comes to his tenth chapter, yet in a summary
which he gives of his first four chapters he speaks * of it
as the faculty "whereby the mind is able, as it were,
to stand apart from itself, to render one of its states
objective to others, f and thus to contemplate its own
ideas as such." Now, we should very much like to
know what are " the other states " which thus examine
*' the one," and what is " the one " which has thus the
power of passing the "ideas " in review .-* Surely, at the
beginning of a treatise on psychological analysis and
classification, it is imperatively necessary to try and
make the reader understand the fundamental facts
and principles upon which his classification reposes, and
how and why it is that what is represented as being
such a passive abstraction as a mere " state," should be
credited with action and searching power of a " faculty."

Mr. Romanes expressly repudiates such questions on
the ground that they are " quite alien to the scope " of
his work. We, on our part, think we have good ground
to complain of such repudiation, seeing that Mr.
Romanes expressly adopts a very distinct philosophical
system. He could not give to the psychical states he
describes even the appearance of a transitional character
from " sense " to " intellect," but that he starts by
assuming the system of Locke. To affirm that system,
however, is to affirm that every group of faint, or revived,
* p. 397- t The italics are ours.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 37

sensations is an " idea " ; and since every brute * has
such groups of feelings, the point in dispute is thereby
at once assumed.

Mr. Romanes affirms, and professes to agree with his
opponents in affirming, that the presence of " self-con-
sciousness " is the line of demarcation between man and
brute. We might fairly expect, then, that he should have
some clear apprehension of that which he thus puts
forward as so important. Yet he candidly avows f that
it is a problem "which does not admit of solution."
Now, the one task which Mr. Romanes has undertaken,
the one object of his whole book, is to show that the
difference between a self-conscious being and one with-
out self-consciousness is a difference not of kind, but of
degree. Yet, instead of placing before us, as we think
he should, his convictions as to consciousness, he post-
pones his consideration of that faculty till he comes to
his tenth chapter,}: and then declines to grapple with it,
retreating, as we shall see, into a profession of Idealism.
Yet Idealism is fatal to his position, which is essentially
that of a materialist. We did not, of course, expect to
find in Mr. Romanes's book a treatise on philosophy ;
but we did expect to find a statement of principles, and
one not inconsistent with the position he had taken up.
Chemistry and mathematics are different sciences ; but
nevertheless, if in a chemical treatise statements are

* Mr. Romanes states (p. 395) that "nowadays no one
questions " that such phenomena are " common to animals and to
men." We should Hke to know what philosopher ever questioned
it, save some follower of Descartes? By all the Scholastics it
would not only have been unquestioned, but positively affirmed.

f p. 104. + See below, bur chapter iv.

38 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

made which involve mathematical error, the assertion
that mathematics are " alien to the scope " of a work on
chemistry will neither save the credit of the chemist
nor that of his statements. We will for the present
abstain from any further criticism on this matter, after
thus briefly calling attention to what appears to us to be
a very noteworthy and significant evidence of some
fundamental confusion of mind.

That section of the work which is mainly devoted to
an examination of mental states is divided into a
chapter (the second chapter) on " Ideas," one on
"The Logic of Recepts," and one on "The Logic of
Concepts."

In his second chapter,* Mr. Romanes applies himself
to the task of describing various kinds of mental pro-
cesses, and presenting them f in a tabular form. All
these he calls " ideas," and by the very mode in which
he uses this term he at once really lays the foundation
of what we deem his subsequent errors — a foundation
he amplifies by his unintentionally misleading treatment
of the mental processes he so names.

He begins by quoting and accepting, as before said,
certain declarations of Locke respecting the psychical
processes of men and animals, thus at once assuming the
very position which we, his selected opponents, deem to
be the most profoundly mistaken one. For we regard
Locke and Descartes as twin sophists, upon whose con-
fused and misleading notions, as upon a foundation,
subsequent writers have again and again tried in vain
to rear a durable and consistent system of philosophy.
* p. 20. t p. 39-

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 39

But we make our appeal to the reason and common
sense of our readers alone, and deliberately put aside all
authorities of whatsoever kind.* We decline not only

* Mr. Romanes rather strangely asserts (p. 22) that " Realism
was gradually vanquished by Nominalism." The fact is that
during the period of their struggles, Nominalism twice raised its
head and was twice defeated, and at the time when, with the
Renaissance, all scholastic disputes went out of fashion, moderate
Realism had conquered all along the line. All the followers of
Thomas Aquinas, and all the followers of his critic Scotus, were
opposed to Nominahsm, and they prevailed. In fact, Nominalism
never got the upper hand, never had any standing, in the schools.
Of course, with the neglect of Philosophy which accompanied the
rise of Cartesianism, Nominalism (with almost every other
exploded error) once more raised its head. This was not wonder-
ful, seeing that its founder, Descartes, never understood, never
even studied, the Aristotelian system, which, having gone out of
fashion, was soon simply thrust aside and neglected by the
Cartesians and by their contemporaries and followers here and
on the continent, from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, etc., to Hegel,
Spencer, and Cousin. Nominalism was argued down, and argued
off the field. It never argued its way back, but simply reappeared,
as a noxious weed may reappear in a field left uncultivated, or
cultivated according to mistaken methods. Some of the arguments
used against Nominalism were as follows : (i) Had not the
intellect universal ideas, common nouns would be meaningless,
whereas consciousness tells us we have a meaning in using them
beyond denoting an individual or a collection of individuals, and
more than a mere material sound ; for a common noun in an
unknown foreign language has no meaning for us. (2) There is
no sign which does not signify something ; pruts est esse qiiam
significari; and unless we had in the mind something distinct from
the individual, the collection, and the material sound, no such sign
would ever have existed. We have no signs for the absolutely
unknown — e.g.^ for classes of animals in the planet Mars — and
mental perception must precede the use of signs, which would also
be useless unless their connection with what they signify was
understood. (3) The most ultra-Nominalists must admit that they
possess . the faculty of perceiving the general nature of certain
entities — namely, of certain words. Were the human mind incap-
able of perceiving the universal, this would be impossible. But

40 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

to follow Locke, but to follow any one, whoever he
may be.

Mr. Romanes tells us that he passes "on to consider
the only distinction which can be properly drawn
between human and brute psychology. . . . The dis-
tinction has been clearly enunciated, from Aristotle

if we can perceive the general nature of certain words and classes
of words, why not of other entities also? (4) We can perceive
similitudes between certain objects, therefore we can perceive the
universal, for every similitude perceived, reveals our power of
perception of the same quality, or essential lineament, in distinct
individuals, i.e. an universal. (5) The Nominalists admitted that
we have collective ideas ; but collective ideas presuppose the per-
ception of the universal, without which no '^number" and no
" aggregate of individuals " could be recognized as such. (6) Again,
it was said. Nominalism destroys all certainty, for if nothing
objective corresponded to our terms, we could know nothing but
subjective modifications, and this would destroy the validity of
the law of contradiction. If the term and idea " being" represents
nothing objective, the whole system of truth disappears. (7) It
was also objected that Nominalism was fatal to all science, which
necessarily treats of order and laws arising from certain common
properties, or similar essential characteristics, perceived to exist in
individuals. Science, even physical, is primarily concerned with
what is abstract and universal, and has always to fall back upon it
in the ultimate analysis ; but if the universal has no objective reality,
science becomes a mere lusiis mentis — a contemplation of a mental
panorama of worthless, because truthless, figments. (8) Nominalists
were also taxed with confusing the objects of cognition with
the means of cognition ; objects being known directly through (by
means of) our mental aff"ections, and not mediately., as results of
mental affections which are themselves primarily cognized — a
position from which, of course. Idealism follows, such as that from
Berkeley and Hume, through Kant and Fichte, to our last living
representatives thereof. By such arguments the Schoolmen com-
pletely extinguished the Nominalists, who tried by endless quibbles
to avoid being forced into that Idealistic Scepticism which reduces
science to a knowledge of distinct, individual modifications in a
state of chaotic disorder, since it affirms no real objective relations
of interdependence, or of any other kind.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 41

downwards, but I may best render it in the words of
Locke : — ' It may be doubted, whether beasts compound
and enlarge their ideas that way to any degree ; this, I
think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstract-
ing is not at all in them.' "

Mr. Romanes, by this quotation, introduces to the
mind of his reader the suggestion that beasts have
" ideas," and that " our ideas " are things similar to the
" ideas " of brutes, only compounded and enlarged.*
And this suggestion is quietly introduced, as if it was a
simple, uncontested matter, instead of being a doctrine
which his opponents regard as a fatal and radical error.

We define an idea as " a similitude of any object or
action, generated in and by the intellect," and distin-
guish it fundamentally from a sense-perception, which
we define as " the phantasm of an object or action
generated in and by the imagination."

The passage quoted contains, further, the following
statement as to brutes : " If they have any ideas at all,
and are not bare machines (as some would have them),
we cannot deny them to have some reason. It seems
evident to me, that they do some of them in certain
instances reason, as that they have sense ; but it is only
in particular ideas, just as they received them from their
senses. They are the best of them tied up within those

* We do not, of course, object to the term " idea " being used
in so broad a sense as to include both intellectual and sense per-
ceptions, if a distinction is carefully drawn between the term as
used in a wide and in a strict sense. Such a distinction, carefully-
maintained, would obviate the confusion to which we object. But
that confusion is part of the very system of Mr. Romanes, and
hence his mode of using the term.

42 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

narrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty to
enlarge them by any kind of abstraction." Here again
we have a passage which, if allowed to pass unchal-
lenged, would provide all the materials most essential
to construct such a temple of error as Mr. Romanes has,
in our opinion, reared. We affirm that no brute gives
evidence that it possesses any " idea," any power of
" abstraction," or any faculty of " reasoning ; " as also
that our " ideas " are not formed by the compounding
or enlargement of anything which we have in common
with the brutes. None the less, we not only most freely
allow, but we positively affirm, that brutes possess com-
plex groups of associated sensations and emotions ; *
that, in their way, they can apprehend not only indi-
vidual creatures, but kinds of creatures, and, by their
feelings and resulting actions, can draw what may be
called "practical inferences." That by this we mean
something very different from what Mr. Romanes means,
is shown by our utterly different positions as regards
the relations of the human intellect.

Our own meaning we will do our best, as we pro-
ceed, to make perfectly clear. Mr. Romanes begins- by
observing,t "Psychologists are agreed that what they

* This is, indeed, all that Mr. Herbert Spencer would allow to
man. His " Psychology," upon which his whole philosophy reposes
(as he himself declares), is one continued endeavour to resolve
our higher faculties into our lower by ignoring intellect altogether.
Mr. Romanes is, we believe, a devout and faithful disciple of Mr.
Herbert Spencer, and it is, of course, easy enough to derive man's
highest faculties from his lower, if by the former be understood (as
Mr. H. Spencer understands) nothing but certain groups of his
lower faculties.

t p. 22.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 43

call particular ideas, or ideas of particular objects, are
of the nature of mental images, or memories of such
objects — as when the sound of a friend's voice brings
before my mind the idea of that particular man.
Psychologists are further agreed that what they term
general ideas arise out of an assemblage of particular
ideas, as when from my repeated observation of numer-
ous individual men I form the idea of Man." In this
passage there is an ambiguity against which it is
necessary to be on our guard if we would avoid con-
fusion of thought. It is, of course, quite true that
general ideas, or " universals," only arise in our mind
after we have experienced corresponding groups of
sense-impressions. The ideas "camel," " triangle," etc.,
cannot arise in us before we have had visual or auditory
impressions related to one or the other. We must first
have seen, felt, or heard descriptions of such things.
Therefore, in a certain loose and inaccurate way of
speaking, such ideas may be said to arise "out of" such
sense-impressions. But this by no means implies that
they consist of them, and " are " but assemblages of
such impressions further aggregated or otherwise modi-
fied. Nevertheless, to use the expression " arise out of
them" does lend itself to and favour this latter meaning,
which we shall see directly is the meaning of Mr.
Romanes himself. He continues as follows : " Hence,
particular ideas answer to percepts, while general ideas
answer to concepts : An individual perception (or its
repetition) gives rise to its mnemonic equivalent as a
particular idea ; while a group of similar, though not
altogether similar perceptions, gives rise to its mne-

44 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

monic equivalent as a conception, which, therefore, is
but another name for a general idea, thus generated by
an assemblage of particular ideas." * Here again the
word " generated " is an equivocal expression. What
follows, however, is clear and unequivocal. He says,
"Just as Mr. Galton's method of superimposing on the
same sensitive plate a number of individual images gives
rise to a blended photograph, wherein each of the indi-
vidual constituents is partially and proportionally repre-
sented ; so in the sensitive tablet of the memory,
numerous images of previous perceptions are fused
together into a single conception, which then stands as
a composite picture, or class-representation, of these its
constituent images."

These superimposed images we have elsewhere care-
fully referred to,t and have distinguished such affections

* p. 23.

t See "On Truth," pp. 103, 191, 206. In addition to the
power we have through each sense-organ to apprehend its own
special object {e.g. colour through the eye, tone through the ear, etc.),
our consentience (and therefore that of animals also), is affected in
an analogous and to a certain degree similar manner, by the same
object felt through different sense-organs [e.g. a triangle as seen or
felt, or a fox as seen or smelt), owing to previous associations of
sensations, and which object thus comes to be apprehended by this
iniernal feeling. Similarly the several synchronous impressions
which have been received from different objects all of the same
kind, give rise to a corresponding, more or less vague or blurred,
internal impression (analogous to a Galton photograph). Such a
photograph, however, whatever may be the number of individuals
from which it is constructed, remains, after all, a strictly individual
thing — a single particular impression. It is the same with the image
of the imagination, which is only called '^sensuous universal" by
analogy, and which, of course, is not truly general or " universal " at
all. It is only a particular image, which, from the mode of its produc-
tion and the purposes it serves, has an analogy with true universals.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 45

as "sensuous universals" from true " universals," and
pointed out how utterly distinct they are in nature from
" ideas." That the idea of any object — e.g.^ a horse — is
not a mere amalgam of modified imaginations, or a
generalized mental image, is plain from the fact that the
imaginations which have helped to call it forth may per-
sist in the mind side by side with it, which they evidently
could never do if the idea was made up of such imagi-
nations. Neither can our idea of a horse be an
imagination generated by antecedent impressions and
imaginations, for the notions implicitly contained within
it show it to be something of an altogether different
kind. The notions we refer to are those of " existence,"
"similarity," "distinction," "unity," "truth," "materi-
ality," "life," and "animal existence of a certain kind."
Such things are beyond the domain of the senses, and
cannot be contained in any mere images or sense-
impressions. For a proof that these notions are
really contained in the idea, the reader is referred
to our previous work, wherein the fundamental differ-
ences between " ideas " and " groups of feelings " are
more fully drawn out — in a way which cannot here
be repeated at length for lack of space. We claim
to have shown that ideas differ from such feelings
by their simplicity ; * by the same idea being capable
of elicitation by different senses,t while different ideas
may accompany a single set of sensations. Ideas are
abstract, t reflective, § and self-perceptive, while they
cannot be too intense. Ideas may remain the same,

* See " On Truth," p. io6. t Ibid., pp. 107, 116.

X Ibid, pp. 207, 212. § Ibid., pp. 207, 216.

46 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

while the sensations which accompany them change.*
They are apprehensions of abstract qualities grouped
round a unity, t and can perceive the " whatness " of
things. X Ideas are not tied down to sense and imagi-
nation, § but can exceed sensuous experience, || while
they can perceive existence, which sense cannot. IT
There is one idea, *' being," at the root of all,** while
there is no corresponding one fundamental sensation.
Ideas are relatively multitudinous ft compared with
sensations. Sensations become associated according to
the proximity in place or time of their occurrence, but
ideas may be associated according to their logical
relations.Jt The intellect, unlike feeling, can recognize
the truth, goodness, beauty, or objective necessity of its
acts,§§ as well as its own supremacy,!! II while it can
recognize itself as the energy of a unity ITIF which is
essentially inorganic.***

It has been said that ideas are only groups of
feelings to which names have been assigned, and that
the only unity and distinctness about them is the unity
and distinctness of the name. " A name," it is objected,
"is of course very different from a group of feelings,
but there is nothing which is one and distinct, beyond
such feelings, save only the word or name." This
objection we have already met,ttt and have shown that
mental conceptions are both logically and historically

* See " On Truth," p. io6. f Ibid., p. 207.

X Ibid., p. 211. § Ibid., pp. 89-101.

II Ibid., pp. 109, no, 217. 1 Ibid., p. 208.

** Ibid., p. 209. tt Ibid., p. 210. %% Ibid., p. 217.

§§ Ibid., p. 217. nil Ibid., p. 113. tIF Ibid., p. 387.

*** Ibid., pp. 317, 388. ttt Ibid., pp. 224-234.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 47

prior to the terms which denote them. Rational con-
ceptions can exist without words, but rational words
cannot exist without conceptions or abstract ideas, and
new terms are continually invented to denote ideas
which have been freshly conceived. We may suddenly
come to apprehend not only an idea, but a whole
argument, far too rapidly for oral expression, and it may
cost us very perceptible efforts and an appreciable period
of time to put it even into mental words. These
relations between thought and speech will come before
us again and again in our examination of Mr. Romanes's
work, so that it does not seem needful to say more at
present on the subject.

Having thus referred to the leading distinctions
between ideas and feelings,* and having cautioned our
readers against the implications of Mr. Romanes as to
the "generation" of ideas, we will next proceed to
notice some of his remarks about "abstraction."! He
says, truly enough, that our power of forming " general
ideas," or " universals," depends upon this faculty as
a sine qua non. But the nature of this faculty he, in our
judgment, misapprehends and misrepresents, while in
connection therewith he introduces some very mislead-
ing implications. He tells us,t " I desire only to
remark two things in connection with it. The first is

* In our work " On Truth," p. 203, we have, we may again
remind the reader, specially called attention to the great import-
ance of the distinction between our higher and our lower mental
faculties. It is a distinction which has been strangely ignored,
while it is probably the most important one in the whole range of
psychology.

t See " On Truth," pp. 12, 211, 213, 214, 345, 409. % p. 25.

48 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

that throughout this history [that of the development or
growth of abstraction] the development is a development/:
the faculty of abstraction is everywhere the same in
kind. And the next thing is that this development is
everywhere dependent on the faculty of language.''

Now, in our present work we have to encounter a
singular difficulty. We have, by means of written
language, to make it clear to those who read and who
mostly think in words, what thought is and can become
without words. Fortunately, Mr. Romanes agrees with
us in perceiving that, in man, abstraction and the
formation of distinct, unequivocal ideas, can take place
without words.* As we shall have occasion, later on, to
consider his examples, we will defer citing any ourselves
till the occasion referred to arises.

But Mr. Romanes introduces ambiguity and con-
fusion at once, saying,t " All the higher animals have
general ideas of * Good-for-eating ' and * Not-good-for-
eating' ... for ... the animal . . . subjects the
morsel to a careful examination before consigning it to
the mouth. This proves, if anything can, that such an
animal has a general or abstract idea of sweet, bitter,
hot, and, in general Good-for-eating and Not~good-for-

* He quotes M. Taine's account of a little girl eighteen months
old, who was amused by her mother hiding in play behind a piece
of furniture and saying " Coucou." Again, when her food was too
hot, when she went too near the fire or candle, and when the sun
was warm, she was told " Ca brule." One day, on seeing the sun
disappear behind a hill, she exclaimed, " 'A b'ule coucou," which
showed, of course, that without speech she had formed concepts,
which might be expressed by the terms, "Bodies giving forth
heat," and "The action of hiding behind an object."

t p. 27.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 49

eating — the motives of the examination clearly being to
ascertain which of these two general ideas of kind is
appropriate to the particular object examined."

Now, the inner nature and faculties of an organism
can only be judged of by the outcome of its powers,
whatever these may be. If these "higher animals"
really had ideas of the kind, and consciously performed
voluntary acts of examination in order to see "which of
two general ideas " might be applicable in any given
case, then of a surety we should soon be made un-
mistakably aware of it by other, less equivocal, mani-
festations of their possession of intellectual faculties like
our own. But it is evident that a profound difference
between the psychical powers of men and brutes does,
in fact, exist, and therefore the interpretation of their
actions which Mr. Romanes gives, cannot be the right
one. Interpretations of that kind might carry us very
far. We might say that plants have abstract ideas of
" Suitable-for-nutrition" and ''Not-suitable-for-nutrition,"
and of the still more abstract ideas, " Big-enough-to-be-
worth-a-prolonged-effort " and " Not-big-enough-to-be-
worth-a-prolonged-effort." For the plant called Venus's
looking-glass {DioncEo) will snap together the blades of
its singular leaf to catch an insect, but not to catch
a non-digestible object. More than this, if the blades of
its leaf have closed on an insect of insignificant size
(not worth its catching) they will unclose and let it
go again ; while otherwise they will hold it till it is
killed and digested. Even the sundew {Droserd)
exhibits what might be called a similar process of
estimation due to " general ideas," since the actions of

E

50 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

its glandular hairs are similarly discriminating. We,
however, do not attribute even sensation to these plants
on the strength of their economical, practically pur-
posive, actions. Neither do we attribute to the higher
animals the possession of the ideas " Good-for-eating,"
or " Not-good-for-eating " on the strength of those un-
conscious, instinctive actions of theirs which have a
superficial resemblance to our acts of intellectual, volun-
tary discrimination. Not only the "higher animals,"
but very lowly animals also, possess multitudes of
complex associations of feelings and motions. Amongst
them are associations of definite pleasant odours as
preceding definite and corresponding savours, as well as
associations between various affections of sight and
touch and similar pleasant savours. What, then, is
more to be expected than that when a group of
previously unexperienced sensations are brought before
an animal (the new object submitted to the animal's
senses) such commonly habitual actions as smelling it,
feeling it, and looking round it, should automatically
take place.? Thus, instead of saying, "When we see
animals determining between similar alternatives by"
actions externally like our own, " we cannot reasonably
doubt that the psychological processes are similar," we
should express ourselves as follows : " Knowing by
the widest inductions that we and brute animals are
fundamentally different in nature, we should expect
a priori that actions externally similar were due to
causes internally diverse." Mr. Romanes says, "If I
see a fox prowling about a farm-yard, I infer that he
has been led by hunger to go where he has a general

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 51

idea that there are a good many eatable things to be
fallen in with — ^just as I myself am led by a similar
impulse to visit a restaurant." We should say, " The fox
has been led by hunger to visit a place presenting
appearances and giving forth odours which have become
associated in its sensitive faculty with pleasant con-
sequences on previous occasions." We not only concede,
but affirm that even very lowly animals have sensuous
cognitions and sense perceptions of the kinds of creatures
on which they prey, or which may be their enemies.
But such affections need not be (and the general out-
come of their psychical faculties forbids, them to be)
more than those " sensuous universals " before referred
to, which are fundamentally and utterly different in
nature from the very lowest kind of ideas.

We have elsewhere * taken all the pains we could to
draw out distinctly and fully, to the best of our ability,
the distinction between those lower psychical faculties
which we evidently share with brutes, and those intel-
lectual powers in which we are convinced they have no
share. We have shown how, merely by means of
associated feelings, such sense-perceptions, sensuous
general cognitions, and sensuous inferences may take
place even in us, quite apart from true perceptions,
general ideas, and inferences.

With, this reference we must pass on to what we
have lately said Mr. Romanes next treats of — namely,
the process of " abstraction."

The power of abstraction, he tells us,t depends on

* See " On Truth," chaps, xiv., xv., pp. 178-223,
t p. 30-

52 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

reflection, and this again "on Language, or on the power
of affixing names to abstract and general ideas."

To this we reply, (i) that abstraction does not
depend on reflection, but takes place in us spontaneously
without it, and (2) that abstraction does not depend on
language, but also takes place without it.

As to our first reply, we would point out that
animals have a sensitive faculty which, when stimulated
by the presence of external objects, can associate
together in groups and groups of groups, the sensations
such external objects excite, and can combine them
with revived past feelings of similar kinds, thus forming
"sensuous perceptions."* On the occurrence of similar
but slightly varied experiences, this faculty can give rise
to those compound impressions which we have termed
"sensuous universals," f and which Mr. Romanes (as we
shall see) calls " Recepts, or generic ideas."

All these affections we men (inasmuch as we are
animals, though rational ones) also possess ; but we
have a further faculty which brutes, we are convinced,
have not. Upon the occurrence in us of such sensuous
perceptions as have just been referred to, we have the
faculty of generating — spontaneously and directly,
without reflection — true, intellectual, abstract, general
ideas. These ideas also may be elicited, continue to exist,
and be communicated, without words. For, as we shall
see abundantly, later on, they may exist in deaf-mutes, and
can be conveyed from mind to mind by manual signs.
Each man, however, consists of both an immaterial
energy (one form of which is intellect) and an animal

* See " On Truth," p. 188. f See above, pp. 44, 45.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 53

body — the two being most intimately united so as to
form a true unity — as reflection upon our own experi-
ence will suffice to show us.* He cannot, therefore,
exercise his intellectual power without some mode of
accompanying bodily activity. This may be a nervous
activity, producing the utterance or imagination of
words or other sounds, or the making of some gesture,
or the imagination of such, or of some other visible or
tactile sign. Such signs are necessary to serve as a
material basis for every intellectual act — every concep-
tion, however abstract it may be.f We shall, later on,
give various examples of distinct intellectual abstrac-
tions and true general conceptions, existing fully deve-
loped in the entire absence not only of the power of
speech, but of sight and hearing also. How widely
divergent from the truth, how profoundly mistaken,
must, then, be the views of the Nominalists ! Such
views, as expressed by M. Taine, are quoted by Mr.
Romanes J in the most uncompromising manner, as
follows : "Names are our abstract ideas, and the forma-
tion of our abstract ideas is nothing, more than the
formation of names." Now, a name can only be a
certain sound, or, if written, a certain sight, and there-
fore is and must be a definite individual entity. But
the concept it serves is different indeed. The latter can
neither be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, or felt, nor can it
consist of any combination of our sensations. It can
only be thought, and it can be thought and recognized
to be absolutely one and of the some kind, by the aid

* See '' On Truth," pp. 386-392.

t Ibid., pp. 88, 224. X p. 32.

54 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

of very different " feelings." A triangle can be appre-
hended by means of sight, by feeling, or by hearing its
description ; and the general conception, " triangle," can
be also understood to be one and the same by means of
sight and feeling, or by means of feeling and hearing,
or by hearing and sight. The more abstract idea,
" extension," may exist apart from sensations of sight,
for it exists for the blind. It can exist apart from
sensations of touch or of muscular effort, for it may be
revealed by sight alone.*

Mr. Romanes saysf that if the term "abstraction"
be confined to what is marked by a name, "then un-
doubtedly animals differ from men in not presenting
the faculty of abstraction ; for this is no more than to
say that animals have not the faculty of speech. But
if the term be not thus limited . . . then, no less
undoubtedly, animals resemble men in presenting the
faculty of abstraction. . . . In accordance with the latter
view, great as may be the importance of affixing a name
to a compound of simple ideas for the purpose of giving
that compound greater clearness and stability, the essence
of abstraction 'consists in the act of compounding, or in
the blending together of particular ideas into a general
idea of the class to which the individual things belong."

But "abstraction" is not in any way a "blending"
or " compounding," but is an ideal separation, or separate
intellectual apprehension, of qualities and conditions
which actually exist in concrete realities.:|:

Mr. Romanes does not seem to regard it as possible

* " On Truth," p. io6. f pp. 32, 2>Z'

X See " On Truth," pp. 211-216.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 55

to deny that " abstraction consists in the compounding
of simple ideas," with which inane notion he, mirabile
dictu^ credits * both of the two psychological schools he
is dealing with. The classification of psychical states
he draws out for us is, therefore, as might be expected,
confused, misleading, and with cross-divisions, as we
will endeavour briefly to point out.

He submits his classification as follows : —
" The word * idea ' I will use ... as a generic term
to signify indifferently any product of the imagination,
from the mere memory of a sensuous impression up to
the result of the most abstruse generalization." This is,
indeed, for him a convenient confusion in one lump, of
things essentially distinct. Were it once conceded that
no difference of kind exists between the sensuous
memory of an impression and a really intellectual
generalization, it would be altogether idle to inquire
whether any difference of kind exists between the
psychical natures of man and brute. A concession of
the sort would render it impossible for any one whose
reasoning powers were not exceptionally defective, to
maintain the existence of such a distinction of kind.

He next tells us, " By * Simple Idea,' * Particular Idea,'
or * Concrete Idea,' I understand the mere memory of a
particular sensuous perception." But what sort of
" memory " is here meant .'* There is true memory, in
which we are conscious our recollection refers to the
past, and there is the exercise of that retentive faculty
which recalls past images without intellectual advert-
ence to them. The latter is only improperly called

* P- 34.

56 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

memory, and is to be distinguished as " reminiscence "
or " sensuous memory." * It is evident, however, from
the connection in which it is used, that Mr. Romanes
only refers to sensuous memory ; but the sentence is
exceedingly ambiguous.

" By * Cornpound Idea,' ' Complex Idea,' or ' Mixed
Idea,' " he tells us, " I understand the combination
of simple, particular, or concrete ideas into that kind
of composite idea which is possible without the aid of
language." Now, both sensuous and intellectual cogni-
tions are possible without the aid of language ; but
again the context shows us that Mr. 'Romanes here
really intends to denote only what he, a little further
on,t calls " Recepts," which are what we have distin-
guished as ^' sensuous cognitions," and which may and
obviously do exist both in animals and in ourselves.

Lastly, he informs us, " By ' General Idea,' ' Abstract
Idea,' * Concept,' or ' Notion,' I understand that kind of
composite idea which is rendered possible only by the
aid of language, or by the process of naming abstractions
as abstractions." Against this we must once more, in
passing, briefly protest, and affirm that general ideas or
concepts are not composite, but simple, and that they
do not depend for their existence on language.

* The subject of memory is most important to any one who
would investigate the psychology of man and animals. We must
refer the reader to our work " On Truth," the second chapter of
which is devoted to the faculty of memory generally, while sensuous
and intellectual memory are described at pp. i86 and 220 respec-
tively. That curious power of mere " organic reminiscence,"
which has most improperly been spoken of as memory, is treated
of at p. 169.

t p. 36.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 57

Discoursing on his own classification, Mr. Romanes
tells us* that his first division (simple, particular, or
concrete ideas) " has to do only with what are called
percepts." This term we cannot allow to pass uncom-
mented on. The term "percept" should be used to
denote a thing " perceived," and intellectually perceived ;
since intellectual perception is alone really perception in
the proper sense of that word. It may be loosely used
to denote a mere sensuous discrimination ; but it should
then be distinguished by some qualifying, limiting term.
Thus, as we have said, this passage is an exceedingly
ambiguous one. Mr. Romanes's term includes two
classes which differ toto ccelo — namely, (i) sensuous
perceptions, and (2) intellectual perceptions of individual
concrete objects or actions, or of affections of the in-
dividual who perceives.

His intermediate class of" recepts " he very strangely
considers a terra incognita which he has discovered
and named for the first time, forgetting that we have
spoken of them as "sensuous universals," and not know-
ing that they were dis^tinguished six hundred years
ago, and have been so again and again since, under the
title of Universalia SensiUr t Indeed, he distinctly

* P- 35.

t By St. Thonias Aquinas, and other Scholastics. We may
refer Mr. Romanes to Quaestio LXXVIII. articulus iv., entitled,
" Utrum interiores sensus convenienter distinguantur," of Aquinas's
*' Summa Theologica," for a treatment of this so-called " terra
incognita." Further, we may refer him to Quaestio 34 of the " Ques-
tiones Philosophical*' of Father Maurus, S.J. (who died 1687), and
to a recent work, Kleutgen's " Philosophic Scolastique " (Gaume
Freres, Paris, 1868), vol. i. pp. 62-65. The problems of cerebration
investigated by Prof. Ferrier, and the speculative theories of Prof.

58 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

affirms * that " this large and important territory of idea-
tion is, so to speak, unnamed ground. ... So completely
has the existence of this intermediate land been ignored,
that we have no word at all which is applicable to it."
On this account he coins his word " recept." We have
no objection to the term in itself, although as he uses it,
error is connected with it. He says f that " in order to
form a concept, the mind must intentionally bring to-
gether its percepts (or the memories of them), for the
purpose of binding them up as a bundle of similars, and
labelling the bundle with a name. But in order to form
a recept, the mind need perform no such intentional
actions." The distinction is surely here drawn in the
wrong place. The mind must be active in either case,
but need act intentionally in neither — and, certainly, in
forming general ideas, or true universals, it never collects
and builds up its sensuous cognitions into bundles.

On the occurrence of the requisite reiterated sensa-
tions, a sensuous cognition, or "recept" (an entity of the
same essential nature as sensations) is formed.

On the occurrence of the requisite sensuous cogni-
tions, an intellectual general idea, or concept (an entity
of an essentially different nature from sensations) springs
forth spontaneously in the mind, without the need of
our exerting any intentional activity.

In introducing his list % of ideas at the end of his
second chapter, he tells us that for the sake of avoiding
confusion he makes use of the term generic instead of

Weismann refer to no matters the principles of which were not,
in principle, discussed by the Scholastics of the Middle Ages.
* P- 35- t pp. 36-37. X p. 39.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 59

the term general in naming his intermediate class, and
he sums up as follows : —

! General, Abstract, or Notional = Concepts.
Complex, Compound, or Mixed = Recepts, or Generic
Ideas.
Simple, Particular, or Concrete = Memories of Percepts.

In order to make clear the precise divergence of view

which exists between Mr. Romanes * and ourselves, we

subjoin a tabular statement of corresponding subdivisions

which may respectively be made in the two groups of

activities w^hich we regard as fundamentally distinct in

kind — namely, intellectual perceptions and sensuous

cognitive affections. To one group of the latter we have

applied the new term " sencept," for which we feel much

apology is due. We have used it as conveniently

matching with Mr. Romanes's term "recept," and as

serving to distinguish one simple set of affections from

those which we ourselves term "sensuous universals,"

but which we have no objection to denote by the term

which Mr. Romanes has himself coined : —

TDFAc: i General, or true Universals = Concepts.
\ Particular or individual = Percepts.

/Groups of actual experiences \ = Sensuous Uni-

SENSUOUS * combined with sensuous) versals, or Re-

COGNITIVE { reminiscences ) cepts.

AFFECTIONS f Groups of simply juxtaposed \ = Sense - percep -

^ actual experiences ! tions, or Sen-

) cepts.

In his third chapter Mr. Romanes reviews what he

* In his chapter ix., pp. 184, 185 (on Speech), he further dis-
tinguishes between (i) lower and (2) higher recepts, as well as be-
tween (3) lower and (4) higher concepts — distinctions which further
aid his attempt to bridge over the gulf which yawns between sense
and intellect.

6o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

calls the " Logic of Recepts." Before proceeding to its
examination, we would ask our readers to bear carefully
in mind eight special points, some of which have been
already adverted to either in our introductory chapter
or in the present one, but which we deem it necessary to
here especially insist upon : —

(i) It is abundantly evident, and it is freely admitted
by Mr. Romanes himself, that animals, even the highest,
do not exercise the intellectual powers which we exer-
cise ; though it is plain that they possess abundantly the
sensitive faculties of feeling, imagination, and emotion.

(2) Besides our powers of feehng, thinking, and
willing, we possess both a faculty of instinct * and a
power of forming habits.f These powers account for the
existence, even in ourselves, of a number of actions
which our possession of intellect will not account for,t
and it is an unquestionable fact that instinct is more
largely developed in animals,§ notably in insects, than
it is in ourselves.

(3) These faculties of instinct and habit, do not form
part of our conscious life. We are, of course, conscious
of the actions we perform, and we can recognize them as
having been instinctive or habitual. But we have no
conscious experience of those faculties, while we have
conscious experience of our powers of reasoning, think-

* As to this faculty in ourselves, see " On Truth," pp. 175, 184.

t Habit is the determination in one direction of a previously-
vague tendency to action. Its existence presupposes this active
tendency. See " On Truth," pp. 174, 358, 362.

X Such as the sucking of the infant and various activities
attending adolescence.

§ See " On Truth," p. 358, for various cases in point.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES, 6t

ing, imaging, or feeling, at the time we exercise them.
We are only conscious of the effects of our faculties of
instinct and habit. It results from this that we cannot
imagine a faculty of instinct or a faculty of habit, for we
can never imagine anything of which we have not had
experience. Therefore, although our reason tells us
that these faculties not only exist but have acted in us,
they nevertheless seem to possess a specially mysterious
character. Thus it is that we come to feel a temptation
not to believe that there are any such special faculties
at all. But groups of feelings and thoughts, on the
other hand, can be most easily imagined because they
are constantly experienced, and this alone would suffice
to prevent our feeling any temptation to doubt the
existence of our sensitive and cognitive faculties, which
would seem to be even more absurd (though it is not
really so) than is a doubt as to our own continued,
substantial existence.

(4) We may, then, well expect to find that animals
possess powers which we cannot imagine, and in the
existence of which, therefore, we may find it difficult
to believe. Such are some of the truly marvellous
instinctive faculties of insects and other lowly organisms,
and the seemingly intelligent powers of some plants.*
But these various faculties are no more really won-
derful than are our powers of sensation (which are
quite as inexplicable), and are vastly less wonderful
than are our amazing powers of cognition — especially
our knowledge of necessary and universal truths.

(5) We should carefully distinguish between direct

* See''OnTruth,»pp. 334, 335.

7

r

62 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

and reflex cognition. Even in ourselves, who possess
true intellect, we may often, by reflection, detect the
past, latent presence of feelings which were not per-
ceived. We do not mean by this that we have appre-
hended something without adverting to our apprehension.
That is a thing we constantly do. It is very rarely that
we perceive, or advert to the fact that we are thinking
whatever we may happen to be thinking. What we
mean is that we can perceive that we had a sense-
perception of an object without knowing the object —
a sense-perception without consciousness,* as when
walking along in a town we suddenly recollect we have
seen a name over a shop-window sometime before.

• Such an impression cannot be a "percept," which is
a state the existence of which implies consciousness.!
Instead, then, of " percept " and " perception," I, for this,
shall venture to employ the terms " sencept " and " sen-
ception." Surely in animals which give us no evidence
of reflective power, or, as we shall see, of the presence
of" consciousness " as distinguished from " consentience,"
we should expect to be able to account for the most
seemingly intelligent actions of animals by " sencepts "
and " recepts " (and we ought to do so if we could),
without supposing the existence in them of "percepts"
and " concepts," which, if they existed, would certainly
produce very startling effects which we do not see. By
" consentience " \ we mean the faculty of receiving divers

* See " On Truth," pp. 89, 187.

t To call any "thing not perceived" a percept — that is, a "thing
perceived " — is a glaring contradiction in terms.

% See " On Truth," pp. 183, 219, 354. As to such an "internal
sense," see also above, p. 44, note f.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 6l

orders of sensations in one common sensorium. It is
by it that the sleep-walker receives and accurately re-
sponds to the varied impressions which surrounding
objects make on his organs, and its existence suffices
to account for the simultaneous effect of sounds, sights,
and smells upon an animal seeking its prey or trying
to escape from pursuit.

(6) We should also take pains to understand and
appreciate the distinction which exists between true
"inference," which is an essentially intellectual appre-
hension of a truth as implicitly contained in other
truths, and that mere sensuous reinstatement of past
impressions which may simulate it. The latter affection,
which we have distinguished as '' sensuous or organic
inference," * manifests itself as follows : Let any group
of sensations have become intimately associated with
certain other sensations, then, upon the recurrence of
that group, an imagination of the sensations previously
associated therewith spontaneously arises in the mind,
and we have an expectant feeling of their proximate
actual recurrence. Thus, the sensation of a vivid flash
of lightning has come, by association, to lead to an
expectant feeling of the thunder-clap to follow. Such
mere association of feelings, some of which when freshly
experienced lead to an expectant feeling of the others,
and to a feeling of satisfaction when the sense of expec-
tation is fulfilled, may certainly exist in animals as well
as in ourselves, and its presence will fully account for
all those actions which are so often taken as indications
of the existence in them of a truly reasoning faculty.
* See "On Truth," pp. 194, 201.

6+ THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

(7) We have already indicated what we deem to be
the true nature of the process of abstraction ; but before
entering upon a consideration of the statements made
by Mr. Romanes in his second chapter, it may be well,
at the risk of tediousness, to repeat that so far from its
being a separation and segregation of feelings, it is
radically different from every sensuous process. It is
the spontaneous starting forth in the mind of an intel-
lectual cognition, or idea (upon the reception of certain
sensuous experiences), like Minerva from the head of
Jove. One of the earliest of our abstractions is also one
of the most ultimate — namely, the idea of "being."
This never was and never could have been a feeling,
though the idea must have accompanied every feeling
recognized by us as such. Thus abstraction is so
fundamentally different from the power of forming
sensuous universals, that it may be said to be a process
directly contrary to it ; since the latter agglutinates
sense-impressions which the former discards as it
emerges and escapes from amongst them.

(8) Lastly, we should be very careful to distinguish
between feeling, knowing, judging, inferring, and classi-
fying/^r;/^<3;//j/ — i,e, when we perform this act with a dis-
tinct intention to perform them — and feeling, knowing,
judging, inferring, and classifying materially — i.e. when
we do so in a more or less automatic manner, without
intention or advertence. This distinction takes note of
the difference between direct and reflex cognition.t

* See " On Truth," pp. 205, 208, 234.

t As to this, see "On Truth," pp. 8, 23, and also p. 189 as to
the three senses of the word " know."

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 65

Thus there may be —

{a) Unconscious, merely sensuous cognition, accom-
panied by " consentience " — as in the actions of certain
sleep-walkers and idiots.

{b) Intellectual cognition of the lowest order : where
general consciousness is present, but where there is no
distinct consciousness, not only as to the nature of an
act performed, but even as to the fact of its perform-
ance ; so that the act is far indeed from being one done
with a deliberate intention of doing it. Thus, when out
shooting, and in a normal state of consciousness, on
firing and missing our aim, we may make some sudden
gesture by which a bystander can see what has hap-
pened, though we had no intention of so indicating it,
and had no distinct consciousness of the fact of our
bodily movement. Such a movement is no true "sign,"
for the gesticulator has no intention of conveying his
ideas to another by depicting any fact. If, then, a
spectator exclaims, "That gesture is a sign he has
missed his aim," such a spectator uses the term " sign "
improperly, by a loose analogy. Similarly we may,
without any intention or distinct consciousness, make
a movement from which a bystander can tell in which
direction an animal we have been watching may have
gone.

{c) Intellectual cognition, accompanied not only with
a general consciousness, but with a consciousness of an
act performed, yet without special advertence to it as.
being a fact or to any intention we may have had on
performing it. Thus we may suddenly raise our arm
and point in a specially selected direction, with the

F

66 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

intention of showing which way any creature has gone.
Evidently a consciousness must attend a gesture thus
made to indicate direction which was absent in an
aimless, altogether unintentional movement produced
by vexation at having made a bad shot, however practi-
cally indicative the latter may have been. Therefore
such a movement is a true " sign," being a movement
made depicting a fact with the intention of conveying
to other minds the ideas of the sign-maker.

{d) We may do the same thing not only with con-
sciousness and intention, but with express advertence
to the fact of our intention in the act deliberately
performed.

We may know without adverting to our knowledge,
and we may feel without knowing that we feel. Now,
since such is the case with us, it must be, to say the
least, probable that animals also may feel without
knowing it.

With these premisses, we may proceed to the ex-
amination of Mr. Romanes's third chapter, entitled,
" Logic of Recepts." Therein he tells us,* " The ques-
tion which we have to consider is whether there is a dif-
ference of kind, or only a difference of degree, between
a recept and a concept. This is really the question with
which the whole of the present volume is concerned."

We call attention to this passage as an excuse for,
and a justification of, what we fear some of our readers
may deem too great minuteness and reiteration in this
analysis of mental states. Great care is, however,
necessary not to yield to the temptation of hurrying

* P- 45.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 67

over and treating incompletely a matter which is of the
very essence of Mr. Romanes's whole contention.

As to his mode of procedure, he observes,* " First
of all I will show, by means of illustrations, the highest
levels of ideation that are attained within the domain
of recepts ; and, in order to do this, I will adduce my
evidence from animals alone, seeing that here there can
be no suspicion — as there might be in the case of in-
fants— that the logic of recepts is assisted by any
nascent growth of concepts."

Before, however, applying himself to this task, he
discusses his own expression, " logic of recepts."

He tells us,t in the first place, that " all mental pro-
cesses of an adaptive kind are, in their last resort,
processes of classification ; they consist in discriminating
between differences and resemblances."

Now, in this sentence much confusion of thought is
indicated. In the first place, the word " discriminating "
is used ambiguously, as— neglecting the distinction we
have above indicated \ as No. (8) — it is applied to both
" formal " and " material " discrimination ; and yet these
acts are of a radically different kind. A mere sieve
materially " discriminates " between coal-dust and cinders
of a certain size ! It is also false to say that " all
mental processes of an adaptive kind " " consist " in
either a material or a formal discrimination ; although,
of course, like all other mental acts, they are accom-
panied by something of a discriminating nature. To
know that any object {y) possesses any quality {x\
implies that x is discriminated from the group of
* p. 46. t p. 46. % See above, p. 64.

68 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

things, "notji:;" but this maybe a mere unimportant
accident of such mental process. Yet even a mental pro-
cess as adaptive as is the determination to bolt, and
the bolting of, a bedroom door, cannot be properly said
to consist of a discrimination ; although, of course, it is
" accompanied " by a formal mental distinction between
"doors bolted" and "doors unbolted," and by the
material distinction of adding one to the group of " doors
actually bolted." Mr. Romanes goes on to say, " An act
of simple perception is an act of noticing resemblances
and differences between the objects of such perception."
But such an act by no means consists in taking notice
of qualities, but in perceiving an object by means of
the impressions it makes on the senses, which impres-
sions (and the qualities they imply) have their effect
without being adverted to. They hide themselves in
making the object itself known.* The impressions
and the resemblances and differences with which they
correspond, cannot themselves be noticed without a dis-
tinct reflex act.

Still more objectionable is Mr. Romanes's next sen-
tence : " Similarly, an act of conception is the taking
together — or the intentional putting together — of ideas
which are recognized as analogous," To this we reply,
A thousand times. No! A mental act of "concep-
tion " does not take place in a way similar to that in
which an act of sensuous perception takes place ; which
latter, as we have seen, Mr. Romanes includes under
his term " percepts." Neither is conception a " taking
together," and still less is it an " intentional putting
* See " On Truth," pp. 91, 96, loi.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 69

together " of ideas in any sense — and a fortiori not in
the sense in which Mr. Romanes uses that much abused
word.* There need be no " recognition " of any analogy
existing between objects in order that a concept should
be formed. Men can form a concept of the sun who do
not know, or suspect, that any other sun exists. Even in
the commonest cases, as in the concept " apple," we by
no means need to advert to or " recognize " an analogy
existing between different kinds of apples or different
specimens of one kind of apple, though, of course, we
can turn back our minds and, by reflection, " recognize "
such analogy. All that is necessary is that there be such
a direct apprehension of an object, as an object of a
kind and possessing qualities or existing in one of vari-
ous states ; but there need be no advertence either to
the qualities or states, which are, nevertheless, implicitly
apprehended in every direct perception and conception.
But, putting aside the sensuous meanings which Mr.
Romanes attaches to the term " idea," and taking it in
the sense of a truly intellectual act of perception, even
then a " conception " is not " a taking together " of
such ideas, though it may be elicited through our ap-
prehension of different ideas. Thus our conception of
the idea, " a marsupial mammal," may be elicited by our
acquisition of ideas concerning the structural and physio-
logical characters, and the environing conditions of the
existing and extinct animals belonging to the zoological
order, Marsupialia. Yet the idea itself is one single idea.

■^ Namely, in the sense of " any product of imagination, from
the mere memory of a sensuous impression up to the results of the
most abstruse generalization " (p. 34).

70 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

The matter in which we deem Mr. Romanes most
mistaken is his notion that an "intentional" putting
together of ideas is a necessary preliminary to our form-
ing any mental conception. The infant who sees one
or several dogs, does not fulfil any mental intention
when it forms its corresponding concept. Neither do
the first observers of an object new to them, intentionally
put together ideas and group them into a plexus ; but
their mental experiences give rise to a spontaneously
formed new intellectual product or concept — which
may be very imperfect and inadequate, but which is a
concept notwithstanding.

Mr. Romanes continues:* " Hence abstraction has
to do with the abstracting of analogous qualities." The
expression, ** has to do with," is an exceedingly vague
one, and Mr. Romanes's meaning in using it is conse-
quently obscure. We will not, therefore, further criticize
it, contenting ourselves with once more observing that
abstraction is much more than "the abstracting of
analogous qualities," as most notably of all in the
formation of that highest abstraction, the idea of
** being."

" Reason," our author tells us, " is ratiocination, or
the comparison of ratios." In saying this he further
shows himself to be a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer,
and errs with him. " Reason " is not equivalent to
" ratiocination." It is a wider term, which includes
inference, or ratiocination, but is by no means confined
to it ; for it also includes " intellectual intuition." f

It is by our reason, but certainly not by any process
* p. 46. t As to this, see further, " On Truth," p. 220.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 71

of inference^ we see that nothing can both be and not
be at the same time, or that we know we have any
feeling which we may have at the time. That ratiocina-
tion cannot be the whole of our reason, or even the
most important part of it, is evident. For all proof, or
reasoning, must ultimately rest upon truths which carry
with them their own evidence, and do not, therefore,
need proof. Consequently, the most important, because
ultimate, department of our reason must be that which
apprehends such self-evident, necessary truths. But
inference, or ratiocination itself, is not a comparison of
ratios. It is the process of making latent and implicit
truth into explicitly recognized truth, in an orderly
manner, according to the laws of thought — that is,
according to logic* Denying, therefore, in toto Mr.
Romanes's assertion of the similarity of nature between
sensuous and intellectual perception, and between re-
cepts and concepts, we none the less freely let pass,
without objection, his term " logic of recepts," not only
allowing, but strenuously affirming, that the sensitive,
imaginative, and associative power of living organisms
has its own innate orderly laws, according to which all
their feelings, imaginations, and sense-perceptions take
place. For the very same reason, however, we cannot
agree with Mr. Romanes in objecting f to the terms
" Logic of Feelings " and " Logic of Signs." For the
fact that Feelings belong to the sensitive and emotional
side of life, is no reason why they should not occur,
and group themselves according to their own laws.
** Signs," it is true, are the expression of psychical con-
* See " On Truth," chap, v., On Reasoning. f P- 47-

72 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

ditions, and not such conditions themselves, but they
none the less correspond with the orderly arrangement
of ideas on the one hand, and of emotional states on the
other; being, as Mr. Romanes says, "A reflection of the
order or grouping, among the ideas [and feelings] which
they are used to express."

Our author continues : " Even within the region of
percepts we meet with a process of spontaneous group-
ing of like with like, which, in turn, leads downwards to
the purely unconscious or mechanical grouping of stimuli
in the lower nerve-centres. So that on its objective face
the method has everywhere been the same : whether in
the case of reflex action, of sensation, perception, recep-
tion, conception, or reflection, on the side of the nervous
system, the method of evolution has been uniform ; it
has everywhere consisted in a progressive development
of the power of discriminating between stimuli, joined
with the complementary power of adaptive response."

How, it may be asked, can Mr. Romanes tell what
are the various minute changes in the nervous system
which respectively accompany the conscious processes
of sensation, perception, conception, and reflection ? It
is difficult to understand how he can venture to speak
dogmatically on so obscure a subject. The term
"discrimination" is commonly applied to denote rather
a mental than a mechanical process. That some cor-
poreal modification accompanies, in us, every intellec-
tual act, we do not for a moment question, and it may
be that there is a close analogy between the physical
processes in each case. But the passage cited implies
much more than this, and is misleading on account of

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 73

its reference to psychical as well as physical processes.
It tends to give rise to a persuasion that psychical acts,
which our own minds show us to be different in nature,
are themselves fundamentally similar, because there
may be a similarity in the physical processes which
accompany both.

Mr. Romanes makes * the great distinction between
recepts and concepts to consist in the former being
*Weceived,'' while, he tells us, the latter "require to be
conceived^ But in forming recepts as well as concepts,
we need to be active agents as well as passive recipients.
In both cases the psychical entity energizes and evolves
something new, according to the nature of the entity
which acts. A merely sensitive psychical entity, or
Soul, t can (it is admitted on all hands) evolve recepts
as a consequence of receiving due sensuous stimuli. A
rational Soul can (it is admitted on all hands) also
evolve concepts as a consequence of receiving due
intellectual stimuli. It evolves in either case active,
psychical states, which existed potentially before stimu-
lation, but, of course, not actually. So much must be
universally admitted. We, of course, further contend
that a merely sensitive psychical entity, such as the soul,
or principle of individuation,;]: of an amoeba, an ant, or
an ape, cannot by any stimulation be made to evolve
an intellectual product.

Mr. Romanes proceeds to ask,§ " To what level of

* p. 49-

t As to this term, see " On Truth," pp. 390-392, 422, 424? 42?)

430, 434.

X As to this term, see Ibid., pp. 422, 433-435- § P- 5^.

74 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. '

'ideation' can recepts attain without the aid of con-
cepts ? . . . How far can mind travel without the aid
of language ? " He then applies himself to answer
this question by relating various anecdotes of animals.

In considering the value of such relations, we should
ever remember to what very curious lengths instinct
may go in insects, and how numerous and complex are
the responsive actions which may take place even in
ourselves in the absence of consciousness.* We should
recollect how we every now and then have experienced
a sort of " malaise'^' which has been relieved by finding
something which was missing from its place, although
we were not conscious of the cause of the malaise (the
absence of the object) till the shock experienced on our
having automatically found it, has called our attention
to the matter. We ourselves have frequently experi-
enced this when one of the many objects we habitually
carry in our pockets has been unconsciously transferred
from one to another. We can, as every one knows, do
many things automatically and without consciousness,
which we often perform with full consciousness. This
fact makes it probable that similar actions may take
place in animals, and another fact is also very significant:
this is the notorious circumstance that persons deprived
of one of their senses often have their remaining senses
made more acute. It is also commonly affirmed that
some savages, who have little intellectual activity, have
much keener powers of seeing, hearing, and, perhaps,
even smelling, than we have. How much greater, more
acute, more complex, and more far-reaching, then, may
* See " On Truth," pp. 183-200.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 75

not be the sensitive powers of creatures whose whole
being is entirely given up to sensitivity, without its being
interfered with by any intellectual activity ! It should
surely cause us little wonder if we found them doing
many things altogether beyond our power under such
conditions to effect. That thirsty dogs should run into
hollows,* that an elephant should blow on the ground
beyond an object it wished to drive towards him, that a
bear should similarly draw near a piece of floating bread
by pawing the water, or that dogs, " accustomed to
tidal rivers or to swimming in the sea," should feel and
automatically allow for currents, need occasion no sur-
prise whatever. Such actions are surely just such as we
might confidently anticipate would take place under the
given circumstances.

Mr. Darwin is quoted f as having written about a
bitch of his, which, on hearing the words, " Hi, hi, where
is it ? " rushed and looked about, even up into trees.
He is also quoted as having asked, " Now, do not these
actions clearly show that she had in her mind a general
idea that some animal is to be discovered and hunted ? "
To this we reply. No doubt the hearing of such words
uttered, as we are told, " in an eager voice," excited the
dog's emotions, and raised phantasmata (images) in its
consentience — awoke reminiscences of before-experi-
enced groups of smells, sounds, colours, and motions, and
relations of various kinds between them — but this is
very different from a " general idea." In other words,
imaginary recepts were aroused in the dog, but not
percepts, and, therefore, no such thing as a mental
*p. 51. t p. 52.

76 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

conception. Mr. Romanes quotes from Mr. Belt an
anecdote concerning ants in South America which
learnt to tunnel under the rails of a tramway. But
such facts need surprise no one who remembers some
of the more wonderful actions of ordinary insects
nearer home. No doubt these burrowing ants were
well-accustomed to make tunnels, and had instinctively
made them again and again on the occurrence of other ob-
stacles to surface progression. To say, as Mr. Romanes
says, " Clearly, the insects must have appreciated the
nature " of the obstacles, " and correctly reasoned out the
only way by which they could be avoided," is not a little
absurd. If they could really appreciate a " nature," and
truly " reason out " a way to avoid injuries, we should
quickly have such plainly and distressingly inconvenient
evidence of their rationality, that there would be no
need to go so far as to South America to find an instance
of it.

With respect to the fear which wolves have of traps
and their detection of man by the sense of smell, the
following remark is cited* from Leroy : " In this case
the wolf can only have an abstract idea of danger — the
precise nature of the trap laid for him being unknown."
That the wolf has a fear of man, no one can doubt, and
it is highly probable that his sense of smell would lead
him to abstain from taking a bait. This would be
enough to account for the fact cited, without crediting
the animal with " an abstract idea of danger," to credit
it with which is to credit it with an intellect such as
man has. Mr. Romanes also tells us that Leroy "well

* P- 53.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 77

observes, 'Animals, like ourselves, are forced to make
abstractions. A dog . which has lost its master, runs
towards a group of men, by virtue of a general abstract
idea, which represents to him the qualities possessed in
common with these men by his master." But the dog
runs towards the men because the sense-impressions it has
received from them raise pleasurable feelings of antici-
pation and of the completion of a sensuous harmony
unconsciously craved.* There is no more need for an
act of abstraction in this case than there is in the case
of a stag which " doubles " on its own footsteps, and
sometimes practises before retiring to rest "the artifices
which he would have employed to throw out the dogs,
if he were pursued by them."' Such actions are clearly
" instinctive proceedings." Mr. Romanes adds,t "It is
remarkable enough that an animal should seek to con-
fuse its trail by such devices, even when it knows that
the hounds are actually in pursuit ; but it is still more so
when the devices are resorted to in order to confuse
imaginary hounds which may possibly be on the scent."
The fact would be curious indeed if, as the words quoted
seem intended to imply, the stag consciously employed
such devices as a consequence of thinking that hounds
might be on its scent, and formed an intention to de-
ceive them accordingly. There is not, however, the
slightest need to adopt so absurd a notion. The action
is sufficiently accounted for by instinct. It is done
instinctively, as a dog instinctively turns round and

* For further detail as to instances of precisely the same kind,
see " On Truth," p. 350.
t p. 55-

78 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

round on a drawing-room hearthrug before lying down,
just as if it were in its ancestral home in the green-
wood, the herbs of which needed thus treading down
and pressing round, to make a comfortable bed.

Very funny is the tale cited * from Miss Bramston
about a certain archiepiscopal collie-dog, which had
acquired a habit of hunting imaginary pigs every even-
ing directly after family prayers. Mr. Romanes makes
much of this, but really nothing could well be more
simple or natural than the association of feelings and
imaginations thereby implied. Indeed, the case may well
be cited as a type of others, the explanation of which
may seem, from a less complete knowledge of the cir-
cumstances, to present some difficulty. In this instance
we are told that the collie had been formerly accus-
tomed " to be sent to chase real pigs out of a field ; "
and, of course, the sound of the word " pigs," and the
pleasurable action of running about after them, became
associated in its imagination. We are then told, " It
became a custom for Miss Benson to open the door for
the collie after dinner in the evening, and say, * Pigs ! ' "
when he very naturally ran out, and ran about according
to his previously-acquired habit. Soon this exercise
became in its turn a matter of habit, and the phenomena
attending the termination of dinner and of family
prayers very naturally gave rise in the collie to an ex-
pectant feeling t of the door being opened for the
accustomed pleasurable excitement. If the door was
not opened, the habit being now well-established, the
expectant feeling, always growing more and more vivid,
* p. 56. t See " On Truth," p. 195.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 79

could hardly fail to elicit barks, tail-waggings, and move-
ments towards the exceptionally unopened door, and the
constantly accumulating excitement would surely lead
it at last to run out and bark without waiting for the
uttering of the word " Pigs " ; nor is it in the least sur-
prising to learn that the phenomena attending family
prayers at Miss Bramston's house should arouse in the
animal the same expectant feelings and therewith asso-
ciated actions, which had become so ingrained during its
residence at the Archbishop's.

Mr. Romanes gives us yet again the oft-told tale
of the crows which "seem able to count." It is thus
related,* after Leroy, by our author : When about
to shoot the nests, in order " to deceive this suspicious
bird, the plan was hit upon of sending two men into the
watch-house, one of whom passed on while the other
remained ; but the crow counted and kept her distance.
The next day three went, and again she perceived that
only two returned. In fine it was found necessary to
send five or six men to the watch-house in order to put
her out of her calculation."

But what wonder is there that a crow, seeing a man
go beneath her nest with a gun, should keep clear till
she had seen him go away ; even if, for a time, he had
hidden himself behind a bush ? Why, then, should it
be wondered at that the bird's mere sense-perception
felt a difference between the visual picture presented by
a group of three men and another presented by' only
two ? The wonder rather is that the creature should
not be more discriminative, as we always wonder that a

* P- 57.

8o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

bitch or a she-cat does not seem to miss a single pup
or kitten which may have been taken away from the
others in her litter.

Mr. Romanes naturally makes a great deal of the
chimpanzee " Sally " at the Zoological Gardens, which,
he tells us,* has been taught " to count correctly as far
as five." The result of our own investigation with
regard to this ape was as follows : —

It is most true that the animal is finely gifted, and
that it does separately pick up from the ground, place
in its mouth, and then present in one bunch, two, three,
four, or five straws, as may be demanded of it, or only
one. It has distinctly associated the several sounds of
these numbers with corresponding groups of picked-up
straws. The ape will also, on command, pass a straw
through a large or small hole in the fastening of its
cage, or through a particular interspace of its wire
netting. It will also put objects into its keeper's pocket,
play various odd tricks with boy visitors, howl horribly
when told to sing, and hold on its head pieces of apple,
remaining perfectly quiescent till a particular expression
is used. This last trick, however, is one of the com-
monest of those performed by pet dogs, and the putting
of objects into the keeper's pocket is nothing remarkable.
The passing of a straw through a special aperture on
command would be more so, but for the fact that the
basis of the whole superstructure of such tricks was laid
by the animal itself (as the keeper told us), which had
spontaneously taken to the trick of picking up a straw
and passing it through a small hole near the keyhole of

* p. 58.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 8r

the door of its cage.* Having thus itself acquired a
habit of picking up straws and passing them through
a hole, there could be little difficulty in getting it to
pass the straw through other holes, and not much in
getting it to pick up more straws than one. That it
should associate certain motions with the sound of
certain words, is no more than dogs, pigs, and various
other animals lower in the scale will accomplish.

There remains, then, as the single distinguishing
peculiarity of this case, the association in the ape's
imagination and consentience, of the words, one, two,
three, four, or five, with the picking up, holding, and
handing over a corresponding number of straws. This
fact of association is, so far as we know, exceptional,
and it is therefore very interesting. But it does not
prove that the animal has any idea of these five numbers
— not, of course, as numbers f — but as so many separate
things. The matter would be the same if the animal
could discriminate up to ten or more. We know abun-
dantly already that various animals may be made to
associate very complex bodily movements with sounds,

* Possibly as a result of having seen a key put in and out of
the keyhole.

t The idea of " number " implies comparison, with a simul-
taneous recognition of both distinctness and similarity ; although,
of course, it is not necessary that the fact of our having such
apprehensions should be adverted to. No two things could be
known to be two without an apprehension that while they are
numerically distinct they can in some way be thought of as be-
longing to one class of entities. We could not say " pink " and
" a high rate of interest " were two, unless it were two "thoughts."
By so speaking of them we should unite them under one con-
ception which is common to them both as two " ideas." As to
this, see further, " On Truth," p. 241.

G

82 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

and to associate a repetition of the same movements
more or less frequently with different sounds is an act
of essentially the same kind as the former. That the
thing seems at all marvellous is due to a trick of our
own imagination. The words of command in this case
are words which express for us the highly abstract idea
of number ; and our imagination having become con-
nected therewith, we are apt to picture to ourselves a
like connection in the cognitive faculty of the ape. But
its presence there is by no means necessary to explain
the action, while if such a highly abstract idea was
present there, the animal would not allow us to long
remain doubtful as to the fact. We particularly
questioned its keeper whether the ape ever pointed to
any object or used any gesture with the evident purpose
of calling his attention to some fact or passing occurrence.
Although he was evidently well disposed to extol the
powers of his charge as far as truth would permit, he
distinctly told us it did not do so. If any one came in
with a gun the creature would show extreme terror, but
** Sally " never pointed to it or by gesture called the
keeper's own attention to the dreaded object. We could
neither see nor hear of anything rendering it possible
to attribute to this very interesting brute a psychical
nature of a higher kind than that possessed by any other
brutes. It appeared to us plainly to have only the
same kind of powers with them, although they might
be more developed in degree. But this, surely, is just
what we should expect. The rational nature of man
has been conferred only on an animal of a special kind,
with a body resembling very closely that of an ape.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 83

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 pheno-
mena 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,
Miiller, as well as Hegel, on our side) that the forma-
tion of abstract conceptions under the notion of cause
and effect, is impossible to animals. He declares f
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 con-
ditions." Here the word ''expecting" is used ambigu-
ously, 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. 58 t P- 59.

84 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

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 imita-
tion, 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 circum-
stance 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
* See " On Truth," p. 350.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 85

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 usf 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 apple-
room 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.

t p. 60.

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

86 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

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. 6i.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 87

than anything else in the anecdote. We are told that
after having discovered this " mechanical principle," his
little beast "proceeded forthwith to generalize." Con-
cerning 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 house-
fly 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 in-
stinctively 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 per-
fected in anticipation of that intelligence which was to
be introduced into the material world with the advent
of man. Our author adds,f 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. t P- 64.

88 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

which are adduced to prove that it has been, and then
it will become apparent that the supplement, if any,
must have been added in the smelting-pot of Language
— a fact, be it observed, which is conceded by all
modern writers who deny the genetic continuity of
mind in animal and human intelligence." The last
assertion is one which is indeed remarkable. It shows
that Mr. Romanes has not apprehended what is the
fundamental position, on this subject, of the school to
which he is opposed. The "intellectual," as opposed
to the " sensational " school, energetically affirm that
the supplement added was not " language," but " a
distinctly rational nature," whereof thought, language,
and moral responsibility are alike results.

In concluding this chapter, its author makes an
assertion which we have sincere pleasure in agreeing
with and supporting. It is the assertion that children
do not commence their intellectual life by special and
particular perceptions from which they generalize, but
that they generalize at once. Nevertheless, his mis-
apprehension of the distinction between recepts and
concepts, and his notion that a distinct intention is
needed in order to form the latter, naturally make
themselves manifest. As to recepts and concepts, Mr.
Romanes truly says, " Classification there doubtless is
in both cases ; but the one order is due to the closeness
of resemblances in an act of perception \i.e. senception],
while in the other order it is an expression of their
remoteness from merely perceptual \i.e. sensuous] asso-
ciations."

The concluding sentence of this chapter is, however.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 89

very misleading, and really once more begs the whole
question which its author has to prove. He says,*
*' The object of this chapter has been to show, first, that
the unintentional grouping which is distinctive of re-
cepts may be carried to a wonderful pitch of perfection
without any aid from the intentional grouping which
is distinctive of concepts ; and, second, that from the
very beginning conscious ideation [which here means
our consentience] has been concerned with grouping.
Not only, or not even chiefly, has it had to do with
the registration in memory of particular percepts ; but
much more has it had to do with the spontaneous
sorting of such percepts, with the spontaneous arrange-
ment of them in ideal (or imagery) systems, and, conse-
quently, with the spontaneous reflection in consciousness
of many among the less complex relations — or the less
abstruse principles — which have been uniformly encoun-
tered by the mind in its converse with an orderly
world."

Certainly the world is orderly. Certainly its co-
existences and sequences make manifest, objective
relations and principles which pervade and govern it.
Certainly, also, these objective conditions modify the
sentiency of irrational organisms, and certainly, as we
have elsewhere pointed out,t such objective conditions
correspond, as "objective concepts," with internal per-
ceptions or " subjective concepts in us." But this in
no way even tends (as it is represented as tending) to
bridge over the gulf which exists between sentiency and
intellect. We might d. priori expect to find a certain

* p. 69. t See " On Truth," pp. 136, 137, 386, 445.

90 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

parallelism of results in the effects of one set of ob-
jective external conditions acting upon two distinct
kinds of internal subjective powers — one sentient, the
other rational. The wonders of vegetable life, of senti-
ency, and of intellect, are all parallel and similarly
inexplicable. In plants we have chemical combinations
organized and vivified ; in animals we have vegetative,
organic life raised to sentiency and receptive power ;
and in man we have animal, sentient life raised to
perception and conceptual power.

His fourth chapter Mr. Romanes devotes to a con-
sideration of the " Logic of Concepts." He begins it by
affirming (what no reasonable person can deny) the great
importance of " sign-making " and " symbols " for the
growth and advance of intellectual life. But he gives
us no definition or explanation as to what he means by
a sign, while he makes observations, by the way, which
must not be allowed to pass without criticism. Thus
he says : * " By the help of these symbols we climb into
higher and higher regions of abstraction : by thinking in
verbal signs we think, as it were, with the semblance of
ideas : we dispense altogether with the necessity of
actual images, whether of percepts or of recepts : we
quit the sphere of sense, and rise to that of thought."
But so long as life, as we know it, lasts, we can never
dispense with the use of mental images (phantasmata)t
of some kind — whether it be of sights or of sounds or of
some form of our own activity. Such images, however,
are not the "semblance of ideas," but survivals and
reminiscences of sensuous experiences.

* p. 71. t As to this, see " On Truth," pp. 87, 88.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 91

Mr. Romanes illustrates his contention by a reference
to mathematics, which demonstrates for us with especial
clearness the great value of symbols. We are told,*
** Man begins by counting things, grouping them visibly
\i.e. by the Logic of Recepts]. He then learns to count
simply the numbers, in the absence of things, using his
fingers and toes for symbols. He then substitutes
abstract signs, and Arithmetic begins." But no man
could begin really counting the simplest things unless
he already possessed the idea of number ; and, as Mr.
Romanes truly says, " before the idea of number can rise
at all," a distinct power of intellectual conception must be
present.! The very essence of "counting" is nujnerical
distinction. To suppose that a man could voluntarily
begin to count, without any idea of such distinction, is
absurds But men, like animals, may "group objects
visibly" without counting. To separate objects in groups
— were they in groups which accidentally had definite
numerical relations — without any regard to their number,
could never be counting. To suppose that a man by
" not counting " could learn to count, or that he could
acquire the idea of " number " by performing actions
wherein he took no note of real numerical relations,
is to add absurdity to absurdity. He could not possibly
take note of any numerical relations without having the
idea of numerical relation, that is, without possessing
very abstract ideas and having already an intellectual
nature. We dwell on this point because it is a good

t For what is implied in the idea of "number," see "On Truth,"
p. 241.

92 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

instance of that "intellectual thimble-rigging" which
all men of the sensist school, from Hume downwards,
must perform in order to make the innocent on-
looker think he has found the pea of " intellect " under
the thimble of " sense." We dwell on it the more be-
cause the sincerity and honesty which are conspicuous
amongst the other merits of Mr. Romanes, show how he
himself has been deceived and is all unconscious of the
ways of some of his masters. It is none the less true
that he is completely justified in affirming,* with Sir W.
Hamilton, that signs of some kind are needed " to give
stability to our intellectual progress," that "words
are fortresses of thought," and that "thought and
language act and react upon one another.f Not,
however, that we can for a moment admit that any
change in mere verbal expressions, which are not the
result of a modification of thought, can improve the
latter. It is thought alone which can really improve
language, though verbal modifications acting with it and
produced by it may greatly aid it and hasten intel-
lectual progress.

Mr. Romanes begins the real substance of his fourth
chapter as follows : \ " From what I have already said,
it may be gathered that the simplest concepts are
merely the names of recepts." This we altogether deny.
In the very simplest concepts, the ideas, " existence,"
"kind" or "nature," " reality," " possibility " and "impossi-

* p. 73.

t Here we may ask at once, by anticipation, " If thought is
thus admitted to be able to improve language, why should it be
thought unable to originate it ? "

X p- n-

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 93

bility," and "truth," etc., are latent and implied.* But
such is not the case with recepts, every one of which,
moreover, not only contains, but consists of, phantasmata
— imaginary phenomena which accompany, but are far
indeed from constituting, every concept.

Mr. Romanes offers us, as examples of recepts (sense-
perceptions), the impressions severally produced by
water, ice, or dry land, on the psychical faculties of
diving birds and men. Man, he tells us,t "like the
water-fowl, has two distinct recepts, one of which answers
to solid ground, and the other to an unresisting fluid.
But, unlike the water-fowl, he is able to bestow upon
each of these recepts a name, and thus to raise them
both to the level of concepts." But it is his very power
of conception which enables him to give them a name.
No concepts, therefore, can possibly be " merely the
name of recepts ; " they are results of, and embody that
marvellous power which enables man to bestow a name.

Man, he tells us, " must be able to set his recept
before his own mind as an object of his own thought :
before he can bestow upon these generic ideas the names
of * solid ' and ' fluid,' he must have cognized them as
ideas." Here there is some confusion of thought. We
do not bestow names upon our sensuous cognitions or
recepts, unless we are occupied about psychology — unless
we are considering mental processes. But we bestow
names upon what we perceive to be objects of certain
kinds, or upon qualities which we perceive concretely
existing, as, e.g.^ in this land or that water. We do not
perceive the various groups of sensuous affections we

* See " On Truth," pp. 103-105. t P- 74-

94 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

experience, as so many ideas — which, indeed, they never
were and never will be. What we perceive are so many
objective realities, and by turning back the mind to
consider our mental experience, we can recognize that
the presence of those objective realities has been revealed
to our minds by means of the various unnoticed sensa-
tions and sense-perceptions, excited in us by them.
These sensuous affections, as before said, hide them-
selves in making such objects and ideas known. But
it is evident that they do not constitute such things, for,
as we have pointed out, they persist and remain side
by side with the ideas to which they minister.

Mr. Romanes further says : " Prior to this act of cogni-
tion, these ideas [of man] differed in no respect from the
recepts of a water-fowl." Now, we do not desire to deny
this — the question is for us quite immaterial. Neverthe-
less we do not think that such complete similarity can with
reason be so dogmatically affirmed. It is by no means
clear to us that the recepts formed by different animals
from the very same objects must always "differ in no
respect." The innate natures of different animals — e.g.
birds and fishes — may so differ that the action of the
same object on both may produce in those two classes
of animals results more or less decidedly different. Mr.
Romanes adds,* " In virtue of this act of cognition,
whereby he assigns a name to an idea known as such, he
[man] has created for himself a priceless possession : he
has formed a concept." But our author has previously
affirmed, with great truth, that before a man can bestow
names, he must have ideally cognized what he so names.

* p. 75.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 95

Moreover, a man does not assign a name " to an idea
known as such " (unless, as before said, he is occupied
about psychology), but he assigns a name to an object of
which he has already formed some sort of conception.
How could a man name a thing of which he had no sort
of conception whatever ?

Mr. Romanes remarks* that "names are not con-
cerned with particular ideas, strictly so called : concepts,
even of the lowest order, have to do with generic ideas."
Now, concepts " have to do with " general ideas ; but,
nevertheless, there are such things as individual con-
cepts. We may have an idea of some individual man
or animal, the absolute individuality (or "hsecceity")t of
which forms so essential a part of our conception of
it, that the conception would be essentially different
without it.

But Mr. Romanes well expresses one relation in
which intellectual perception stands to its sensuous
antecedents. "The Logos," he says,:|: "does not come
upon the scene of its creative power to find only that
which is without form and void : rather does it find a
fair structure of no mean order of system, shaped by
prior influences, and, so far as thus shaped, a veritable
cosmos."

The reader has, however, in reading Mr. Romanes's
work, to be almost constantly on his guard against mis-
leading expressions which are very frequently introduced
— we are convinced, in simple unconsciousness. Thus
we read, "All concepts in their last resort depend on
recepts, just as in their turn recepts depend on percepts."
* p. 76. t A very convenient scholastic term. J p. 77,

96 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

This statement is founded on a fact which it deforms.
It is quite true that we can have no sense-perception
without preceding or accompanying sensations, and no
idea without some accompanying imaginations ; but the
expression, "in their last resort," implies that ideas are
fundamentally only recepts. One thing is not another
because it cannot exist without it. All active steam-
engines depend on water, but they are not water. Simi-
larly the teaching contained in Mr. Romanes's book
depends on printer's ink and printer's devils, yet it is
altogether different from either.

It is but natural, then, in him to tell us that "the
most highly abstract terms are derived from terms less
abstract, until, by two or three such steps at the most,
we are in all cases led directly back to their origin
in a 'lower concept' — i.e. in the name of a recept"
This statement is based partly upon the fact that the
most abstract terms have had, originally, concrete signi-
fications. Indeed, as we shall later on have occasion
to point out, we cannot, even if we would, make use of
terms which have no concrete meanings. This, how-
ever, is no reason why such terms should not also
serve to give expression, by analogy, to meanings which
are altogether beyond the range of sense-perception.*
They are certainly able to do so now, and we think it
will by-and-by be made evident that they must always
have done so. The idea " equality " is " abstract "
enough ; yet deaf-mutes have expressed it by placing
their forefingers side by side. Why, then, should the

* That conception and intellect are not bounded by our sensitive
powers, see " On Truth," pp. 109-1 11.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 97

relatively concrete and sensuous expression, "fingers-
parallel," be unable also to denote the abstract idea
" equality " ?

Mr. Romanes admits * that a concept may cease to
bear any easily perceptible likeness to what he calls
" its parentage," " owing to the elaboration it subse-
quently undergoes in the region of Symbolism." f

After reiterating statements of his view (already
criticised by us) as to the relations of concepts to
recepts, and as to \vhat he deems the necessity of an
intentional mental act in order to form a concept, he
makes X the somewhat startling assertion : " So far as
my analysis has hitherto gone, I do not anticipate
criticism or dissent from any psychologist, to what-
ever school he may belong " ! What is above all re-
tnarkable in this sentence is the demonstration it
gives that Mr. Romanes, in spite of the pains he has
taken to read and reply to what his opponents have
written, has so utterly failed to apprehend the most
essential point of their whole contention. If we were
Nominalists ; if we were disciples of Locke ; if we did
not, in unison with the whole Aristotelian school, give
to the word " idea " a fundamentally different meaning
from what Mr. Romanes gives it ; if we did not assert
an essential difference of kind between recepts and con-
cepts ; and if we did not affirm that reasoning consists
in drawing inferences, not in the detection of ratios —

* p. 77-

t " The region of Symbolism " is an odd name for the active
intellect of man !
t p. 80

H

98 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

then there would be no essential difference between us,
and Mr. Romanes's book, so far as we are concerned,
need never have been written. We are, however, very-
thankful that it has-been written, and we rejoice to note
every point of agreement which it shows to exist
between its author and ourselves. One such point
concerns the present relation of thoughts to words, his
remarks as to which seem to us to be very useful and
very true.

He says,* " On reading a letter, for instance, we
may instantaneously decide upon our answer, and yet
have to pause before we are able to frame the proposi-
tions needed to express that answer. Or, while writing
an essay, how often does one feel, so to speak, that a
certain truth stands to be stated, although it is a truth
which we cannot immediately put into words," etc. f
Mr. Romanes, however, makes a singular mistake in the
use of the expression " verbum mentale." He employs it J
as if it meant a mental utterance of words, instead of
(as it does mean) the thought which accompanies what-
ever words, or other external signs, may be made use of.

Towards the end of this chapter he says, " On
the whole, therefore, I conclude that, although lan-
guage is a needful condition to the original construc-
tion of conceptional thought, when once the building
has been completed, the scaffolding may be with-
drawn, and yet leave the edifice as stable as before."
But why should he deem that language was thus prior
and originally necessary? If thought can now exist

* p. 82. t As to this, see further, " On Truth," p. 230.

X p. 82.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES, 99

without it, why may it not have done so earlier?
Surely experience points to the origin of thought from a
direction opposite to that indicated by Mr. Romanes.
If, as he affirms, Friedrich Miiller is right in affirming
the plain truth, " Sprechen ist nicht Denken, sondern es
ist nur Ausdruck des Denkens," then Herr Geiger's dic-
tum : *' So ist denn iiberall die Sprache primar, der
Begriff entsteht durch das Wort " must be a dictum not
only untenable, but absurd, as we have already endea-
voured * to show.

* See " On Truth," pp. 230-234. Mr. Romanes refers (in a
note on p. 83) to a brief correspondence which took place between
ourselves and Prof. Max Miiller in this connection. Therefore we
think it may as well be reproduced here. It was as follows : —

[^Nature, February 2, 1888.]
Letter froin Prof. F. Max Miiller to an American Friend.

" Oxford, January 22.
" You tell me that my book on the * Science of Thought ' is
thoroughly revolutionary, and that I have all recognized authorities
in philosophy against me. I doubt it. My book is, if you like,
evolutionary, but not revolutionary ; I mean it is the natural out-
come of that philosophical and historical study of language which
began with Leibnitz, and which during our century has so widely
spread and ramified as to overshadow nearly all sciences, not
excepting what I call the science of thought.

" If you mean by revolutionary a violent breaking with the
past, I hold, on the contrary, that a full appreciation of the true
nature of language and a recognition of its inseparableness from
thought will prove the best means of recovering that unbroken
thread which binds our modern schools of thought most closely
together with those of the Middle Ages and of Ancient Greece.
It alone will help us to reconcile systems of philosophy hitherto
supposed to be entirely antagonistic. If I am right — and I must
confess that with regard to the fundamental principle of the iden-
tity of reason and language I share the common weakness of all
philosophers, that I cannot doubt its truth — then what we call the
history of philosophy will assume a totally new aspect. It will

THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

Although Mr. Romanes thus (p. 8 1) contends against
that identification of thought with language which Pro-
reveal itself before our eyes as the natural growth of language,
though at the same time as a constant struggle of old against new
language — in fact, as a dialectic process in the true sense of the
word.

" The very tenet that language is identical with thought — what
is it but a correction of language, a repentance, a return of language
upon itself?

" We have two words, and therefore it requires with us a strong
effort to perceive that behind these two words there is but one
essence. To a Greek this effort would be comparatively easy,
because his word logos continued to mean the undivided essence of
language and thought. In our modern languages we shall find it
difficult to coin a word that could take the place of logos. Neither
discours in French, nor Rede in German, which meant originally
the same as ratio^ will help us. We shall have to be satisfied with
such compounds as thought-word or word-thought. At least, I can
think of no better expedient.

" You strongly object to my saying that there is no such thing
as reason. But let us see whether we came honestly by that word.
Because we reason — that is, because we reckon, because we add
and subtract — therefore we say that we have reason ; and thus it
has happened that reason was raised into something which we have
or possess, into a faculty, or power, or something, whatever it may
be, that deserves to be written with a capital R. And yet we have
only to look into the workshop of language in order to see that
there is nothing substantial corresponding to this substantive, and
that neither the heart nor the brain, neither the breath nor the
spirit, of man discloses its original whereabouts. It may sound
violent and revolutionary to you when I say that there is no such
thing as reason ; and yet no philosopher, not even Kant, has ever
in his definition of reason told us what it is really made of But
remember, I am far from saying that reason is a mere word. That
expression, 'a mere word,' seems to me the most objectionable
expression in the whole of our philosophical dictionary.

"Reason is something — namely, language — not simply as we
now hear it and use it, but as it has been slowly elaborated by
man through all the ages of his existence on earth. Reason is the
growth of centuries, it is the work of man, and at the same time
an instrument brought to higher and higher perfection by the lead-

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. loi

fessor Max Miiller rightly declares to be "the inevitable
conclusion of Nominalism," he, none the less, very

ing thinkers and speakers of the world. No reason without
language — no language without reason. Try to reckon without
numbers, whether spoken, written, or otherwise marked ; and if
you succeed in that I shall admit that it is possible to reason or
reckon without words, and that there is in us such a thing or such
a power or faculty as reason, apart from words.

" You say I shall never live to see it admitted that man cannot
reason without words. This does not discourage me. Through
the whole of my life I have cared for truth, not for success. And
truth is not our own. We may seek truth, serve truth, love truth ;
but truth takes care of herself, and she inspires her true lovers
with the same feeling of perfect trust. Those who cannot believe \>^
in themselves, unless they are believed in by others, have never
known what truth is. Those who have found truth know best how
little it is their work, and how small the merit which they can claim
for themselves. They were blind before, and now they can see*
That is all.

" But even if I thought that truth depended on majorities, I
believe I might boldly say that the majority of philosophers of all
ages and countries is really on my side (see ' Science of Thought,'
pp. 31 et seg), though few only have asserted the identity of reason
and language without some timorous reserve, still fewer have seen
all the consequences that flow from it.

" Some people seem to resent it almost as a personal insult that
what we call our divine reason should be no more than human
language, and that the whole of this human language should have
been derived from no more than 800 roots, which can be reduced
to about 120 concepts. But if I had wished to startle my readers
I could easily have shown that out of these 800 roots one-half
could really have been dispensed with, and has been dispensed
with in modern languages (see ' Science of Thought,' p. 417), while
among the 120 concepts not a few are clearly secondary, and owe
their place in my list (ib. p. 619) merely to the fact that in Sanskrit
they cannot be reduced to any more primitive concept. To dance,
for instance, cannot be called a primitive concept ; perhaps not
even to hunger, to thirst, to cook, to roast, etc. Only it so happens
that in Sanskrit, to which my statistical remarks were restricted, we
cannot go behind such roots as N/RT, KSHUDH, T/RSH, VAK,
etc. It is in that Hmited sense only that such roots and such

I02 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

strangely says (p. 84), " Since the time when the ancient
Greeks applied the same word to denote the faculty of

concepts can be called primitive. The number of really primitive
concepts would be so alarmingly small that for the present it
seemed wiser to say nothing about it. But so far from being
ashamed of our modest beginnings, we ought really to glory rather
in having raised our small patrimony to the immense wealth now
hoarded in our dictionaries.

" When we once know what our small original patrimony con-
sisted in, the question how we came in possession of it may seem
of less importance. Yet it is well to remember that the theory of
the origin of roots and concepts, as propounded by Noire, differs,
not in degree, but toto ccpIo from the old attempts to derive roots
from interjections and imitations of natural sounds. That a certain
number of words in every language has been derived from
interjections and imitations no one has ever denied. But such
words are not conceptual words, and they become possible only
after language had become possible — that is, after man had realized
his power of forming concepts. No one who has not himself
grappled with that problem can appreciate the complete change
that has come over it by the recognition of the fact that roots are
the phonetic expressions of the consciousness of our own acts.
Nothing but this, our consciousness of our own repeated acts,
could possibly have given us our first concepts. Nothing else
answers the necessary requirements of a concept, that it should be
the consciousness of something manifold, yet necessarily realized
as one. After the genesis of the first concept, everything else
becomes intelligible. The results of our acts become the first
objects of our conceptual thought ; and with conceptual thought,
language, which is nothing if not conceptual, begins. Roots are
afterwards localized, and made the signs of our objects by means
of local exponents, whether suffixes, prefixes, or infixes. What
has been scraped and shaped again and again becomes as it were
' shape-her',' i e. a shaft ; what has been dug and hollowed out by
repeated blows becomes 'dig-her',' i.e. a hole. And from the
concept of a hole dug, or of an empty cave, there is an uninter-
rupted progress to the most abstract concepts, such as empty
space, or even nothing. No doubt, when we hear the sound of
cuckoo, we may by one jump arrive at the word * cuckoo.* This
may be called a word, but it is not a conceptual word, and we
deal with conceptual words only. Before we can get at a

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 103

language and the faculty of thought, the philosophical
propriety of the identification has become more and

single conceptual word, we have to pass through at least five
stages : —

"(i) Consciousness of our own repeated acts.

" (2) Clamor concomitans of these acts.

" (3) Consciousness of that clamor as concomitant of the act.

" (4) Repetition of that clamor to recall the act.

" (5) Clamor (root) defined by prefixes, suffixes, etc., to recall
the act as locaUzed in its results, its instruments, its agents, etc.

" You can see from my preface to the ' Science of Thought '
that I was quite prepared for fierce attacks, whether they came
from theologians, from philosophers, or from a certain class of
scholars. So far from being discouraged, I am really delighted
by the opposition which my book has roused, though you would be
surprised to hear what strong support also I have received from
quarters where I least expected it. I have never felt called upon
to write a book to which everybody should say A7nen. When I
write a book, I expect the world to say tamen, as I have always
said tamen to the world in writing my books. I have been called
very audacious for daring to interfere with philosophy, as if the
study of language, to which I have devoted the whole of my life, could
be separated from a study of philosophy. I have listened very
patiently for many years to the old story that grammar is one
thing and logic another ; that the former deals with such laws of
thought as are observed, the latter with such as ought to be ob-
served. No, no. True philosophy teaches us another lesson —
namely, that in the long-run nothing is except what ought to be,
and that in the evolution of the mind, as well as in that of Nature,
natural selection is rational selection ; or, in reality, the triumph
of reason, the triumph of what is reasonable and right ; or, as
people now say, of what is fittest. We must learn to recognize in
language the true evolution of reason. In that evolution nothing
is real or remains real except what is right ; nay, in it even the
apparently irrational and anomalous has its reason and justifica-
tion. Towards the end of the last century, what used to be called
Grammaire Generale formed a very favourite subject for acade-
mic discussions ; it has now been replaced by what may be called
Grammaire Historiqtie. In the same manner, Formal Logic, or
the study of the general laws of thought, will have to make room
for Historical Logic, or a study of the historical growth of

I04 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

more apparent. Obscured as the truth may have be-
come for a time through the fogs of Realism [!], dis-

thought. Delbriick's essays on comparative syntax show what can
be done in this direction. For practical purposes, for teaching the
art of reasoning, formal logic will always retain its separate exist-
ence ; but the best study of the real laws of thought will be here-
after the study of the real laws of language. If it was really so
audacious to make the identity of language and reason the founda-
tion of a new system of philosophy, may I make the modest request
that some philosopher by profession should give us a definition of
what language is without reason, or reason without language?

" F. M. M."

{Nature^ February i6, 1888.]

Reason and Language.

*' Prof. Max Muller has been so kind as to favour the readers
of Nature with his views on language and reason, concisely ex-
pressed in a letter to an American friend. As one grateful reader,
1 must desire both to, express my thanks, and also to beg for yet a
little further information with respect to matters of such extreme
interest.

" The Professor says, ' Because we reason — that is, because we
reckon, because we add and subtract— therefore we say that we
have reason.' Now, in the first place, I should be glad to be told
why ' reason ' is to be regarded as identical with such ' reckon-
ing ' ? I have been taught to distinguish two forms of intellectual
activity : (i) Acts of intuition, by which we directly apprehend
certain truths, such as, e.g.^ our own activity, or that A is A ; and
(2) Acts of inference, by which we indirectly apprehend others,
with the aid of the idea ' therefore ' — evolving into explicit recog-
nition a truth previously implicit and latent in premisses. The
processes of addition and subtraction alone, seem to me to consti-
tute a very incomplete representation of our mental processes.

" The Professor also identifies language and reason, denying to
either a separate existence. As to ' reason,' he says, ^ We have
only to look into the workshop of language in order to see that
there is nothing substantial corresponding to this substantive, and
that neither the heart nor the brain, neither the breath nor the
spirit, of man discloses its original whereabouts.' The expression
' whereabouts ' would seem to attribute to those who assert the ex-
istence of 'reason,' the idea that it possesses the attribute of

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 105

cussion of centuries has fully cleared the philosophical
atmosphere so far as this matter is concerned " 1

extension ? In order to understand clearly the passage quoted, we
should learn what Prof. Max Miiller really means by the term
' spirit,' which here figures as one species of a genus also comprising
the breath, the brain, and the heart. Reason, however, is not
represented as being simply language ' as we now hear it and use
it,' but * as it has been slowly elaborated by man through all the
ages of his existence upon earth.' Thus understood, the Professor
' cannot doubt ' ' the identity of reason and language.' Never-
theless he immediately proceeds to point out a striking want of
identity between them. He says, quite truly, ' We have two words,
and therefore it requires with us a strong effort to perceive that
behind these two words there is but one essence ' — namely, that
denoted by the Greek word, logos — ' the undivided essence of
language and thought.' Now, the intimate connection of lan-
guage (whether of speech or gesture) with thought, is unquestion-
able ; but intimate connection is not ' identity.' If thought and
language are ' identical^ how came two words not to have two
meanings, or two thoughts to be expressed by one word .? The
plain fact that we have different words with one meaning, and dif-
ferent meanings with one word, seems to demonstrate that thought
and language cannot be ' identical.'

" ' No reason without language — no language without reason,' is
a statement true in a certain sense, but a statement which cannot
be affirmed absolutely. Language (meaning by that term only
intellectual expression by voice or gesture) cannot manifestly exist
without reason ; but no person who thinks it even possible that an
intelligence may exist of which ours is but a feeble copy, can
venture dogmatically to affirm that there is no reason without lan-
guage, unless he means by reason mere 'reasoning,' which is
evidently the makeshift of an inferior order of intellect unable to
attain certain truths save by the roundabout process of inference.

" But I demur to the assertion that truly intellectual processes
cannot take place in us apart from language. In such matters our
ultimate appeal must be to our own reflective consciousness. Mine
plainly tells me that I have every now and then apprehensions
which flash into my mind far too rapidly to clothe themselves even
in mental words, which latter require to be sought in order to ex-
press such apprehensions. I also find myself sometimes express-
ing a voluminous perception by a sudden gesture far too rapid even

io6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Mr. Romanes tells us, further on in his book,* that
"within the four corners of human experience a self-

for thought-words, and I believe that other persons do the same.
A slight movement of a finger, or the incipient closure of an eyelid,
may give expression to a meaning which could only be thought in
words by a much slower process.

" It is the more remarkable that Prof. Max Miiller should deny
the existence of reason, since he unequivocally affirms, in rather
lofty language, the existence of truth. Yet surely the existence of
truth, in and by itself, is inconceivable. What can truth be, save a
conformity between thought and things? I affirm, indeed, the
certain existence of truth, but I also affirm that of reason, as exist-
ing anteriorly to language — whether of voice or gesture. What is
the teaching of experience? Do men invent new concepts to suit
previously coined words, or new words to give expression to freshly
thought-out concepts ? The often referred to jabber of Hottentots
is not to the point. No sounds or gestures which do not express
concepts would be admitted by either Prof. Max Miiller or myself
to be 'language.'

"The Professor speaks of the 'alarmingly small* number of
primitive concepts ; but who is to be thereby alarmed ? Not men
who occupy a similar standpoint to mine. I fully agree with
Prof. Max Miiller in saying, ' After the genesis of the first concept,
everything else becomes intelligible.'

"We come now to the supreme question of the origin of language.
As to this the Professor observes, ' No one who has not himself
grappled with that problem can appreciate the complete change
that has come over it by the recognition of the fact that roots are
the phonetic expressions of the consciousness of our own acts.
Nothing but this, our consciousness of our own repeated acts, could
possibly have given us our first concepts. Nothing else answers
the necessary requirements of a concept, that it should be the con-
sciousness of something manifold, yet necessarily realized as one.
. . . The results of our acts become the first objects of our concep-
tual thought.' The truth of these statements I venture to question,
and after noting the dogmatic nature of the assertion, ' Nothing but
this could^ etc., I must object to the statement of fact as regards
human beings now. I do not beheve that the infant's first ob-
ject of thought is 'the results of its own acts.' In the first place,

* P- 397.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 107

conscious personality cannot be led up to in any other
way than through the medium of language." But ex-
no object of our early thoughts is merely 'the results of our own
acts/ but a combined result of our own activity and of the action
on us of our environment. Secondly, my observations lead me to
believe that the infant's first thoughts relate to things external, and
certainly not to the results of its own activity as such, which is a
highly complex and developed thought. It may be that the Pro-
fessor, when he says, ' The results of our acts become the first object
of our conceptual thought,' means that such acts in remote an-
tiquity became the objects of man's first thought. This is probably
the case, since, with respect to the origin of thought and language.
Prof. Max Miiller has adopted Noir^'s crude notion that they sprang
from sounds emitted by men at work, conscious of what they
were doing, in the presence of others who beheld their actions and
heard the sounds ; the result being the formation of. a conceptual
word, to attain which five stages had to be gone through as
follows : —

" * (i) Consciousness of our own repeated acts.
'' ' (2) Clamor concomitans of these acts.

" * (3) Consciousness of our clatnor as concomitant to the act.
" ' (4) Repetition of that clamor to recall the act.
" ' (5) Clamor (root) defined by prefixes, suffixes, etc., to recall
the act as localized in its results, its instruments, its agents, etc'

" But if language and reason are identical, reason could not exist
before a single conceptual word existed. Nevertheless, to attain to
this first single word, we see, from the above quotation, that man
must have had the notion of his own acts as such ; the notion of their
repetition ; the notions of clamour, action, and the simultaneity of
clamour and action ; the will to recall the act (yet nihil volilum
quin prcecognitum) ; and, finally, the notions of consequence, in-
strumentality, agency, or whatever further notions the Professor
may intend by his ' etc'

" Thus he who first developed language must be admitted to have
already had a mind well stored with intellectual notions ! But can
it for one instant be seriously maintained, close as is the connec-
tion of language with reason, that their genesis (miracle apart, of
which there is no question) was absolutely simultaneous t He
must be a bold, not to say a rash, man who would dogmatically
affirm this. But if they were not absolutely simultaneous, one must
have existed, for however brief a space, before the other. That

io8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

perience abundantly refutes the notion that speech,
whether as uttered or understood, is thus antecedently

intellectual language could have existed without reason 'is absurd.
Reason, then, must, for however short a period, have preceded
language.

" In conclusion, I desire to point out a certain misrepresentation
with respect to natural selection. The Professor says, ' In the
evolution of the mind, as well as in that of Nature, natural selec-
tion is rational selection ; or, in reality, the triumph of reason, the
triumph of what is reasonable and right ; or, as people now say,
of what is fittest.' But we may ask in passing, if reason has no
existence, how can it ' triumph .'' ' The misrepresentation of
natural selection, however, lies in his use of the word ' fittest.'
When biologists say that the ' fittest ' survives, they do not mean
to say that that survives which is the most ' reasonable and right,'
but that that survives which is able to survive. What there is less
* reasonable and right' in a Rhytina than in a Dugong, or in a
Dinornis than an Apteryx, would, I think, puzzle most of our
zoologists to determine ; nor is it easy to see a triumph of reason
in the extermination of the unique flora of St. Helena by the intro-
duction of goats and rabbits.

"St. George Mivart."

{^Nature, March i, 1888.]
Language = Reason.
"Prof. St. George Mivart has read my letter on 'Lan-
guage = Reason ' in Nature of February 2 (p. 393) with very great
care, and I feel grateful to him for several suggestive remarks.
But has he read the heavy volume to which that letter refers — my
' Science of Thought ' ? I doubt it, and have of course no right to
expect it, for I know but too well myself how difficult it is for a
man who writes books to read any but the most necessary books.
I only mention it as an excuse for what might otherwise seem con-
ceited— namely, my answering most of his questions and criticisms
by references to my own book.

" Prof. Mivart begins by asking why I should have explained
reasoning by reckoning.

*' Now, first of all, from an historical point of view — and this to
a man who considers evolution far more firmly established in
language than in any other realm of Nature is always the most
important — the Latin ratio^ from which came raison and our own

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 109

necessary. This will appear later on * from the case of
Laura Bridgman and the still more remarkable one of

reason^ meant originally reckoning, casting up, calculation, com-
putation, long before it came to mean the so-called faculty of the
mind which forms the basis of computation and calculation, judg-
ment, understanding, and reason.

" Secondly, I began my book on the ' Science of Thought' with
a quotation from Hobbes, that all our thinking consisted in addition
and subtraction, and I claimed the liberty to use the word ' think-
ing ' throughout my own book in the sense of combining. Such a
definition of thinking may be right or wrong, but, provided a word
is always used in the sense in which from the beginning it has
been defined, there can at all events be no misapprehension nor
just cause of complaint on the part of the critic.

" What I meant by combination, or by addition and subtraction
being the true character of thinking, I explained very fully.
'Any book on logic,' I said, 'will teach that all our propositions
are either affirmative or negative, and that in acquiring or com-
municating knowledge we can do no more than to say that A is B,
or A is not B. Now, in saying A is B, we simply add A to the
sum already comprehended under B, and in saying A is not B, we
subtract A from the sum that can be comprehended under B. And
why should it be considered as lowering our high status, if what we
call thinking turns out to be no more than adding or subtracting ?
Mathematics in the end consist of nothing but addition and sub-
traction, and think of the wonderful achievements of a Newton
or a Gauss — achievements before which ordinary mortals like
myself stand simply aghast.'

" Prof. Mivart holds that there are but two forms of intellectual
activity : (i) Acts of intuition, by which we directly apprehend
certain truths, such as, e.g., our own activity, or that A is A ; and
(2) Acts of inference, by which we indirectly apprehend others,
with the aid of the idea ' therefore.'

" There is a wide difference between our apprehending our own
activity and our apprehending that A is A. Apprehending our
own activity is inevitable, apprehending that A is A is voluntary.
Besides, the ' therefore ' on which Prof. Mivart insists as a dis-
tinguishing feature between the two forms of thought is present in
the simplest acts of cognition. In order to think and to say,

* See below, chapter iii.

no THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Martha Obrecht. He also says, " It is only by means
of marking ideas by names that the faculty of conceptual

* This is an orange,' I must implicitly think and say, * This is
round, and yellow, has a peculiar skin, a sweet juice, etc. ; there-
fore it is an orange.' The ' therefore ' represents, in fact, the
justification of our act of addition. We have by slow and repeated
addition formed the concept-name, * orange,' and by saying, ' This is
an orange,' we say no more than that we feel justified, till the
contrary is proved, in adding this object before us to the sum of
oranges already known to us. If the contrary is proved, we sub-
tract, and we add our present object either to the class and name
of lemons, citrons, etc., or to a more general class, such as apples,
fruit, round objects, etc. We ought really to distinguish, as I have
tried to show, not only two, but four phases in every act of cogni-
tion, viz. sensation, perception, conception, and naming ; and I
contend that these four phases, though distinguishable, are not
separable, and that no act of cognition is perfect without the last
phase of naming.

" But how is it. Prof Mivart continues, that different words in
our language have one meaning, and different meanings one word 1
Does not this show that thought and language cannot be identical?

" It has been the principal object of all my mythological studies
to account not only for the origin of polyonymy and homonymy^
but to discover in them the cause of much that has to be called
mythology, whether in ancient tradition, religion, philosophy, or
even in modern science. I must therefore refer Prof. Mivart to
my earlier writings, and can only mention here a few well-known
cases of mythology arising from polyonymy and homonymy.

" We can easily understand why people should have called the
planet Venus both the morning and the evening star ; but we
know that in consequence of these two names many people have
believed in two stars instead of one. The same mountain in
Switzerland is called by the people on the south side Blackhorn^
by the people on the north side Whitehorn, and many a traveller
has been misled when asking his way to the one or the other.
Because in German there are two words, Verstand and Vernunft^
originally meaning exactly the same thing, German metaphysicians
have changed them into two distinct faculties, and English philo-
sophers have tried to introduce the same distinction between the
understanding as the lower and reason as the higher faculty.

" Nothing is really easier to understand, if only we consult the

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. in

thought is rendered possible." But a manual sign for a
horse is no more a picture of a horse than is the written

ancient annals of language, than why the same object should
have had several names, and why several objects should have had
the same name. But this proves by no means that therefore the
name is one thing and the concept another. We can distinguish
name and concept as we distinguish between the concave and con-
vex sides of a lens, but we cannot separate them, and in that sense
we may call them inseparable, and, in one sense, identical.

" Lastly, Prof. Mivart starts the same objection to my system of
psychological analysis which was raised some time ago in these
columns with so much learning and eloquence by Mr. Francis
Galton. He appeals to his own experience, and maintains that
certain intellectual processes take place without language. This
is generally supposed to put an end to any further argument, and
we are even told that it is a mistake to imagine that all men are
alike, so far as their psychological processes are concerned, and
that psychologists should study the peculiarities of individuals
rather than the general character of the human intellect. Now,
it seems to me that run n!empeche pas P autre, but that in the end
the object of all scientific inquiry is the general, and not the
individual. The true life of language is in the dialects, yet the
grammarian aims at a general grammar. In the same way the
psychologist may pay any amount of attention to mere individual
peculiarities and idiosyncrasies ; only he ought never to forget
that in the end man is man.

" But it does not even seem to me that intellectual processes
without language, as described by Mr. Galton and Prof. Mivart,
are at all peculiar and exceptional. I have described similar
cases, and tried to account for them, in different parts of my book.
If Prof. Mivart says that * a slight movement of a finger may give
expression to a meaning which could only be thought in words
by a much slower process,' I went much further by saying that
* silence might be more eloquent than words.'

" Mr. Galton asked me to read a book by Alfred Binet, ' La
Psychologie du Raisonnement,' as showing by experiments how
many intellectual acts could take place without language. I read
the book with deep interest, but great was my surprise when I
found that M. Binet's observations confirmed in the very strongest
way my own position. I had shown how percepts — that is, images
— could exist with a mere shadow of language, and that nothing

112 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

or spoken word " horse." It is an intellectual sign^ the
efficiency of which proves the radical independence of

was more wonderful than what Leibnitz called the algebra of
thought. Now, what do M. Binet's experiments prove ? That
there are two kinds of images, the consecutive^ reproduced spontane-
ously and suddenly, and the 7tie7norial^ connected with an associa-
tion of ideas. The consecutive image, a kind of impression avant la
lettre, may reappear long after the existing sensation has ceased to
act, and it reafppears without any rhyme or reason. But how are
the memorial images recalled, seen by people, such as M. Binet
describes, in a state of hypnotism .'* Entirely by the word. Show
a hypnotized patient her portrait, and she may or may not recognize
it. But tell her, in so many words, ' This is your portrait,' and
she will see her likeness in a landscape of the Pyrenees (pp.
56-57). M. Binet is fully aware of what is implied by this. Thus,
on p. 58, he writes, ' H hallucination hypnotique est formde d'un
image suggeree par la parole.' So, again, when describing the
simplest acts of perception, M. Binet explains how much is added
by ourselves to the mere impressions received through the senses
by ' ce qu'on croit voir^ by * ce qu'on croit sentir^ and by ' le nom
qu^on croit entendre prononcer^ The facts and experiments, there-
fore, contained in M. Binet's charming volume seem to me entirely
on my side, nor do I see that thoughtful observer has ever denied
the necessity of language or signs of some sort for the purpose of
reasoning, nay, even of imagination.

. " I find it difficult to answer all the questions which the Professor
has asked, because it would seem hke writing my own book over
again. However, I shall confess that I have laid myself open to
some just criticism in not renouncing altogether the metaphorical
poetry of language. I ought not to have spoken of Truth as a kind
of personal being, nor of Reason as a power that governs the uni-
verse. But no astronomer is blamed when he uses the old termi-
nology of sunrise and sunset ; no biologist is misunderstood when
he speaks of mankind ; and no philosopher is denounced when he
continues to use the big I instead of ' succession of states of con-
sciousness.' If, therefore, I said that I recognized in evolution the
triumph of reason, I meant no more than that I could not re-
cognize in it the triumph of mere chance. Prof Mivart imagines
that I misunderstood what the biologist means by the survival of
the fittest. Far from it, I understand that phrase, and decidedly
reject it. For, either the survival of the fittest means no more than

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 113

speech which thought possesses. A sign of some kind
is necessary because, since we each have both an

that that survives which is able to survive, — this would be a mere
truism and a patent tautology,— or, if we take in the whole circum-
stances of Nature, the survival of the fittest implies some kind of
inherent fitness and reasonableness. Prof. Mivart writes : ' What
there is less reasonable and right in a Rhytina than in a Dugong,
or in a Dinornis than in an Apteryx, would, I think, puzzle most of
our zoologists to determine ; nor is it easy to see a triumph of
reason in the extermination of the unique flora of St. Helena by the
introduction of goats and rabbits.' No doubt, it is not easy to see
this. But need I remind Prof. Mivart that many things may be
true, though it is not easy to see them .? We often do what we
think is reasonable and right, though we seem to see nothing but
mischief to ourselves and others arising from our acts. Why do
we do this ? Because we believe in the ultimate triumph of reason
and right, though it may take millions of years to prove that right
is right. I have the same faith in Nature ; and, taking my stand on
this scientific faith, I believe that natural selection must in the end
prove rational selection, and that what has been vaguely called the
survival of the fittest will have to be interpreted in the end as the
triumph of reason, not as the mere play of chance.

" F. Max Muller.
" Oxford, February 21."

{Nature., March 15, 188S.]

Reason and Language.

"The kindness of Prof. Max Miiller's reply I recognize with

pleasure, but without surprise, since those who know him know him

to be as remarkable for his courtesy as his great learning.

" In answer to his first question, I must say that I made a point
of attending his Royal Institution lecture on the day his 'Science
and Thought ' was published, and was greatly disappointed that
illness hindered my attending the others. But I immediately
obtained his book, and applied myself to understand what seemed
to me its essence, though I have not read it from cover to cover.
Should I have to review it, of course I shall conscientiously peruse
the whole of it.

" Before replying further, it may be well to restate my position as
follows : —

. " Man is an intellectual being, able to apprehend certain things

I

114 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

intellect and a body forming one absolute unity (one
embodied intelligence), some bodily activity must, as

directly and others indirectly. Normally, his conceptions clothe
themselves in vocal sounds, and get so intimately connected there-
with, that the 'word' becomes practically a single thing composed of
a mental and an oral element. But these elements are not identical^
and the verbum mentale is anterior and superior to the verbum oris
which it should govern and direct. Abnormally, conceptions do
not clothe themselves in oral expressions at all, but only in manual
or other bodily signs, and this shows that concepts may be ex-
pressed (however imperfectly) in the language of gesture without
speech. One consequence of these relations is that neither the
utterance of sounds (articulate or inarticulate) nor bodily move-
ments could have generated the intellect and reason of man, and
Noird's hypothesis falls to the ground. On the other hand, beings
essentially intellectual, but as yet without language, would immedi-
ately clothe their nascent concepts in some forms of bodily ex-
pression by means of which they would quickly understand one
another.

" As to the expressions ' reason ' and ' reckoning,' I would
observe that a study of an organism's embryonic development is a
most valuable clue to its nature, and no doubt a similar utility
attends historical investigations in Prof Max Miiller's science.
Nevertheless, we cannot understand the nature of an animal or
plant by a mere knowledge of an early stage of its existence ; an
acquaintance with the outcome of its development is even more
important. Similarly, I venture to presume, the ultimate meaning
of a word is at least as much its true meaning as is some archaic
signification which may have grown obsolete. The word * spirit,'
if it once meant only the breath, means more now — as we see from
the Professor's first letter. Similarly, if ' reason/ in its Latin form,
once only meant ' reckoning,' that is no ' reason ' why it should
only mean reckoning now. Here it would seem as if we had an
instance of the verbum mentale having acted upon and modified
the verbum oris. I cannot but regard the representation that
affirmative and negative propositions are mere cases of addition
and subtraction, as an incorrect and misleading representation, save
when they refer to mathematical conceptions. I am compelled
also to object to another of the Professor's assertions. He says,
* There is a wide difference between our apprehending our own
activity and apprehending that A is A. Apprehending our own

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 115

before said,* accompany our every thought ; but that sign
need not be now, nor need it ever have been, any form
of speech.

activity is inevitable, apprehending that A is A is voluntary.' It is
true there is a great difference between these apprehensions, though
they both agree in being instances of apprehensions which are not
inferences, and as such I adduced them {Nature^ February 16, p.
364). Nevertheless in my judgment the difference between them
is not the difference which the Professor states. Both are alike
voluntary, regarded as deliberate reflex cognitions, and both are
alike inevitable, regarded as indeHberate, direct perceptions. The
labourer inevitably perceives that his spade is what it is, though the
nature of that perception remains unnoticed, just as he inevitably
perceives his own continuous being when he in no way adverts to
that fact.

" I must further protest against the assertion that the idea ' there-
fore ' is ' present in the simplest acts of cognition ' — that every
perception of an object is an inference. This I regard as one of the
fundamental errors which underlie all the madness of idealism.
Akin thereto is the notion that a philosopher who desires to speak
with the very strictest accuracy ought, instead of using ' the big I,'
to say, 'a succession of states of consciousness.' To me it is
certain that even one state of consciousness (to say nothing of ' a
series ') is no more immediately intued by us than is the substantial
ego ; each being cognized only by a reflex act. What I intue is
my ' self-action,' in which intuition, both the * ego ' and the
' states ' are implicitly contained, and so can be explicitly recognized
by reflection. I was myself long in bondage to these two errors,
from which it cost me severe mental labour to escape by working
my way through philosophical subjectivism. These questions I
cannot here go any further into, and I only mention them in con-
sequence of Prof. Max Miiller's remarks. I will, however, in turn,
refer him to my * Nature and Thought,' as well as to a larger work
which I trust may before long be published, and which, I venture
to hope, he will do me the honour to look at.

" My object in calling attention to the fact that one word may
have several meanings, and several words one meaning, was to
show that there could not be 'identity' between thought and
language. This point the Professor seems practically to concede,

* See above, p. 53.

ii6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Our author further observes* that when thoughts
which have coexisted with words come to be thought

since he now only calls them ' inseparable, and in one sense
identical.' I do not understand degrees of identity. No mere
closeness of resemblance or connection can make two things
absolutely identical. I did not, however, content myself with
denying this ' identity * on account of polyonymy and homonymy ;
I also referred to common experience (which shows us that men do
not invent concepts for preformed words, but the reverse), and 1
appealed to certain facts of consciousness. To my assertions about
consciousness the Professor replies : * The object of all scientific
inquiry is the general and not the individual.' But this is a quite
inadequate reply, since our knowledge of general laws is based on
our knowledge of individual facts, and if only one man could fly,
that single fact would be enough to refute the assertion that flight
is impossible to man.

" With respect to evolution, I never said that Prof. Max Miiller
misunderstood ' natural selection,' but only that he misrepresented
it — of course unintentionally. It is of the essence of natural
selection not to affirm teleology as formerly understood, although,
of course, it can say nothing (for the whole of physical science can
say nothing) about a primordial teleology at the foundation of the
entire cosmos. I, in common with the Professor, look forward to
' the ultimate triumph of reason and right,' but my confidence is
not due to any 'faith' I have in 'Nature' or anything else. I
profoundly distrust 'faith' as an ultimate basis for any judgment ;
I regard my conviction as a dictum of pure reason — the certain and
evident teaching of that science which underhes and gives validity
to every other. I therefore agree with Prof. Max Miiller in regard-
ing it as a lesson which ' true philosophy teaches us.'

" St. George Mivart."

In the number of the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889,
Prof. Max Miiller has published an article, entitled, " Can we think
without Words ? " Therein (p. 401, note 2) he in a truly wonderful
manner concedes all that we demand — at least, he represents him-
self as having done so in a previous work. His words are : " When
I speak of words I include other signs likewise, such as figures, for
instance, or hieroglyphics, or Chinese or Accadian symbols. All I

• p. 83.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 117

of without words, "concepts become, as it were, de-
graded into recepts, but recepts of a degree of com-
plexity of organization which would not have been
possible but for their conceptional parentage." Now,
it is quite true that thoughts, as well as words, are very
often made use of without our adverting to the full
meaning we give them (and, indeed, the full implications
of our thoughts are hardly ever noted), so that they
are used as intellectual counters or symbols in reason-
ing. * Nevertheless, we are always conscious of what
they are, and can direct our attention at will to their
full intellectual significance. Thus they are widely
different from " recepts," and never become (what they
never originally were) a mere bundle of feelings. We
therefore deny in the strongest terms that a concept
can ever be degraded into a recept

Mr. Romanes once more very surprisingly declares \

maintain is that thought cannot exist without signs, and that our
most important signs are words." Of course this is true, and this
is what we have always maintained. But if it is true, then thought
can exist without words. The Professor quotes from p. 58 of a
work pubhshed by Longmans, entitled, " Three Introductory Lectures
on the Science of Thought, delivered at the Royal Institution,
London." At p. 405 of the Nineteenth Century he asks, "What
else can the elements of thought be, if not words, the embodiment
of concepts ? " But if " words " are " the embodiment of concepts,"
the concepts must exist before they are embodied. The " elements
of thought," then, must be something else than words. The
Professor cannot mean that people by merely uttering unmeaning
articulate sounds, get thought into them.

* Our power of thus temporarily disregarding the significance
of concepts is a great help to us in our intellectual progress, as an
economy of labour. As to this, see " On Truth," p. 363.

t pp. 83, 397. This is almost enough to make an opponent
despair of enabling him to understand his (the said opponent's)
position.

ii8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

that he anticipates no opposition, from any school, to
his analysis of mental states, and, he adds, that if his
classification of them is accepted, it follows that the
question of the origin of the human intellect is thrown
back upon that of "the faculty of language." He also
concludes his fourth chapter (which ends his main
analysis of mental states) by affirming* that the only
question "presented to the evolutionist is — Why has
no mere brute ever learnt to communicate with its
fellows? Why has man alone of animals been gifted
with the Logos ? "

Some questions concerning language, the reader will
observe, have already been touched upon by Mr. Ro-
manes, and therefore necessarily by us. Further elu-
cidation of his views as to " mental states " will also
become evident in his treatment of speech. But in his
next five chapters he mainly applies himself to questions
concerning language, and to that also our own next
chapter will be devoted, although we have by no means
accepted his classification of mental states, so that we
cannot admit that the main question is really " thrown
back " upon that of the origin of speech.

The distinction between the views expressed by
Mr. Romanes and those held by his opponents — with
respect to the question of mental states, to which his
five first chapters are mainly devoted — may be briefly
summarized as follows : Mr. Romanes ignores that
distinction between our own higher and lower mental
powers which we regard as probably the most funda-
mental and important of all the distinctions to be made

* p. 84.

MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 119

in the study of mind. Instead of dividing the mental
faculties, as Mr. Romanes does, into "percepts," " re-
cepts," and " concepts," we divide them into two funda-
mental categories : (A) sensuous affections, and (B)
ideas. Amongst the former we class all those which Mr.
Romanes distinguishes as "recepts," while "percepts,"
instead of being at the root of all (where we place
" sencepts "), are by us held to be intellectual activities,
beyond the scope of all our sensitive faculties.

I20 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

CHAPTER III.

REASON AND LANGUAGE.

Mr. Romanes having in the first section of his work
(first five chapters) assumed that animals have percep-
tions (not merely sensitive affections) similar to our
own, tries in his next section (chapters v.-ix.) to show
that there is no essential difference between the lan-
guage of man and that of animals. He tries to show
this by representing not only that words, but that
special modes of expressing them, were necessary ante-
cedents for self-conscious expression on the one hand,
and on the other, that the brute creation by sounds
and gestures can express ideas, and truly communicate
a knowledge of the facts to which their ideas relate.

In his fifth chapter, on Language, Mr. Romanes does
us the honour to adopt our own classification * of its
various categories, adding a seventh category for all

* Taken from our " Lessons from Nature," p. 83. It may be
convenient to our readers to present here the same classification
as more recently expressed by us (" On Truth," p. 235), which is
as follows : —

Language consists of two kinds — the language of feeling, and
the language of the intellect. Of the mere language of the emo-
tions and of feeling we may have —

(i) Sounds which are neither articulate nor rational, such as
cries of pain, or the murmur of a mother to her infant.

(2) Sounds which are articulate but not rational, such as many

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 121

kinds of written signs which we willingly adopt for
greater clearness, and to avoid all divergence which
does not seem to us absolutely necessary.

Of these seven categories we regard the first three as
being common to us and to animals, and hold that the
last four — as external manifestations of internal intellec-
tual conceptions — are absolutely peculiar to mankind.*

Mr. Romanes begins by saying, f "Now, the first
thing to be noticed is, that the signs made may be
made either intentionally or unintentionally ; and the
next is, that the division of intentional signs may be
conveniently subdivided into two classes — namely, in-
tentional signs which are natural, and intentional signs
which are conventional."

oaths and exclamations, and the words of certain idiots, who will
repeat, without comprehending, every phrase they hear.

(3) Gestures which do not answer to rational conceptions, but
are the bodily signs of pain or pleasure, of passion or emotion.

Of the language of the intellect we may have —

(4) Sounds which are rational but not articulate, such as the
inarticulate ejaculations by which we sometimes express assent
to, or dissent from, given propositions.

(5) Sounds which are both rational and articulate, constituting
true " speech."

(6) Gestures which give expression to rational conceptions, and
are therefore " external " but not " oral " manifestations of abstract
thought. Such are many of the gestures of deaf-mutes, who, being
incapable of articulating words, have invented or acquired a true
gesture-language.

We will here add —

(7) A special external manifestation of abstract thought in the
form of written or pictorial signs.

♦ As to language and the fundamental distinction which exists
between its emotional and intellectual forms, see further, "On
Truth," chap, xvi., pp. 351-355-

t p. 86.

122 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Here we must be on our guard against an ambiguous
employment of the terms " intentional " and " conven-
tional." Nothing can be really "intentional" that is
not done consciously, and "consciousness," as opposed
to " consentience," is admitted to be now the exclusive
prerogative of man. But no action which is not "in-
tentional" can really be a sign.* Nevertheless, a
distinction is to be drawn between two kinds of acts,
neither of which is really ^ i.e. "formally," intentional,
as, e.g.^ would be the contact between our hand and a
cat's back which we had intentionally began to stroke.

Thus, one animal, on rounding some corner, may
come in contact with another, of which it had had no
sense-perception ; or it may come in contact with
another which it has seen, and which it has pursued
and caught. The latter contact may be loosely spoken
of as "intentional," though it is not, of course, "for-
mally " so. It may be well to distinguish an act which
is thus but " materially intentional " by the term " im-
pulsionaV — to mark it off, both from what is fully
conscious and volitional t or " formally " intentional, and
from what is merely accidental.

As to the second ambiguous term, "conventional,"
Mr. Romanes applies it, in part, to denote a movement
which animals have learnt to make by sensuous associa-
tion,t or have acquired simply by imitation ; and we

* See above, p. 65.

t Of course what is really " intentional " is also " impulsional."
It is that and more.

X That is, by the association of sounds heard or movements
seen, with the making of sounds or gestures by themselves. It is
thus that the ordinary tricks of animals are acquired.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 123

know that human idiots, devoid of consciousness, learn
movements in the same way. But we also know that
fully conscious men and women often adopt through
distinct agreement (it may be tacitly) certain special
movements as "signs." These latter are, of course,
truly conventional signs, but not the former, which — as
having been nevertheless acquired — may be distin-
guished as " acquisitional" signs.

Mr. Romanes continues : * *' The subdivision of con-
ventional signs may further be split into those which
are due to past associations, and those which are due to
inferences from present experience. A dog which
' begs ' for food, or a parrot which puts down its head
to be scratched, may do so merely because past experi-
ence has taught the animal that by so doing it receives
the gratification it desires ; here is no need for reason —
i.e. inference — to come into play. But if the animal has
had no such previous experience, and therefore could
not know by special association that such a particular
gesture, or sign, would lead to such a particular con-
sequence, and if under such circumstances a dog should
see another dog beg, and should imitate the gesture on
observing the result to which it led ; or if under such
analogous circumstances a parrot should spontaneously
depress its head for the purpose of making an expres-
sive gesture, — then the sign might strictly be termed a
rational one."

Now, there is, proverbially, great virtue in an " if,"
and much unequivocal evidence would be needed to
show that such acts ever occur in animals. Granting,

* p. 86.

124 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

however, that they do occur — even every day — that
tendency to imitation which we know many animals
and human idiots possess, would amply account for
them without the intervention of "inference." They
may, therefore, be distinguished as " imitational " actions.
Animals, by the association of sensations, often, as every-
body knows, perform actions which serve as means to a
practical end, without either " ends " or " means " being
apprehended as such. "Imitational" actions of the
kind may well take their place in this category. If
animals had a true power of inference, they would not
perform the very unreasonable actions * they often do —
e.g.^ building a nest in a house in full course of being
taken down, or in a water-pipe, etc.

In a note f Mr. Romanes observes : " In the higher
region of recepts both the man and the brute attain in
no small degree to a perception of analogies or relations :
this is inference or ratiocination in its most direct form,
and differs from the process as it takes place in the
sphere of conceptual thought, only in that it is not
itself the object of knowledge. But, considered as a
process of inference or ratiocination, I do not see that
it should make any difference in our terminology
whether or not it happens itself to be an object of
knowledge."

We have already given — we trust sufficient — reasons
for denying to brutes any real power of intellectual per-
ception, while if man has, as we affirm, an intellectual
nature distinct in kind, such a difference of nature may
well hinder even his recepts from being absolutely the
* See " On Truth," p. 355. t p. 87.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 125

same as those of any brute.* We have also pointed out

the essential nature of ratiocination and its distinctness

from mere sensuous inference, as also that to suppose

a reflex act necessary in order that a mental act should

be conceptual and truly intellectual, is a mistake.

Nothing more is needed for mental conception than

direct consciousness, such, e.g., as that we have of our

own existence when least adverting to the fact of our

existence. We are therefore far indeed from affirming

that the nature of a psychical process is altered by

becoming known. That it is so altered is one of those

things which Mr. Romanes has to prove.f Nevertheless,

the presence or absence of a power to know a psychical

process performed, serves as an indication of a difference

in nature and kind between the being that has, and one

that has not, such a power.

Mr. Romanes next presents us X with a scheme to

show, in diagrammatic form, the classification which he

has himself " arrived at, and which," he tells us, " follows

closely the one given by " ourselves. " Indeed," he adds,

" there is no difference at all between the two, save

that I have endeavoured to express the distinction

between signs as intentional, unintentional, natural,

conventional, emotional, and intellectual." This shows

how Mr. Romanes has failed to appreciate our position.

There is a great and fundamental distinction " between

the two ; " and this I will endeavour also to express

in diagrammatic form.

* See above, p. 94.

t Since he says that a recept is changed into a concept by
becoming known.
X pp. 88, 89.

126

THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

Mr. Romanes's scheme is as follows : —

LANGUAGE, OR SIGN-MAKING.

I 3 2

I I I

Unintentional. Intentional. Without understanding.

4 I 5

I I

Natural. Conventional.

6 I 7

I I

Emotional. Intellectual.

A I B

I \ .

Denotative. Connotative.

C I D

I I

Denominative. Predicative.

Predicative
Denotative

Denominatiue

Connotative

Signs

REASON AND LANGUAGE.

127

We, on the other hand, express ourselves thus :-

LANGUAGE, OR SIGN-MAKING.

I
Accidental.

Impulsional.

Intellectual.

I

Emotional.

I

I I I I

Acquisitional. Natural. Natural. Acquisitional.

I I .1 . I

Conventional. Imitational. Associational. Imitational.

i I

I I \ I

Predicative. Sentimental. Predicative. Sentimental.

I I

Explicit. Implicit.

Signs

128 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Conventional, and therefore acquired, intellectual
language, may express either sentiments * or thoughts,
and such thoughts may be signified with or without
explicit statement — as we may or may not add the
words, "and therefore equal," to a statement that two
angles are angles at the base of an isosceles triangle.

As to animals, Mr. Romanes affirms f that we may
take "as beyond the reach of question the important
fact that they do present, in an unmistakable manner, a
germ of the sign-making faculty." He tells us also that
" the fact is so important in relation to " his subject,
that he will " pause to consider the modes and degrees
in which the faculty is exhibited by animals."

Here the expression "germ of the sign-making
faculty " is ambiguous. That animals possess not only
" a germ " of emotional language, but have it fully
matured and developed, is certain ; but that they have
the minutest germ of an intellectual sign-making faculty
is a thing we most strenuously deny. A sign, as before
said,t is a token depicting ideas it is thereby intended
to communicate ; and we have already pointed out § in
what sense alone actions can truly be called " signs."
Let us now consider the actions of animals which Mr.
Romanes brings forward, and see how far they indicate
any use of " signs."

A wasp, finding a store of honey, "returns to the
nest and brings off in a short time a hundred other
wasps." What is there wonderful in this ? It is surely

* As to the distinction between animal emotions and our
higher sentiments, see "On Truth," pp. i86, 221.

t p. 88. X See above, p. 7. § See above, p. 65.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 129

well within the compass of instinct. There is no need
to suppose an intellectual communication by gesture,
but merely an instinctive stimulation inducing an
instinctive response. In some of the tales given by
Mr. Romanes, the language used plainly shows how
the narrator is saturated with prejudice. It is impos-
sible to place confidence in the narration of one to
whom dispassionate consideration has evidently been
impossible. We are told of a queen bee, which, when
laying eggs, in company with workers, in the cells of
the comb, missed four of the cells, and was thereupon
pushed back by the workers till she had traversed the
cells again more than once in vain. Thereupon the
comment is made : " Thus the workers knew how to
advise the queen that something was yet to be done ;
but they knew not how to show her where it had to
be done." In another instance we read that a hive
having been divided into two chambers by means of"
a partition, great excitement was caused in the half
where the queen was not ; but when Huber used a
trellis-work partition, through the openings of which
the bees could pass their antennae, then there was no
disturbance, because the bees in the half of the hive
where the queen was "were able to inform the others
that the queen was safe." Now, we do not deny that
the excited feelings of the bees could be thus appeased,
but there is no proof of it. The less complete separa-
tion made by the trellis-work partition might have
sufficed for this ; but the hasty inference to the con-
trary, and the expressions used, show plainly the animus
of the narrator.

K

130 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

The tales told of ants are most remarkable for the
mode in which they are told. Certain mining ants do
not lose time by carrying the earth they excavate to
the surface,* " but pass the pellets to those above ; and
the ants on the surface, when they receive the pellets,
carry them — with an appearance of forethought which
quite staggered Mr. Bates — only just far enough to
insure that they shall not roll back again into the shaft,
and, after depositing them, immediately hurry back for
more." Why Mr. Bates should have been " staggered "
by so very simple a phenomenon, we are quite at a loss
to conceive.

With respect to certain other ants, Mr. Belt is quoted
as saying, f " I noticed a sort of assembly of about a
dozen individuals that appeared in consultation. Sud-
denly one ant left the conclave^ and ran with great speed
up the perpendicular face of the cutting without
stopping." Shortly, "information was communicated
to the ants below, and a dense column rushed up in
search of prey." What possible right could Mr. Belt
have to call a dozen ants in proximity "a sort of
assembly" or "a conclave," or to declare that they
"appeared in consultation"? If persons who describe
such things would simply content themselves with
describing that they actually see, great would be the
gain. Even Mr. Bates speaks of "news of a disturb-
ance" being "quickly communicated," as if he was
stating an observed fact instead of drawing an un-
certain inference. Again, we have a statement as
follows concerning ants induced by terror to change
* p. 92. t The italics are ours.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. I3r

an habitual route: One day some ants had been crushed
on a mantel-shelf; "the effect of this was immediate
and unexpected. As soon as those ants which were
approaching arrived near to where their fellows lay dead
or suffering, they turned and fled with all possible haste.
In half an hour the wall above the mantel-shelf was
cleared of ants. During the space of an hour or two
the colony from below continued to ascend until reach-
ing the lower bevelled edge of the shelf, at which point
the more timid individuals, although unable to see the
vase,* somehow became aware of the trouble, and turned
without further investigation ; while the more daring
advanced hesitatingly just to the upper edge of the
shelf, when, extending their antennae and stretching
their necks, they seemed to peep cautiously over the edge
until they beheld their suffering companions, when they
too turned and followed the others." This conduct is
so unlike that of ants with which we are familiar, that
we cannot help suspecting some (of course, quite un-
intentional) inaccuracy in the anecdote; the animus
with which it is related being again betrayed by the
words we have italicized.

We will give yet another quotation \ as to these
ants : " A curious and invariable feature of their be-
haviour was that when an ant, returning in fright, met
another approaching, the two would always communi-
cate; but each would pursue its own way, the second
ant continuing its journey to the spot where the first
ant had turned about, and then following that example."

* A vase of flowers which the ants sought,
t From p. 94.

132 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

This was certainly not a rational proceeciing, while it
quite resembles instinctive action.

Sir John Lubbock's experiments with glasses and
tapes * are interesting, but only go to prove the presence
of those faculties of sense-perception which no one
denies to insects or other animals.

That birds utter different tones, f according as their
feelings are stimulated by different circumstances, is
what no one thinks of denying. The same is true of
apes, dogs, and cats ; and if barking or mewing in a
peculiar way, with the pulling of a maid's apron towards
a door which denies an exit, could prove the presence
of intellect in such animals, then no one could be so
insane as to deny it. These matters, however, are quite
beside the question. Such actions, instead of being
considered as true signs, may be accounted for as mere
means unconsciously employed for a practical end. {

Whether an animal can "point," might seem to be
so simple a question that no mistake could be made
about it. Nevertheless, so great is the confusion in-
troduced into this simple matter, that it becomes neces-
sary to distinguish different significations of that term.

When we say a dog " points," we do not mean that
it points as a man would. It halts in a peculiar way,
and onlookers know the reason why. But it does not
necessarily follow that the dog has any feeling of
relation between its actions and those of the sportsman

* Loc. cit. t p. 96.

X See above, p. 124. When we say " unconsciously employed,"
we, of course, do not intend to imply the absence of "consen-
tience."

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 133

with it, though it may possess such feelings. We have
not the least objection to suppose it does possess them.
But if it has them that does not prevent the action
being a radically different one from the pointing of
man — it does not make it a " sign." * All persons
interested in these questions have probably read or
heard of the card tricks of Sir John Lubbock's dogs.
They have really no novel significance, and are funda-
mentally but what " Toby the learned pig " did in the
days of our early childhood.

The anecdote of the cat who got help for a parrot
up to its knees in dough; those of cats jumping on chairs,
etc., are interesting, but not in the least inconsistent with
our view of animal faculties being distinct in kind from
those of man. We have ourselves elsewhere furnished
anecdotes of the same kind.f

But the small value of the many marvellous tales
told us about "animal intelligence," the credulity of
observers or narrators, and Mr. Romanes's own need of
a keener critical faculty, may all, we think, be made
clear to readers of ordinary impartiality and intelligence
by the following citations.

Mr. Romanes says,:j: "Concerning the use of ges-
ture-signs by monkeys, I give the remarkable case
recorded by James Forbes, F.R.S., of a male monkey
begging the body of a female which had just been shot.

* As to this and other feelings of relation, see " On Truth,"
pp. 188-200, and 344-356.

t See " The Cat " (John Murray), p. 367. Animals which from
past sense-experiences have associated feelings of relief with the
presence of a certain person, may be thus led to seek the presence
of such a person when fresh painful feelings are excited in them.

% p. 100.

134 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

* The animal came to the door of the tent, and, finding
threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning, and
by the most expressive gestures seemed to beg for the
dead body. It was given him ; he took it sorrowfully
in his arms and bore it away to his expecting com-
panions.' " Successful, like Priam, it would be interesting
to know what the monkeys did with the corpse. Mr.
Romanes calls this tale "remarkable." It is so, indeed,
but not in the sense which he intends. Had the apes
made gestures, such as are used in ballets, stronger words
could not have been used to describe them than " most
expressive'' It was, perhaps, but an accident which
prevented the subsequent movements of the apes being
seen and interpreted as " truly funereal ; " seeing that
Professor Biichner* has credited insects with the per-
formance of pious funereal rites. He describes to us two
bees flying out of a hive, " carrying between them the
corpse of a dead comrade," who, after they had found a
suitable hole, " carefully pushed in the body head fore-
most, and placed above it two small stones [!]. They
then watched for about a minute before they flew away"!

Mr. Romanes cites, with analogous credulity, an
account of a monkey shot by Captain Johnson, which
" instantly ran down to the lowest branch of a tree, as if
he were going to fly at me, stopped suddenly, and coolly
put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood,
and held it out for me to see."

We are yet further told f of a " closely similar case,"
recorded by Sir William Hoste, as follows : —

* In his sensational romance, entitled, " Mind in Animals," p. 249.
t p. loi.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 135

*' One of his officers, coming home after a long day's
shooting, saw a female monkey running along the rocks,
with her young one in her arms. He immediately fired,
and the animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her
little one close to her breast, and with her other hand
pointed [!] to the wound which the ball had made, and
which had entered above her breast. Dipping her
finger in the blood, and holding it up, she seemed to
reproach him with having been the cause of her pain,
and also of that of the young one, to which she frequently
pointed."

Now, that these relations repose on a basis of truth
is not to be doubted, neither is the perfect good faith of
the narrators to be suspected. That the mother hugged
her young one, that the wounded apes made gestures
due to anger, pain, terror, or distress, no reasonable
critic would question. It is, however, quite evident that
these kind-hearted sportsmen read into such movements,
motives and meanings due to their own fertile imagina-
tions. Such mistaken inferences are not to be wondered
at on the part of military men, possibly unskilled either
in scientific observation or philosophic reflection ; but
it is strange indeed to see their delusions shared by a
professed psychologist*

But we reach the climax of absurdity in a tale
which is gravely quoted from a correspondent by Mr.
Romanes,! as evidence of exceptional capacity on the

* For an absurd tale about a gorilla, quoted by a writer who
distinguished himself in "moral philosophy" at the London
University, see " On Truth," p. 349.

t p. 190.

136 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

part of a talking bird. It concerns a cockatoo which
had been ill, and the words are : —

" A friend came the same afternoon, and asked him
how he was. With his head on one side and one of his
cunning looks, he told her that he was ' a little better ; '
and when she asked him if he had not been very ill, he
said, * Cockie better ; Cockie ever so much better.' . . .
When I came back (after a prolonged absence) he said,
' Mother come back to little Cockie : mother come back
to little Cockie. Come and love me, and give me pretty
kiss. Nobody pity poor Cockie. The boy beat poor
Cockie.' He always told me if Jes scolded or beat him.
He always told me as soon as he saw me, and in such a
pitiful tone."

After this we feel with Mr. Romanes that " enough
has now been said." For if what he represents as facts
and valid inferences were truly such, we should not say
with our author that " animals present the germ of the
sign-making faculty," but that animals plainly have and
exercise the very same intellectual powers that we
possess and exercise, and that nothing but a series of
accidents can have prevented some bird, such as this
Cockie, from having discovered the law of gravitation or
dictated a treatise like the ethics of Aristotle !

Mr. Romanes concludes the chapter we are examin-
ing as follows : " It is certain that .... no distinction
between the brute and the man can be raised on the ques-
tion of the kind of signs which they severally employ as
natural or conventional. This distinction, therefore, may in
future be disregarded, and natural and conventional signs,
if made intentionally as signs, I shall consider as identical!'

REASON AND LANGUAGE. \yj

This treatment of the subject is indeed a convenient
one for Mr. Romanes's purpose, but it is a quite un-
justifiable treatment. At the beginning of this chapter
we were careful to point out the really fundamental
distinction which exists with respect to the different
classes of actions thus conveniently confounded together
under this ambiguous and misleading use of the terms
"natural" and "conventional," and we think it only
necessary now to refer to what we have before said.*
Not one tittle of credible evidence has been adduced
that any mere animal ever made, or was able to make,
any real sign whatever.

In his sixth chapter the author applies himself to
the consideration of " tone and gesture," as being the
most natural and least conventional form of the sign-
making faculty, and that which, in his opinion, comes
first " in the order of its probable evolution." He says,t
truly enough, that animals express their feelings by
''hissings, spittings, growlings, screamings, cooings,
etc.," as well as by bodily movements, and that, "even
in fully developed speech, rational meaning is largely
dependent for its conveyance upon slight differences of
intonation."

He observes, and we entirely agree with him, " that
an infant makes considerable advance in the language
of tone and gesture before it begins to speak; and,
according to Dr. Scott, who has had a very large experi-
ence in the instruction of idiotic children, ' those to whom
there is no hope of teaching more than the merest
rudiments of speech, are yet capable of receiving a con-
* See, once more, above, pp. 65, 122. t p. 104.

138 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

siderable amount of knowledge by means of signs, and
of expressing themselves by them.' "

The following interesting remarks are quoted * from
Colonel Mallery : " The wishes and emotions of very
young children are conveyed in a small number of
sounds, but in a great variety of gestures and facial
expressions. A child's gestures are intelligent long in
advance of speech ; although very early and persistent
attempts are made to give it instruction in the latter, but
none in the former, from the time when it begins risu
cognoscere matrein. It learns words only as they are
taught, and learns them through the medium of signs
which are not expressly taught. Long after familiarity
with speech, it consults the gestures and facial expressions
of its parents and nurses, as if seeking thus to translate
or explain their words. . . . The insane understand and
obey gestures when they have no knowledge whatever
of words. . . . Sufferers from aphasia continue to use
appropriate gestures."

Colonel Mallery also says that " Indians who have
been shown over the civilized East [of the United
States] have often succeeded in holding intercourse by
means of their invention and application of principles,
in what may be called the voiceless mother utterance,
with white deaf-mutes, who surely have no semiotic
code more nearly connected with that attributed to
the Indians than is derived from their common
humanity. They showed the greatest pleasure in meet-

* p. 105. From his "Sign-language among the North American
Indians" (First Annual Report of tlie Bureau of Ethnology):
Washington, 1881.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 139

ing deaf-mutes, precisely as travellers in a foreign
country are rejoiced to meet persons speaking their
language."

Gesture-language is declared* by Mr. Tylor to be
" substantially the same all the world over," and Colonel
Mallery has affirmed t that " the sign-language of the
Indians is not, properly speaking, one language ; but it
and the gesture-systems of deaf-mutes, and of all peoples,
constitute one language — the gesture-speech of man-
kind— of which each system is a dialect." This shows
plainly how all men are of one intellectual nature.

Mr. Romanes also gives % at length a very in-
teresting account of a conversation held between two
Indians of different races, and carried on entirely in
gesture-language. It began with the questions and
answers : " Which of the North-Eastern tribes is yours ?
Mountain river men. How many days from Mountain
river? Moon new and full three times." The dialogue
was continued through a great variety of detail.

A deaf-mute at Washington is said § to have related
to some Indians that " when he was a boy, he went to a
melon-field, tapped several melons, finding them to be
green or unripe ; finally, reaching a good one, he took
his knife, cut a slice and ate it. A man made his
appearance on horseback, entered the path on foot,
found the cut melon, and, detecting the thief, threw the
melon towards him, hitting him in the back, whereupon
he ran away crying. The man mounted and rode off in
an opposite direction." There is also given || " the

* See p. 107. t See p. in. :{: p. 108.

§ p. 112. II p. 113.

I40 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

narrative of a boy going to an apple-tree, hunting for
ripe fruit, and filling his pockets, being surprised by the
owner and hit upon the head with a stone." This anec-
dote was much appreciated by the Indians and com-
pletely understood.

The amount of abstract thought thus expressed and
apprehended by means of gesture only, shows that it
must be a matter of difficulty to lay down any hard
and fast line beyond which intellectual intercourse by
gesture only should be absolutely impossible.

As to the effect of spoken language on gesture,
Mr. Romanes observes:* "As all the existing races of
mankind are a word-speaking race, we are not able
to eliminate this factor, and to say how far the sign-
making faculty, as exhibited in the gesture-language
of man, is indebted to the elaborating influence pro-
duced by the constant and parallel employment of
spoken language. We can scarcely, however, entertain
any doubt that the reflex influence of speech upon
gesture must have been considerable, if not immense."
This seems to us to be very questionable ; for the use
of so rapid and very serviceable an agent as spoken
language, must have tended to starve out and replace
the relatively slow and much less serviceable language
of gesture. No doubt, speech has greatly aided the
elaboration of ideas, and so enriched the conceptual
material for gesture-expression, without at all facilitating
or developing gesture expression itself. We have no evi-
dence of its having done the latter, and do not see how
it could have had that effect. Mr. Romanes continues :

* P- 113.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 141

" Even the case of the deaf-mutes proves nothing to the
contrary ; for these unfortunate individuals, although not
able themselves to speak, nevertheless inherit in their
human brains the psychological structure which has
been built up by means of speech ; their sign-making
faculty is as well developed as in other men, though,
from a physiological accident, they are deprived of the
ordinary means of displaying it. Therefore we have
no evidence to what level of excellence the sign-making
faculty of man would have attained, if the race had been
destitute of the faculty of speech."

But deaf-mutes never inherited the extraordinary
manual dexterity they show in manifesting their ideas.
Such special nervous connections, or hypertrophied con-
dition of nerves and ganglia as may be supposed to
have been induced by long descent through speaking
ancestors, they might have inherited. Such an inheri-
tance, however, could never have aided their gesticu-
lations. We must rather suppose that the nervous
conditions of abundant gesticulation must have been
going through a process of atrophy for ages, during all
the many generations of their loquacious fathers. More-
over, as we shall see almost directly, deaf-mutes do not
express their ideas in the order and sequence followed
in the spoken language of their fellows, but have a
special construction of their own. Yet this construction
could never have been inherited from their speaking
forefathers. A fortiori, then, their modes of gesticulation
could not be the outcome of their speaking forefathers.
As no amount of gesture-capacity could possibly by
itself have initiated the beginning of speech, so no

142 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

speaking capacity could by itself have initiated the
bodily movements of gesture-language.

We may further observe that no nervous develop-
ments of either kind (those subserving oral, and those
subserving manual expression) could have constituted
a faculty of conception generally, since such things are
but differences in degree in the material accompani-
ments of a corresponding physiological activity ; while
the first introduction of a power of conception is the
initiation of a psychical difference of kind. Mr. Romanes
is not always careful enough about such distinctions,
since, in the passage last quoted, he speaks of a "psycho-
logical structure" of "brain" being inherited, instead
of speaking of an anatomical condition accompany-
ing a certain psychological activity. Some definite
structural conditions and physiological activities must
— in a creature at once corporeal and intellectual as we
are — accompany all thinking. Nevertheless, the phe-
"fibmena exhibited by deaf-mutes and gesticulating
Indians, serve abundantly to prove that neither the
anatomical nor the physiological conditions need be such
as are indispensable for speech. They show that such
highly abstract ideas as " ripeness," " appearance," " de-
tection," " direction," " surprise," etc., can be both enter-
tained and plainly signified in the absence of such
anatomical and physiological conditions.

Mr. Romanes next calls our attention * to some

details concerning the syntax of gesture-language.

Thus the construction f of the sentences of deaf-mutes

is said to be uniform " in different countries, and wholly

* p. IJ4. t See also "On Truth," p. 229.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 143

independent of the syntax which may happen to belong
to the language of their speaking friends." They do
not say, "'black horse,' but 'horse black ;' not 'Bring a
black hat,' but ' Hat black bring ; ' not ' I am hungry,
give me bread,' but ' Hungry me, bread give.' " We
need hardly observe that these modes of construction
answer every practical purpose, while, as we recently
remarked, they could never by any possibility have been
inherited from speaking ancestors. Thus we have here
absolute proof positive of the independent and spon-
taneous activity of the human intellect in forming and
expressing its own concepts or abstract ideas — entities
at the opposite pole of psychical, cognitive life, to sense-
perceptions and sensuous universals.

This innate intellectuality, this spontaneous, pur-
posive, voluntary expression of concepts in manual
language, is made specially clear in the following pas-
sage,* which shows how the deaf and dumb first give
expression to that part of their communication which
they are most anxious to impress on their hearer : " If
a boy had struck another boy, and the injured party
came to tell us, if he was desirous to acquaint us with
the idea that a particular boy did it, he would point to
the boy first. But if he was anxious to draw attention
to his own suffering, rather than to the person by whom
it was caused, he would point to himself and make
the act of striking, and then point to the boy." Mr.
Romanes quotes f an answer given by a deaf and dumb
pupil to the Abbe Sicard. But the answer is far more
remarkable for the highly abstract conception it ex-
* p. 115. t p. 116.

144 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

pressed than for the order of its expression. To the
question, "Who made God?" he replied, "God made
nothing." This was the same construction as he em-
ployed for affirming that a shoe. was made by the shoe-
njaker, i.e, " The shoe made the shoemaker." Thus, by
" God made nothing," he meant, God was not made by
anything, i.e. is self-subsisting !

The deaf and dumb, we are told,* express a con-
junctive sentence " by an alternative or contrast ; ' I
should be punished if I were lazy and naughty,' would
be put, ' I lazy, naughty, no ! — lazy, naughty, I punished,
yes ! ' Obligation may be expressed in a similar way ; * I
must love and honour my teacher,' may be put, ' Teacher,
I beat, deceive, scold, no ! — I love, honour, yes I ' "

Of course this is a roundabout form of language,
compared with oral expression ; but, though longer,
it is fully as complete logically.

As an example of extremely elaborated gesture-lan-
guage, we may cite Colonel Mallery's version f of a
narration of the parable of the Prodigal Son by signs :
" Once, man one, sons two. Son younger say. Father
property your divide : part my, me give. Father so. —
Son each, part his give. Days few after, son younger
money all take, country far go, money spend, wine
drink, food nice eat. Money by-and-by gone all.
Country everywhere food little : son hungry very. Go
seek man any, me hire. Gentleman meet' Gentleman
son send field swine feed. Son swine husks eat, see —
self husks eat want — cannot — husks him give nobody.
Son thinks, say, father my, servants many, bread enough,
* p. 117. t p. 118.

REASON AND LANGUAGE, 145

part give away can — I none — starve, die. I decide :
Father I go to, say I bad, God disobey, you disobey —
name my hereafter son, no — I unworthy. You me work
give servant like. So son begin go. Father far look :
son see, pity, run, meet, embrace. Son father say, I bad,
you disobey, God disobey — name my hereafter son, no
— I unworthy. But father servants call, command robe
best bring, son put on, ring finger put on, shoes feet put
on, calf fat bring, kill. We all eat, merry. Why } Son
this my formerly dead, now alive : formerly lost, now
found : rejoice."

Colonel Mallery's testimony is also priceless as show-
ing that these unfortunates have and can give plain
expression to the most abstract of all concepts — that of
"being" or "existence." He tells us that the sign used
by deaf-mutes to express it is " stretching the arms and
hands forward, and then adding the sign of affirmation."

The abstract cognition, "time," is also clearly sig-
nified * in such ways as the following : " Sleep done,
I river go ; " meaning, " When I have had my sleep, I
will go to the river."

The idea of equality is also signified by deaf-mutes
by extending the index fingers side by side — as when
repeating that expression in the Lord's Prayer, " As in
Heaven." We see, then, how intellectual concepts and
distinct statements may be made with the copula
remaining latent and implicit, while the most lofty
abstractions, even such a supremely abstract idea as
existence, may be intellectually conceived and clearly
expressed by this wonderful language of gesture.

* p. 119.

146 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

In his next (seventh) chapter Mr. Romanes applies
himself to the consideration of articulation.

He begins by referring, as we have before done,* to
the occasional meaningless articulations of idiots, some
birds, young children, and certain savages and lunatics.
He tells us \ of one of his own children who was very
late in beginning to speak, but who " at fourteen and a
half months old said once, and only once, * Ego.' " This
fact is cited as one instance out of many, to show
(what we also affirm) that meaningless articulation is
" spontaneous and instinctive, as well as intentionally
[and we say, also unintentionally] imitative." He also
quotes from Mr. Tylor, to the effect " that even born-
mutes, who never heard a word spoken, do of their own
accord and without any teaching make vocal sounds more
or less articulate, to which they attach a definite meaning,
and which, when once made, they go on using afterwards
in the same unvarying sense."

This, we may be told, is simply the result of in-
heritance from many generations of speaking ancestors.
But we may reply, How about those who first articulated?
Why are we not to suppose such actions to have been
instinctive ? We know that instinct is a radically dis-
tinct faculty,! not to be explained by either lapsed or
actual intelligence, or by mere reflex action, but rather
as a special modification of that sensori-motor power
which we know also exists in us now. How else could
the language of gesture have arisen t And if we allow
an instinctive activity to primitive gesture, why not also

* See " On Truth," p. 197. f p. 122.
X See ''On Truth," pp. 358-366, 515-518.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 147

to primitive articulation ? When once any one has a
meaning to convey, he must, if he can succeed in con-
veying it, convey it by some visible, audible, or tactile
sign. The employment of any one must be due to an
internal impulse, and the employment also of any one
kind of sign is fundamentally as wonderful as are either
of the others. If existent dumb sign-making is due to
ancestral speech, and ancient speech due to still more
ancient gesture — as Mr. Romanes represents — to what
was the original gesture due ?

As we have already pointed out,* the nervous ana-
tomical conditions which favoured and were further
developed by one kind of expression, could never have
favoured the other.

We are quite sure that Mr. Romanes is entirely sincere
and honest, and does not see the equivocal nature of his
argument. Nevertheless, to represent that the origin of
each kind of language was developed from the other,
and to withdraw whichever conception of origin an
inquirer may seem disposed to select, is practically to
shuffle with ideas in a way which reminds us not a little
of the well-known " three-card trick." To this question
we shall, however, be compelled to revert f when we come
to examine Mr. Romanes's eighth chapter — that on " the
relation of tone and gesture to words."

Our author candidly makes the noteworthy admis-
sion X that it would " be wrong to say that a higher
faculty is required to learn the arbitrary association
between a particular verbal sound and a particular act

* See above, p. 141. t See below, pp. 163.

X p. 123.

148 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

or phenomenon, than is required to depict an abstract
idea in gesture ; " and adds, with much truth : " This only
shows that where higher faculties are present, they are
able to display themselves in gesture as well as in
speech." With this we entirely agree. Where intellect
exists it can manifest itself either by speech or gesture
and where it does not exist, mere consentience may
associate (as in apes, dogs, and learned pigs) definite
articulate sounds, as well as definite gestures, with par-
ticular motions.

Mr. Romanes affirms that " the higher animals
unquestionably do understand the meaning of words."
This is ambiguous. If we employ the word "under-
stand " in a loose and popular sense, every one would
admit the truth of what he says, but not if we use it in
its human sense. Therein, as we have shown,* the
ideas of "existence" and "truth" are latent, and if
animals understood words in that human sense of the
term "understand," they would certainly be able to
converse, at least in gesture. Such anecdotes as those
of terrier dogs holding food on their muzzle till the
words " Paid for " are uttered, or collie dogs being
roused by hearing " Cow in the potatoes," are easy
enough to understand on the very principle which we
have just quoted Mr. Romanes as admitting.! As we
are told,t "numberless other anecdotes of the same
kind might be quoted," but their value is far from being
in proportion to their number. The mere titles of such
books as Watson's " Reasoning Power in Animals," and

* See " On Truth," p. 103, and above, p. 45.
t p. 123. X p. 125.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 149

Mennier's " Les Animaux Perfectibles," afford us reason
to regard their contents with grave suspicion. Mr.
Chambers, Professor Bain, and the late Mr. G. H. Lewes
agree as to this tendency to exaggeration, declaring it
to be " nearly as impossible to acquire a knowledge of
animals from anecdotes, as it would be to obtain a
knowledge of human nature from the narratives of
parental fondness and friendly partiality," and affirming
that the researches of various eminent writers on animal
intelligence have been " biassed " by a secret desire
to establish the identity of animal and human nature !

This " secret desire " goes further still, as Mr.
Darwin himself has shown by naively declaring : * "It
always pleases me to exalt plants in the organic
scale ! "

Mr. Romanes thinks it difficult to overrate the
significance of this power which animals have of asso-
ciating actions with sounds. " The more," he tells us,t
" my opponents maintain the fundamental nature of the
connection between speech and thought, the greater
becomes the importance of the consideration that the
higher animals are able in so surprising a degree to
participate with ourselves in the understanding of
worcjs. From the analogy of the growing child we
well know that the understanding of words precedes
the utterance of them, and therefore that the condition
to the attainment of conceptual ideation is given in this
higher product of receptual ideation. Surely, then, the
fact that not a few among the lower animals (especially
elephants, dogs, and monkeys) demonstrably share

* See " Life and Letters," vol. iii. p. z'h'},' t P- 126.

I50 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

with the human infant this higher excellence of recep-
tual capacity, is a fact of the largest significance. For
it proves at least that these animals share with an infant
those qualities of mind, which in the latter are imme-
diately destined to serve as the vehicle for elevating
ideation from the receptual to the conceptual sphere :
the faculty of understanding words in so considerable
a degree brings us to the very borders of the faculty
of using words with an intelligent appreciation of their
meaning."

But Mr. Romanes's opponents who agree with us, by
no means maintain the "fundamental nature of the
connection between speech and thought," in Mr.
Romanes's sense, which is, the dependence of thought
on speech. They maintain, indeed, the " fundamental "
necessity of the presence of " thought " in whoever uses
either words or gestures to express ideas, but they deny
the existence of any fundamental connection between
thought and articulate utterance. Not only, indeed, do
they deny this, but they affirm that there is a funda-
mental severance between thought and many articulate
utterances ; such as those of parrots, jackdaws, and
abnormal human beings, such as talking idiots. They
also deny, on the grounds previously stated, *^ the
presence of "thought" in that associative, consentient
apprehension of words which we meet with in dogs and

* Because the facts can be well explained by the mere exist-
ence of associations between feelings and emotions, and because
were brutes thoughtful as to such words, their thoughtfulness
would be displayed in other, less equivocal, modes, such as no
one (save such persons as the anonymous narrator of the before-
cited tale of the cockatoo) pretends they do display it in.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 151

various other animals. To say, therefore, that brutes
"participate with ourselves in the understanding of
words " is a false — because ambiguous, and therefore
misleading — assertion. We might as truly say that a
cat walking over the keys of a piano " participates " with
the skilled pianist in " a power of eliciting musical sounds
by instrumental agency"! To assert that " participation"
which Mr. Romanes asserts, is, once more, to beg the
very question his work is professedly devoted to prove.

We deny the existence of any real analogy between
brutes and the growing child, beyond that which
necessarily follows from their common " animality," the
existence of which we, of course, affirm as strongly as
Mr. Romanes does, and the consequences of which we
pointed out in our introductory chapter. Words are
understood by a child before it speaks, because it
already possesses intellect, and the use of significant
oral expressions normally and naturally follows. But
brutes which are physically able to articulate, do not
utter words which they may have associated with ante-
cedent sensuous affections as significant expressions,
just because they have no veritable understanding power
before, during, or after, hearing the words in question.

Therefore we altogether deny the consequence which
(as we have just seen) Mr. Romanes draws — namely, that
" the condition to the attainment of conceptual ideation
is given in this highest product of receptual ideation."
A psychical power of sensuous, consentient apprehension
is, of course, in us, a necessary antecedent condition
for the attainment of conceptual ideation ; just as is a
power of sensation, a sufficient integrity of nervous

152 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

structure, a sufficient supply of healthy, nutritious blood,
and life itself. But neither in life, nor healthy blood,
nor an unimpaired nervous system, nor sensitivity, and
consentient apprehension, is ''given" the "condition to
the attainment of conceptual ideation," unless an intel-
lectual nature is already present. Elephants, dogs, and
monkeys do not " demonstrably share with the human
infant" its powers of apprehension. For it is impos-
sible to " demonstrate " that the infant has not already
that intellectual nature, the presence of which soon
becomes undeniable. Neither can any one " demon-
strate " that the infant's merely receptual powers are not
modified by the latent presence of a truly intellectual
nature. Mr. Romanes tells us that the power of "under-
standing words " to the extent that dogs, elephants, and
apes understand them, " brings us to the very borders
of the faculty of using words with an intelligent appre-
ciation of their meaning." But this is quite a mistake.
Words, apart from their intellectual employment, are
merely bodily movements of parts accessory to respira-
tion, accompanied by sound. There is, then, no a priori
reason why a dog, were it physically capable of articu-
lation,* should not use words to denote its " feelings,"
instead of wagging or stiffening its tail as the case
may be. Did it so articulate, the careless observer
would be very apt to interpret its words as declarations
of facts, instead of being (as on the hypothesis they
would be) nothing but signs of feelings. Mr. Romanes
himself says,t " If these animals were able to articulate,

* And it is by no means absolutely certain it is not so capable,
t pp. 127, 128.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 153

they would employ simple words to express simple ideas.
I do not say, nor do I think, that they would form pro-
positions ; but it seems to me little less than certain
that they would use articulate sounds, as they now use
tones or gestures. . . . For instance, it would involve the
exercise of no higher psychical faculty to say the word
* Come,' than it does to pull at a dress or a coat . . ,
or to utter the word * Open,' instead of mewing before
a closed door ; or, yet again, to utter the word * Bone,'
than to select and carry a card with the word written
upon it."

With a protest against the employment here of the
term "idea," we can express our entire and cordial
agreement* with this passage. Words so used need
have no meanings beyond those expressed by the various
movements which animals do make.

Mr. Romanes next proceeds to relate certain anec-
dotes about articulating birds, and make certain reflec-
tions there anent. We have already seen f how easy is
Mr. Romanes's credulity on this subject ; and we should
bear this credulity in mind, in every attempt to estimate
justly the value of his deductions.

* See "On Truth," p. 352, where we have already pointed out
these considerations.

t See above, p. 136. At p. 130 he also tells us, in a note : " I
have received numerous letters detailing facts from which I gather
that parrots often use comical phrases when they desire to excite
laughter, pitiable phrases when they desire to excite compassion,
and so on ; although it does not follow from this that the birds
understand the meanings of those phrases, further than that they
are as a whole appropriate to excite the feelings which it is desired
to excite." Such phenomena he also believes himself to have
observed.

154 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

He begins by telling us,* " It is unquestionable that
many parrots know perfectly well that certain names
belong to certain persons, and that the way to call these
persons is to call their appropriate names." Here, again,
we meet with that ambiguous use of the verb "to know "
which we have before objected to here and elsewhere.f
He then decorates with the term " very proper " a fla-
grant statement he quotes from Houzeau, affirming that
the way in which " some parrots habitually use certain
words shows an aptitude correctly to perceive [!] and to
name [!] qualities as well as objects."

These statements are either due to a confusion of
thought, or to a want of care to avoid playing fast and
loose with terms, and so — practically, however uncon-
sciously— throwing dust into the eyes of readers not
careful to protect their mental vision. Thus, he next
tells us,t very properly, that "the apposite use of words
or phrases by talking birds are found on inquiry to be
due, as antecedently we should expect that they must,
to the principle of association. The bird hears a proper
name applied to a person, and so, on learning to say
the name, henceforth associates it with that person.
And similarly with phrases. These with talking birds
are mere vocal gestures, which in themselves present
but little more psychological significance than muscular
gestures. The verbal petition, * Scratch poor Poll,' does
not in itself display any further psychological develop-
ment than the significant gesture of depressing the head
against the bars of the cage." This is precisely what we
insist upon, and such articulations, like such movements,

* p. 129. t See '' On Truth," p. 189. t p. 131-

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 155

can be fully accounted for without the presence of any-
real " understanding " or " knowledge " at all. Such
associations (cited from remarks made by Dr. Samuel
Wilks, F.R.S.) as those between the sight of certain
persons and sounds or phrases such a bird has heard
them utter, or between the sight of the coachman and
the words " half-past two," generally said to him when
he comes for orders, or between the sound of drawing
a cork with a corkscrew and the sight of a bottle, etc.
— all such phenomena of association are most easy to
understand and are fully to be accounted for without
the presence of any faculty higher than that of con-
sentience.

But after thus admitting the position we contend for,
Mr. Romanes pfoceeds to retract his admissions,* with-
out saying or appearing to be the least aware that he is
so doing. He says, " In designating as 'vocal gestures'
the correct use (acquired by direct association) of proper
names . . . and short phrases, I do not mean to dis-
parage the faculty which is displayed. On the con-
trary, I think this faculty is precisely the same [!] as
that whereby children first learn to talk. . . . The only
difference is that, in a few months after its first com-
mencement in the child, this faculty develops into pro-
portions far surpassing those which it presents in the
bird, so that the vocabulary becomes much larger and
more discriminative. But the important thing to attend
to is that at first, and for several months after its
commencement, the vocabulary of a child is always
designative of particular objects, qualities, actions, or

* p. 133.

IS6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

desires, and is acquired by direct association." This is
really, though not formally, contradictory to what Mr.
Romanes has earlier most truly said,* that the nascent
intelligence first apprehends general characters, and
not particulars, which latter are only subsequently
detected by a process of mental analysis. Of course we
utterly deny that the first talking of a parrot and a
child is, or can be, due to a faculty which is ^'precisely
the same!' as we also deny that " in this stage language
is nothing more than vocal gesticulation." f It may or
it may not be " more," according to the circumstances.

" Therefore," concludes Mr. Romanes, " we may now,
I think, take the position as established a posteriori as
well as a priori, that it is, so to speak, a mere accident
of anatomy that all the higher animals are not able thus
far to talk ; and that, if dogs or monkeys were able to
do so, we have no reason to doubt that their use of words
and phrases would be even more extensive and striking
than that which occurs in birds."

This is true enough, and thus such emotional language
need mean no more in the case of a gorilla than it does
in that of a cockatoo.

It would be an altogether different matter if animals
were really able to use names, knowing what they were
about, or could point out groups of objects under-
stood as such. This, however, is what Mr. Romanes
does not hesitate to say they can do. He tells us :
' There still remains one feature in the psychology of
talking birds to which I must now draw pronTinent
attention. So far as I can ascertain, it has not been

■^ pp. 64-67 ; see also above, p. 88. f P- i34'

REASON AND LANGUAGE, 157

mentioned by any previous writer, although I should
think it is one that can scarcely have escaped the notice
of any attentive observer of these animals. I allude to
the aptitude which intelligent parrots display of extend-
ing their articulate signs from one object, quality, or
action, to another which happens to be strikingly
similar in kind. For example, one of the parrots which
I kept under observation in my own house learnt to
imitate the barking of a terrier, which also lived in the
house. After a time this barking was used by the parrot
as a denotative sound, or proper name, for the terrier —
i.e., whenever the bird saw the dog it used to bark,
whether or not the dog did so. Next, the parrot ceased
to apply this denotative name to that particular dog,
but invariably did so to any other, or unfamiliar, dog
which visited the house. Now, the fact that the parrot
ceased to bark when it saw my terrier after it had
begun to bark when it saw other dogs, clearly showed
that it distinguished between individual dogs, while
receptually perceiving their class resemblance. In other
words, the parrot's name for an individual dog became
extended into a generic name for all dogs."

Now, as Mr. Romanes very often refers back to this
example, we must criticize the passage with some pains
and at some length. In the first place, as Mr. Romanes
has before remarked * — citing Dr. Wilks — it is common
enough for parrots to imitate on seeing a visitor some
words or noise he habitually makes, as it may imitate
the sound of cork-drawing on seeing a bottle. Barking
at the sight of the terrier is, then (as Mr. Romanes would

* PP- 131, 132.

158 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

be the first to say), quite a simple matter. But it is
notorious, and admitted on all hands, that animals be-
come impressed so as to identify particulars with par-
ticulars— as to form what I have elsewhere * termed
"sensuous universals." A sheep does not dread this
particular wolf, but any other wolf also. Therefore it
must have a corresponding plexus of feelings ; and as
the parrot easily can form an association between a
plexus of visual feelings and a sound, so it may easily
form an association between a similar sound and a
plexus* of visual feelings closely resembling the former
one. There is no more difficulty in one case than in
the other, and no more need of attributing to it any
superior cognitive power or intention of extending the
meaning of the sound first used. In the first there
was no real or intentional meaning, though there was
a spontaneous activity excited by certain sense-im-
pressions, and the same cause suffices to account for
the second case just as well as the first. There is, of
course, a certain spontaneity and a certain " meaning "
in the sounds, but the meaning is not an intended
one. A weather-cock veering east intends to make
known the meaning which is, of course, present in its
automatic indication " materially," though not " form-
ally." As to the parrot discontinuing to employ its
vocal gesture for the terrier after it had began to apply

* See "On Truth," pp. 191, 206. They have only been so
termed by a remote analogy with true "universals," for there
is nothing which can be truly called universal in such sense-
affections . " Sense " is really ignorant, though the practical outcome
of its affections may resemble perceptions in the material, external
effects which follow. See above, p. 44, note f.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 159

the same gesture to other dogs, it is a singular fact,
which we are inclined to be sceptical about. We doubt
whether Mr. Romanes can be sure that the parrot did
so entirely drop the use of this sign. But whether it did
or not does not matter in the slightest degree for the
argument. The dropping of it could be no indication
of intellect. The recognition by a really intellectual
nature, of other dogs as being " dogs," would not make
the first known dog a bit less a dog, or cause it to be
considered less a dog. That the parrot could practically
distinguish between the familiar terrier and strange
dogs no person can doubt. Every dog who lives with
a cat in the house knows his friend " Tom " from all
other cats, and generally shows a disposition to treat the
latter very differently from the way in which " Tom " is
treated by him. In this anecdote, if we accept without
question all the facts stated, there is not a scintilja
of evidence of the possession by the parrot of an in-
tellectual nature ; there is nothing but what may be
entirely accounted for by that power of association and
consentient apprehension which we all allow that
animals possess.

Mr. Romanes distinguishes * " four divisions of the
faculty of articulate sign-making — namely, meaningless
imitation, instinctive imitation, understanding words as
irrespective of tones, and intentional use of words as
signs." We do not quite understand how " understand-
ing words " can be a division of " sign-making," and
we object to his remark that the understanding of words
"implies, per se, a higher development of the sign-

* p. U7-

i6o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

making faculty than does the understanding of tones
and gestures." Such an understanding of words as is
shown by a parrot, dog, or chimpanzee, is, as Mr.
Romanes himself allows, but the understanding of a
" vocal gesture," and it is acuteness of the senses, and
not intellect, which enables animals to apprehend such
gestures. Mr. Romanes himself has said * (as we have
seen) that " the verbal petition, ' Scratch poor Poll,' does
not in itself \i.e. ^^ per se "] display any further psycho-
logical development than depressing the head against
the bars of the cage."

Speaking of what he calls " the intentional use of
words as signs," he says,t "Talking birds show themselves
capable of correctly using proper names, noun-substan-
tives, adjectives, verbs, and appropriate phrases, although
they do so by association alone, or without appreciation
of grammatical structure." Grammatical structure !
Why, the immense majority of mankind speak with true
intellect and perfect logic, " without appreciation " of
grammatical structure ! That birds use such words of
different kinds " correctly," is a mere accident resulting
from circumstance of association, as Mr. Romanes would
himself assert. Nevertheless, by this use of the adverb
" correctly," a flavour of intellectuality is insinuated,
and this requires to be noted. The faculty of vocal
articulation, he further tells us, " is exhibited by talking
birds in so considerable a degree, that the animals even
invent names." But to "invent" is something much
higher than spontaneously to associate sounds with
sights, and Mr. Romanes has declared that " association "
* p. 131. t P- 138.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. i6i

does account for these performances. Whether he
admits this or not is, however, quite indifferent to us,
as we ground our whole argument, not on authority,
but on evidence. To say " half-past two " at the sight
of a coachman on whose appearance those words have
constantly been heard, is not " to apply words to desig-
nate an object," but to emit sounds with which the sight
of that object has become accidentally associated.

Mr. Romanes next makes an altogether unwarrant-
able assertion which shows great confusion' of thought ;
he tells us that such inventions on the part of parrots
"often clearly have an onomatopoetic origin." Now,
onomatopoeia is a term used to denote the voluntary
employment of an imitation of sounds heard, to denote
the conception of the object which makes the sound
— as when a child calls a duck " quack-quack/' or when
the word " hiss," or something like it, has been employed
to express the idea of a hissing snake. Now, when
a parrot, which has often seen and heard corks drawn,
makes the sound of the drawing of a cork at the sight
of a bottle, such is no true case of onomatopoeia, as
there is no evidence of intention on the part of the
bird to use the sound as a name.

Mr. Romanes ends the chapter by detailing evidence
to show the extent to which, under favourable circum-
stances, young children will invent arbitrary signs,
mostly of an articulate kind. Had we space we would
gladly cite these, as they are much to our purpose. We
maintain that man possesses, and always has possessed,
an instinct of language, whereby to express, and wherein
to incarnate, his spontaneously arising concepts. We

M

i62 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

quite accept what Mr. Romanes says,* that such speech
may attain an astonishing degree of fulness and effi-
ciency, and that though such words have sometimes
an onomatopoetic origin, they, as a rule, have not such ;
that they are far from being always monosyllabic ; that
they are sufficiently numerous and varied to constitute
a not inefficient language without inflections, and that
its syntax has an affinity to that of gesture-language.

The eighth chapter is devoted to a consideration of
the relation borne by tone and gesture to words. We
have but little to object to its contents. No reasonable
person could, or would wish to dispute the great superi-
ority of speech over gesture-language, as a medium for
the communication of thought. Obviously thought can
thus be much more easily and rapidly expressed ; it can
be used in the dark, and while the hands are otherwise
occupied. Nevertheless, Mr. Romanes very properly
observes t that he is speaking of gesture-language as
we actually find it. What the latent capabilities of such
language may be is another question. He adds later
bn,i " I doubt not it would be possible to construct
a wholly conventional system of gestures which should
answer to, or correspond with, all the abstract words
and inflections of a spoken language. . . . This, how-
ever, is a widely different thing from supposing that
such a perfect system of gesture-signs could have grown
by a process of natural development ; and, looking to
the essentially ideographic character of such signs, I

* P- 144- t P- 147.

% p. 148. See also above, p. 141 ; and see, below, the case of
Martha Obrecht.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 163

greatly question whether, even under circumstances of
the strongest necessity (such as would have arisen if
man, or his progenitors, had been unable to articulate),
the language of gesture could have been developed into
anything approaching a substitute for the language of
words." So also do we. But we are certain, neverthe-
less, that such a dumb community of essentially rational
animals would have evolved a natural and instinctive
language of gesture, capable of making known the
concepts they had formed, and of aiding them by the
" recognitions " of their thus expressed concepts to
evolve ever more and more abstract concepts, though
probably never attaining to nearly the height that
man has attained to by the aid of speech. We are
certain they would have done this both on the a priori
ground of the necessary consequence of the presence
of animality and rationality in one absolute unity of
existence, and also on ct posteriori grounds, frorn the
evidence afforded by such extraordinary examples of
defective existence, as the blind, deaf, and dumb Laura
Bridgman,* and the still more striking case of Martha
Obrecht, which we will describe a little later.

* With how little reason has Professor Huxley said (" Man's
Place in Nature," p 52, quoted by Mr. Romanes, p; 134), "A race
of dumb men, deprived of all communication with those who could
speak, would be little indeed removed from the brutes. The moral
and intellectual differences between them and ourselves would be
practically infinite, though the naturalist should not be able to
find a single shadow even of specific structural difference." Mr.
Romanes, in a note (pp. 134, 135), refers to recent discoveries in
cerebral physiology as to a "material organ of speech." Such
discoveries in no way effect our position, or can do so, as they
relate merely to the instrument whereby the verbum mentale is
able to manifest itself externally, and everybody knows that various

i64 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

To such ct posteriori evidence* Mr. Romanes opposes
certain assertions respecting "the psychological status
of wholly uneducated deaf-mutes," in spite of the fact
that each such mute "inherits a human brain, the struc-
ture of which has been elaborated by the speech of his
ancestors," and "is also surrounded by a society the
whole structure of whose ideation is dependent upon
speech." Such mutes, he tells us, f " grow up in a state
of intellectual isolation, which is almost as complete as
that of any of the lower animals." But, in the first
place, their state is an abnormal one, and therefore they
might (according to what we laid down in our intro-
ductory remarks) be expected to seem to fall even below
the condition of animals in a normal state. Secondly, we
cannot draw valid conclusions as to the essential nature
of our intellect from human beings who are avowedly
mentally deficient, and every deaf-mute must be so, either
essentially or accidentally. It would be obviously as
absurd to judge of the nature of the human rational
faculty from an absolute idiot, as it would be to study
the power of flight in a bird the wings of which had
been cut.

But let us accept Mr. Romanes's instances as valid,
without further protest, and see whether they " can
never rise to any ideas of higher abstraction than those
which the logic of feelings supplies." He cites % the
Rev. S. Smith as telling him of a deaf-mute who

forms of aphasia coexisting with a complete power of thinking,
and sometimes even of manifesting thoughts by appropriate
gestures, have been observed and recorded.

* As to some of which, see above, pp. 138-146.

t P- 149. $ P- 150-

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 165

^^ previous to education^ supposed the Bible to have been
printed by a printing-press in the sky, which was
worked by printers of enormous strength — this being
the only interpretation the deaf-mute could assign to
the gestures whereby his parents had sought to make
him understand that they believed the Bible to contain
a revelation from a God of power who lives in heaven."
But, surely, here we have, " previous to education,"
a manifest intellectual faculty, and a power of abstrac-
tion of a most unequivocal kind. The deaf-mute had
formed concepts of " a Bible," " printers," a " printing-
press," " superterrestrial existence," " power," " beings of
superhuman power," and a "descent from the sky to
earth following upon their activity." Also, of course,
in this concept there were implicitly contained ideas
of time, space, reality, truth, and existence. This is
something considerably above the "logic of feelings,"
and rather different from the psychical state of " any of
the lower animals." Moreover, we should never forget
the constant necessity under which all men labour (from
the lowest to the highest) to make use of analogy, and
to express by analogy in terms of sensitivity, thoughts
which are altogether beyond sense. We must also
recollect that all such expressions are inadequate, and
that we are constantly tempted to despise expressions
which we do not use, and fancy that our own terms
(though really as sensuous, fundamentally) must be a
great deal better. The image of a printing-press
worked in the sky by beings of superhuman strength
is for us grotesque. But it might, none the less, serve to
image forth in some minds, that same conception of

1 66 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

" inspired expression in the Bible," which a very different
set of mental images helps us to conceive of.

But we have other instances we can bring forward
which plainly show the essential intellectuality of such
unfortunates.

The case of Laura Bridgrnan is a well-known one,
and referred to by our author. She was blind as well
^s deaf, and h^d half lost the power of smell, and had
become thus afflicted so early that she had no recollec-
tion of seeing or hearing. Yet she learned to appre-
hend abstract relqitions and qualities, and to read and
write. A similarly afflicted child, named Meystre,* at
Lausanne, gained an idea of God as " thought enthroned
somewhere." Such instances surely demonstrate the
existence of wonderful innate capacities in the human
mind.

A still more noteworthy case is that (before referred
to) of Martha Obrecht.f She was deaf, dumb, and
blind, and was confided to a convent at Larnay
(Poitiers) when she was eight years old.J There, by

* See " On Truth," p 232.

t See "Apologie Scientifique," by Canon F. Duilhe de Saint-
Projet, Ed. Private Toulouse, 1885, pp. 374-387.

% The following are some of the details given in the work
referred to : —

" C'etait comme une masse inerte, ne possedant aucun moyen
de communication avec ses semblables, n'ayant pour traduire ses
sentiments qu'un cri joint k un mouvement de corps, cri et mouve-
ment toujours en rapport avec ses impressions.

" La premiere chose k faire dtait de lui donner un moyen de
communiquer ses pensdes et ses ddsirs. Dans ce but, nous lui
faisions toucher tous les objets sensibles, en faisant sur elle le
signe de ces objets ; presque aussitot elle a dtabli le rapport qui
existe entre le signe et la chose. . . ." (They thought to try steel

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 167

intelligent and very patient instruction, the poor child
was enabled gradually to acquire the power of appre-

letters, but it was too soon ; imitation signs were first necessary.)
" Ici, le sens du toucher (la main) k joud un role qui nous a jet^s
maintes fois dans le plus grand dtonnement. . . . D^s le ddbut,
lorsque nous lui pr^sentions un morceau de pain, nous lui faisions
faire de la main droite Taction de couper la main gauche, signe
naturel qui font tous les sourd-muets. La petite ^leve ayant
remarqud que chaque fois qu'on lui presentait du pain, en lui faisait
ce signe ou qu'on le lui faisait faire, a du raisonner et se dire :
Quand je voudrai du pain je ferai ce signe. En effet, c'est ce qui
a en lieu. Quand k I'heure du repas, on a tard^, tout expr^s, k lui
donner du pain, elle a reproduit Taction de couper la main gauche
avec la main droite. II en a €\.€ de meme pour les autres choses
sensibles ; et du moment qu'elle a eu la clef du syst^me, il a suffi
de lui indiquer une seule fois le signe de chaque objet. . . . Les
objets qu'elle touche . . . sont des choses sensibles, les signes
correspondants qu'on lui fait ou qu'on lui fait faire sont dgalement
choses sensibles ; mais le lieu, le rapport qui unit chaque objet
k son signe, Tidee gdnerale de ce rapport, la clef du_ syst^me, n'a
rien de commun avec la matiere.

"Nous sommes passdes ensuite aux choses intellectuelles . , .
afin de lui donner, sur le fait meme, le signe de Tidde ou du
sentiment qui se revdlait en elle. La suprenait on impatiente, ou
livrde k un mouvement de mauvaise humeur, vite on lui faisait
faire le signe de Timpatience, et on la repoussait un peu pour lui
faire comprendre que c'dtait mal. Elle s'^tait attach^e a une
sourde-muette ddjk instruite et qui s'est d^vou^e avec beaucoup
de z^le k son Education. Souvent elle lui tdmoignait son affection
en Tembrassant en lui serrant la main. Pour lui indiquer une
maniere plus gdndrale de traduire ce sentiment de Tame, nous
avons pos^ sa petite main sur son coeur en Tappuyant bien fort.
Elle a compris que ce geste rendait sa pensde, et elle s'en est servie
toutes les fois qu'elle a voulu dire qu'elle aimait quelqu*un ou
quelque chose ; puis, par analogie^ elle a repoussd de son coeur tout
ce qu'elle n'aimait pas.

" C'est ainsi que peu k peu nous sommes parvenues k la mettre
en possession du langage mimique en usage chez les sourds-muets.
Elle s'en est facilement servie des la premiere ann^e. . . .

" La puissance de rdflechir, de gendraliser, de raisonner se mani-
feste de plus ; ce sont Ik des operations essentiellement intellectu-

i68 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

hending and expressing intellectual conceptions, and
highly abstract and lofty ideas, with distinct and clear

elles, absolument incompatibles avec la substance mat^rielle, inerte,
inactive, compos^e de parties, etc.

" D^s la premiere annde, la jeune Marthe se sert facilement du
langage mimique dont la nature est d'etre iddologique. Les id^es,
les notions qu'elle possede — notions de choses sensibles ou intel-
lectuelles-T-ne sont pas representees, suscitdes dans son esprit par
des mots, par des combinaisons de sons articulds ou figures, — elle
n'entend pas, elle ne voit pas — mais par des impressions du toucher,
impressions de formes et de mouvements transitoires, qui expri-
ment directement, imm^diatement la notion ou I'id^e. L'ame
intelligente apparait ici d'autant plus distinctement qu'elle se meut,
vit et agit dans une region tout immatdrielle.

"De ces operations de I'esprit aux premieres rdvdlations de la
conscience la gradation est insensible et facile. Dejk dans le
courant de la premiere annde nous avons pu lui donner quelques
lemons de morale. Comme tous les enfants elle manifestait assez
souvent des penchants k la vanite et k la gourmandise.

" Lorsque des dames visitaient I'^tablissement, la petite enfant
se plaisait k faire I'examen de leur toilette. Le velours, la soie, la
dentelle, ^veillaient en elle un sentiment d'envie. Aussi, lorsque
quelque ddcoupure lui tombait sous la main, elle s'en faisait ou un
voile ou une cravate. Pour la gu^rir de ce penchant naturel k la
vanite, il a suffi de lui faire comprendre que, sa mere n'^tant pas
ainsi vetue, il ne fallait pas d^sirer ces choses.

" Pour la corriger de ses petites gourmandises, on lui a dit que
les personnes k qui elle reconnait une supdriorite — les Soeurs, la
supdrieure, le Pere aumonier — avaient aussi ces ddfauts dans leur
enfance, mais que leur mere leur ayant dit que c'dtait mal, elles
s'dtaient corrigdes. Ces raisonnements ont eu sur I'enfant un
grand empire, et ces Idgers d^fauts ont disparu. II est aisd de
reconnaitre dans ces quelques traits, la distinction du bien et du
mal le discernement de ce qui est permis et de ce qui est ddfendu ;
I'id^e d'autorit^ morale — sa m^re, ses supdrieurs — I'idee d'obliga-
tion et de loi morale. II est aisd de constater des actes de volontd
libre ; des actes de commandement k soi-meme, de reaction
vertueuse contre les impressions extdrieures contre les appdtits
naturels — la gourmandise, la vanit^. On pent enfin constater
^galement une perception confuse du beau, des symptomes du
sentiment esthdtique, v^ritablement etranges chez un etre priv^

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 169

moral and religious apprehensions, and not only to read,
but also to write perfectly well.

des deux sens esthdtiques par excellence, des deux sens rev^lateurs
de I'harmonie des lignes, des couleurs ou des sens,— de la vue et
de I'ouie. Le velours, la soie, la dentelle r^v^lent k son toucher
manuel des qualitds sui generis; elle a compris que le vetement
ne sert pas seulement de protection pour le corps, mais aussi de
parure. N'insistons pas ; nous sommes en presence d'un plus
^tonnant prodige : dans cette enfant de dix ans k peine, hier
encore 'masse inerte,* en apparence bien au-dessous de la bete,
nous allons voir se former ou s'eveiller nous allons voir eclater
rid^e de Dieu.

"Vers la fin de la deuxieme ann^e, nous avons cru pouvoir
aborder les questions religieuses I'enfant ne savait encore ni lire
ni ecrire ; le langage mimique dtait le seul nioyen de communica-
tion entre elle et nous. Nous sommes pass^es des choses visibles
aux invisibles. Pour lui donner la premiere idde d'un etre sou-
verain, nous lui avons fait remarquer la hierarchic des pouvoirs
dans I'dtablissement. Elle avait ddjk compris, dans ses rapports
avec nous, que les Soeurs ^taient au dessus des dl^ves, etc. Quand
Mgr. r^veque vint nous visiter, nous lui fimes comprendre qu'il dtait
encore au dessus des personnes qu'elle etait habituee k respecter,
et que bien loin, Ik bas, il y avait un premier dveque qui com-
mandait k tous les autres : ^veques, pretres et fideles. De cette
souverainete qui lui paraissait bien grande, nous sommes passdes
k celle du Dieu cr^ateur et souverain seigneur.

" Impossible de ddcrire I'impression produite chez I'enfant par
la connaissance de cette premiere veritd d'un ordre supdrieur.
L'immensitd de Dieu I'a aussi beaucoup frappee. La pensde que
ce Dieu souverain voit tout, meme nos plus secretes pensdes, I'a
beaucoup dmue. Et maintenant, quand on veut arreter chez elle
quelque petite sailHe d'humeur, il suffit de lui dire que le bon
Dieu la voit. . . . Cependant I'instruction scolaire de Marthe,
engagde dans une voie nouvelle, va progresser comme par bonds
et se produire pour la premiere fois par le langage alphab^tique,
par la dactylologie, qui est I'dquivalent de la parole articulde et
enfin par les divers genres d'^criture.

"Avant d'apprendre k I'enfant k hre et k dcrire comme les
aveugles, nous avons du lui enseigner la dactylologie. Nous avons
commence dans le courant de la troisi^me annde. Ici encore le
sens du toucher a etd le grand moyen de communication et de

I70 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

But to all such instances as these, Mr. Romanes
would object that the children thus developed were the

convention. Lorsque recevant un morceau de pain, elle en a fait,
le signe, nous lui avons dit qu'il y avait un autre moyen de designer
le pain, et k I'aide de la dactylologie, nous avons figur^ dans sa
main la suite des lettres qui composent le mot pain. Ce nouveau
syst^me, cette rdv^lation-nouvelle a €\.€ pour cette jeune intelli-
gence ce qu'est un rayon de soleil pour une fleur naissante, apr^s
une sombre et froide nuit. Elle a demand^ elle meme le nom
de chacun des objets dont elle savait le signe ; le nom des per-
sonnes de la maison, qu'elle reconnaissait tr^s bien d'ailleurs en
leur touchant la main.

" Marthe Obrecht ne voyant pas, n'entendant pas, avait done
assez de finesse de tact dans la main, assez de puissance de
mdmoire pour ddmeler et retenir une sdrie d'impressions succes-
sives tr^s varices, dont I'ensemble formait le nom de chaque objet,
de chaque personne. Elle avait assez d'^nergie active dans Tin-
telligence pour isoler chacune de ces impressions particulieres, de
ces formes fugitives que lui r^vdlait sa main, pour discerner vingt-
quatre types diff^rents correspondant aux vingt-quatre lettres de
I'alphabet, pour saisir leurs combinaisons indefiniment varices et
le plus souvent arbitraires. . . .

" Lorsque notre dleve nous a paru suffisamment exercee k la
dactylologie, aliant touJQurs k petits pas du connu \ I'inconnu
nous lui avons fait toucher I'alphabet et I'^criture des aveugles, lui
faisant comprendre que c'^tait encore \^ un moyen de transmettre
et de fixer sa pensee et de s'instruire comme ses compagnes privies
de la vue. Nouveau rayon de soleil, nouvelles emotions fdcondes,
et revdlatrices pour cette chere petite ame. . . . L'enfant s'est mise
au travail avec une ardeur incroyable ; elle a tres bien saisi la
convention ^tablie entre I'alphabet manuel et I'alphabet pointd des
aveugles ; et bientot elle a pu lire et dcrire des mots et de petites
phrases. . . .

"'Ma bonne Mi:RE,

'' Je suis fachde vous part vite embrasser rien, parce
que je vous aim^ beaucoup. Je vous remercie oranges. Les
sourdes-muettes contentes manger oranges. La bonne M^re
supdrieure est tres malade, elle tousse beaucoup. Monsieur
m^d^cin defend la bonne Mere se promener, je suis tr^s fachde. . . .
Je bien savante, prie pour vous bien portante. Soeur Blanche

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 171

children of parents and of a line of ancestors who could
speak, and must therefore have an inherited tendency
to language, with " a human brain, the structure of which
has been elaborated by the speech of his ancestors." *
But, as we have already pointed out,t such an inherited
nervous structure could not have facilitated either the
beginning or the development of gesture-language. Yet
it was exclusively by gesture-language that the latent
intelligence of Martha Obrecht was developed.

We altogether repudiate, therefore, and utterly deny
the alleged % " important fact " that " thought is quite
as much the effect as it is the cause of language." When
we call to mind how intellectual gesture may not only
exist without speech, but arise independently of in-
herited aptitude and quite spontaneously, we cannot but
regard as absurd the asserted probability that " in the
absence of articulation, the human race would not have

est m^re pour Marthe, je prie pour Soeur Blanche. Je ddsir
vous embrasser.

'Marthe Obrecht.'

"... Depuis deux ans Marthe a appris \ dcrire cqmme nous ;
je vous envoie un second specimen de son travail.

'' Dans ces pages, ecrites comme nous ^crivons, et qui me sont
adress^es, la jeune fille sourde-muette et aveugle me dit. . . .

"Quand je suis venue ici pour m'instruire, j'dtais seule, je ne
pensais rien, je ne comprenais rien, pour dire : il faut toucher tout
pour bien comprendre, faire des signes et apprendre I'alphabet
pendant deux ans. Apres, pendant un an j'ai appris pointer
comme les aveugles, maintenant je suis bien heureuse de bien com-
prendre tout. Depuis deux ans j'ai voulu apprendre ^crire comma
les voyantes, j'^cris bien un peu. Quand je suis venu^ ici ma
maman est partie ; j'ai €\.€ tres colere et crid fortement. Les
cheres Soeurs m'ont caressd beaucoup, j'ai dte moins colere, je les
aime bien, elles sont toujours bonnes pour moi."

* p. 140. t See above, p, 141. % p. 151.

172 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

made much psychological advance upon the anthropoid
apes " !

We have no desire to quarrel with Mr. Romanes's
further contention that gesture may aid speech, and
speech give a higher degree of perfection and distinct-
ness to gesture. Nevertheless, it is also true (as we
have already remarked) that speech may starve gesture,
and also elaborate gesture may diminish the fulness
of speech. There appears, therefore, to be here no
certain foundation whereon to build an a priori struc-
ture of inferences. But whether gesture favours or mars
the development of speech, it is certain the latter could
never have been originated by it. There must have
been an innate, spontaneous tendency to articulate, or
articulation could never have taken place. Our author,
moreover, always writes as if mere motions by them-
selves could generate thoughts, yet nothing but thought
already existing could ever generate those intentionally
significant motions (gestures) whereby ideas can be
readily expressed and easily understood.

Mr. Romanes next endeavours to meet the very ob-
vious difficulty that, had reason and language the simple
and accidental origin he assigns them, we ought to find
other animals plainly on the road to reach the high
level which man has obtained, and we ought not to find
that great gulf which all parties admit actually exists
between the speaking man and the dumb brute. He
tries to do away with this objection by appealing * to
what he calls " a fair analogy "■ — that of flight. He
says, " Flying is no doubt a very useful faculty to all

* p. 156.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 173

animals which present it," and yet only certain animals,
and only bats amongst the class of beasts, have attained
to it, though they all possess structures which might
be modified into organs of flight. *' Similarly," he
tells us, "'the flight of thought' is a most useful
faculty," but " it has only been developed in man."
The analogy we do not admit. The utility of flight is
as nothing compared with the utility of thought — as
the experience of each autumn abundantly demon-
strates in every county of England. A multitude of
unfavourable conditions might check the development
of wings, which would also be of little service to a
whale, an ant-eater, or a mole. But as regards
" thought," the case is not " similar" but quite other-
wise. Not only can we see no reason why anything
(disease or mutilation apart) should hinder its mani-
festation if it existed ; but we can also see that its
possession must be the greatest possible gain. Never-
theless there is no animal which shows a sign of
possessing it. Mr. Romanes himself says, ** it has only
been developed in man " ! Much mistaken, then, was
he when he wrote : " So far, then, as we have yet gone,
I do not anticipate that opponents will find it prudent
to take a stand." *

Hereupon follow statements of the " exact meanings "
severally given by our author to what he terms (i) in-
dicative, (2) denotative, (3) connotative, (4) denomina-
tive, and (5) predicative language, f

* p. 157.

t He tells us (pp. 161, 162), "By an indicative sign I will
understand a significant tone or gesture intentionally expressive

174 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Since our author does not, however, discriminate
between material and formal understanding, making
known, denominating, etc., his distinctions are useless,
and cannot be accepted by us. As critics, we need
only attend to them as far as may be necessary to
apprehend fully the author's meaning, and to scrupu-
lously avoid doing him a shadow of injustice.

His ninth chapter, that on speech, is the one for
which, he tells us, * all his preceding chapters were
arranged, adding, mirahile dictii, " Therefore, as already
remarked, I have thus far presented material over which
I do not think it is possible that any dispute can
arise " !

As Mr. Romanes has adopted our classification of
language, we regret, for the sake of convenience, that he
did not, as we did, restrict his use of the term "speech"
to denote rational expression which is exclusively oral.
Mr. Romanes also includes under that term, rational
expression by gesture. Nevertheless, he truly says,t

of a mental state ; but yet not in any sense of the word denomi-
native.

" By a denotative sign I will understand the receptual marking
of particular objects, qualities, actions, etc.

" By a connotative sign I will understand the classificatory
attribution of qualities to objects named by the sign, whether such
attribution be due to receptual or to conceptual operations of the
mind.

" By a denommative sign I will understand a connotative sign
consciously bestowed as such, or with a full conceptual apprecia-
tion of its office and purpose as a name.

" By a predicative sign I will mean a proposition, or the con-
ceptual apposition of two denominative terms, expressive of the
speaker's intention to connote something of the one by means of
the other."

* p. 163. t p. 164-

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 175

" The distinction resides in the intellectual powers ; not
in the symbols thereof. So that a man means* it
matters not by what signs he expresses his meaning :
the distinction between him and the brute consists in his
being able to mean a proposition!' that is, " to make an
act of judgment."

Mr. Romanes unintentionally misrepresents, and
quite needlessly censures us for having saidf that the
simplest element of thought is a judgment. He evi-
dently thinks we meant an explicit, instead of an implicit,
judgment. Yet as an "explicit" judgment is manifestly
made up of concepts, it is strange that he should have
deemed us capable of an absurdity at once so out-
rageous and so evident. That the simplest element of
thought is an implicit judgment, Mr. Romanes himself
states X plainly enough.

* See also "On Truth," p. 280. It is curious that Mr.
Romanes criticizes Prof. Huxley's exceedingly sophistical remark
about a machine which marks likeness and unlikeness, saying
("Critiques and Addresses," p. 281), "Whatever does this rea-
sons ; and if a machine produces the effects of reason, I see no
more ground for denying it the reasoning power, because it is
unconscious, than I see for refusing Mr. Babbage's engine the title
of a calculating machine on the same grounds." This remark Mr.
Romanes declares absurd, but he excuses the Professor on the
ground that " he must have been writing in some ironical sense,
and therefore purposely threw his criticisms into a preposterous
form." It was, however, by no means ironical, but a very serious
work, which first appeared in the Contemporary Review, 1871, as a
criticism of our " Genesis of Species," and an article in the
Quarterly Review, on Darwin's " Descent of Man."

t In an address to the Biological Section of the British Associa-
tion, in 1879.

X Thus at p. 168 he says, " Given the power of conceiving, and
the germ of judgment is implied, though not expanded into the
blossom of formal predication. For whenever we bestow a name

176 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

He further objects * to our remark \ that when the
mind perceives the truth expressed in the principle of
contradiction, its intuition, or perception, is aided by
" images " or '' phantasmata " answering respectively to
" a thing being " and "a thing not being," " at the same
time " and " in the same sense," observing that such
images " must indeed be vague." There is here an im-
perfect description. The " images " are not the direct,
but only the indirect, support of the intuition. Its direct
support consists of " recognitions " of past perceptions
as to coexistences, and the recollections of the past
perceptions themselves repose upon reminiscences (phan-
tasmata) of the sensuous affections which first accom-
panied them.

Thus, as we said, such sensuous images or phantas-
mata by no means constitute the intuition, though without
such sensuous elements underlying it and indirectly sup-
porting it, no such judgment or intuition could take place.

Mr. Romanes, having misunderstood us to so extra-
ordinary an extent, very naturally objects % that the

we are implicitly judging that the thing to which we apply the name
presents the attributes connoted by that name. ... To utter the
name Negro ... is to form and pronounce at least two judgments
... to wit, that it is a man, and that he is black." Again, he
observes (p. 173) about our assertion that "the simplest element
of thought is a judgment," as follows : " Of course, if it were said
that these two faculties are one in kind — that in order to conceive
we must judge, and in order to name we must predicate — I should
have no objection to offer." Mr. Romanes could hardly justify our
assertion more completely than by such statements as these. As
to what is impHed in the term "negro," see " On Truth," p. 137.

* p. 166 (note).

t Made in the same address to the British Association.

X p. 168.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 177

distinction between animal and human intelligence lies
in the power of " bestowing a name known as such "
and forming a concept. In this we quite agree with our
author, as also in his remark * that " in the very act of
naming we are virtually predicating existence of the
thing named," and that " the power to ' think is,' is the
power concerned in the formation of a concept ; " while
it is also concerned (in spite of Mr. Romanes's denial)
" in the apposing of concepts when formed."

Mr. Romanes deniesf that the predication of existence
is the essential or any important part of a full, formally
expressed proposition. Rather, he tells us, " it is really
the least essential or the least important. For existence
is the category to which everything must belong if it is
to be judged about at all." But because it is a category
to which every actual thing must belong, it by no means
follows that it is an unimportant category. Mr. Romanes
might be deprived of objects and conditions belonging
to various categories which might not matter much to
him, but he could hardly say it was unimportant to him
whether or not he was deprived of existence! He
continues, " Merely to judge that A is and B iSy is to
form the most barren (or least significant) judgment that
can be formed with regard to A and B." Of course it
is manifest that so to affirm is to give the minimum of
information about A and B ; but though it tells little
as to extent, it tells us a truth of the most profound and
intensely important kind. Existence is an attribute
which clings to everything to the very last, and clings to
it in a certain form even when it has ceased actually to
* pp. 171, 172. t P- 172.

N,

178 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

be, since possible existence may still remain to it — as a fine
head of hair to a man who has just had his head shaved.
He says,* next : " When we bring these two judgments
(concepts) together in the proposition A is B, the new
judgment which we make has nothing to do with the
existence either of A or of B, nor has it really anything
to do with existence as such. The existence both of A
and of B has been already presupposed in the two con-
cepts, and when these two existing things are brought
into apposition, no third existence is thereby supposed
to have been created." Most certainly not. What mad-
man ever thought that by saying, " A cat is a carni-
vorous beast," he created even one existence ? But,
assuming that Mr. Romanes means, " No third existence
is thereby supposed to have been affirmed," we may
again ask, what madman ever thought that by saying,
" A cat is a carnivorous beast," he affirmed a " third
existence " } What is affirmed in such a predication is,
that a cat is a real creature which possesses those
attributes which distinguish the class of animals termed
carnivorous. Herein actual being or existence is
implied. But the assertion might have been, "A mer-
maid is a creature half a woman and half a fish," and
here again being or existence is implied. But it is
no longer actual, material existence, but ideal existence.
Nevertheless, such ideal existence is really existence of
a kind. There is such an idea : my mind possesses it
while I write, and whatever I actually possess must at
least be. Such reality in ideal existence must be
admitted by Mr. Romanes, since he tells us " the

* p. 172.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 179

existence of both A and B has been already presupposed
in the two concepts." But the two things thus coupled
can only be distinct ideally, since no two materially
distinct existences can really be identically the same.
We cannot say of two leaves the most alike to be found
in a whole forest, that one is the other.

Mr. Romanes further contradicts himself expressly
when he says that " the proposition A is B " has nothing
to do with existence. For he has told us, " The exist-
ence both of A and B has been already presupposed
in the two concepts." But if " existence " is supposed
in each of the two concepts by itself, surely their con-
junction cannot immediately drive such existence out
of both of them ; and if not, at least as much existence
as was in them separately, must be present in the express
judgment their conjunction produces ! Mr. Romanes
will hardly try to explain this confusion of thought by
referring to his qualification " as such " in his phrase,
" The proposition A is B has really nothing to do with
existence as such!' Of course, no one is so absurd as to
pretend that when we say A is B, our main intention is
to call attention to, and to insist upon, the fact that A
exists and B exists. No one could possibly mean that
when we say, " A cat is a carnivorous beast," our main
intention is to call attention to, and insist upon, the
fact that a cat exists and a carnivorous beast exists.
The meaning of the predication we have just stated,
and we have truly stated also that existence is implied
therein.

Every judgment, therefore, and every concept also,
implies existence. That each judgment, indeed, does so

i8o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

must be admitted by every disciple of John Stuart Mill,
who tells us * that the apprehension of the truth of any
judgment we make is not only an essential part, but
the essential part, of it as a judgment : " Leave that out,
and it remains a mere play of thought on which no
judgment is passed." But if this is correct, every judg-
ment must have to do with existence ; for how can any-
thing be true which may not " be " at all ! When Mill
denies, in the passage cited by Mr. Romanes,! that the
copula in the affirmation, "Socrates is just," does not
signify existence, he either contradicts himself (which
is nothing new),t or he means that the signification of
existence lies not in the "is," but exclusively in one
or both of the two words, " Socrates," and "just " — which
would be a very singular assertion. The quotation from
Hobbes (so highly approved by Mill), to the effect that
" the placing two names in order may serve to signify
their consequence, if it were the custom, as well as the
words " 2>, to be^ and the like " is very true, but tells in
no way against our position. The word " is," is full,
indeed, of significance when it is used ; but it may be
perfectly well understood, and its meaning truly exist,
in sentences wherein no distinct word is set apart for
its expression.

We repeat that we quite agree with Mr. Romanes in
saying that the distinction between man and brute con-
sists not in verbal predication, but in mental affirmation
or conception. " The subsequent working up of names
into propositions is merely a further exhibition of the

* In his " Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy," p. 346.
t " Logic," vol. i. p. 86. % See " On Truth," p. 247.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. i8i

self-same faculty."* But, then, we do not mean by
naming, what Mr. Romanes means ; because we are not,
as he is, followers of " Nominalism." We read with
amazement his remark about Realism, " which," he tells
us, " neither those who think with Mr. Mivart nor any
other psychologists with whom I have to do are likely
nowadays to countenance."

He goes on, " If I do not apologize for having occu-
pied so much space cfver so obvious a point, it is only
because I believe that any one who reads these pages
will sympathize with my desire to avoid ambiguity, and
thus to reduce the question before us to its naked
reality." We gladly take this opportunity to say we
are sure not only that Mr. Romanes has tried to be
clear, but also that he has succeeded. Ambiguous
terms we have noted, but their ambiguity is due to no
carelessness on Mr. Romanes's part, but to the fact
that he has not yet succeeded in fully understanding
the position of his opponents. " So far," he con-
tinues, "it will be observed, this question has not
been touched. I am not disputing that an immense
and extraordinary distinction obtains, and I do not
anticipate that either Mr. Mivart or any one else will
take exception to this preliminary clearing of the
ground, which has been necessitated only on account
of my opponents having been careless enough to repre-
sent the Proposition as the simplest exhibition of the
Logos." As to this we have already remarked enough.

" Wherein," he then asks,t " does this distinction
truly consist } It consists, as I believe all my opponents

* p. 174. t p. 175-

i82 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

will allow, in the power which the human being displays
of objectifying ideas, or of setting one state of mind
before another state, and contemplating the relation
between them." To this we reply, it truly consists in
the power of " objectifying ideas " in the sense of per-
ceiving objects as real external existences, and so
forming ideas or concepts : not, be it observed, in recog-
nizing their objectivity; that is a further and a reflex act.
We mean only that direct ideal apprehension which an
ordinary child (who hardly yet reflects at all) enjoys
when objects present themselves to his senses while his
consciousness is not absorbed in other ways. Again,
we deny that "objectifying ideas" is equivalent, as Mr.
Romanes says, to "setting one state of mind before
another state, and contemplating the relation between
them." That is another very special kind of reflex
mental act, and its presence is by no means necessary
for the existence of true conception.

He adds, " The power to * think is ' — or, as I should
prefer to state it, the power to think at all — is the power
which is given by introspective reflection in the light of
self -consciousness y But the power "to think at all "
must exist before " introspective reflection," or else the
latter could never come into existence. If we never
had any conscious ideas directly, how could we ever
know by reflection that >ve had them ? Such a reflex
act is strictly a recognition, or a " consciously knowing
over again " what we have " consciously known before."
We could never learn by reflection that we had known
what we had never been conscious of ; for had we been
unconscious of it, we could not have known it. It is

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 183

true that we can know by reflection that we have had
sense-impressions which did not, when we received
them, rise into consciousness ; but such impressions were
not and could not be knowledge, but only some of the
conditions of knowledge. Consciousness must accom-
pany knowledge, but it need only be direct conscious-
ness, and need by no means be reflex j^^-consciousness.

Mr. Romanes fully admits "that no animal can
possibly attain to these excellencies of subjective life,"
but this he assures us we shall find to be due to " the
absence in brutes of the needful conditions to the
occurrence of these excellencies as they obtain in our-
selves. From which," he tells us,* " it follows that the
great distinction between the brute and the man really
lies behind the faculties both of conception and predica-
tion : it resides in the conditions to the occurrence of
either."

These conditions Mr. Romanes thinks to find in
external circumstances, while we see clearly they reside
in difference of kind or innermost nature. According to
him, as we shall see, mere animals may give names,
and his Nominalism tells him that whatever creature
possesses names, possesses concepts also; since the latter
are, for him, nothing but names.

But if a non-speaking, poorly-gesturing, unintel-
lectual creature said " Di " when it saw a bear, how could
that utterance, accompanying its plexus of sense-im-
pressions, give it a power of " objectifying " that plexus ?
But a creature endowed with an intellectual faculty, yet
unable to say even " Di," would be able by gesture to
* pp. 175) 176.

1 84 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

make known its intellectual perception and conception
of a bear, and these, as we shall see later on, might per-
fectly exist before the mind — by the help of imagined
bodily motions — without the need of the imagination of
any word. Apart from the intellectual faculty, the vocal
gestures would be as conceptually meaningless as any
other bodily gesture. They would remain simple re-
cepts, and could never become " concepts." According
to Mr. Romanes,* however, "concepts differ from
recepts in that they are recepts which have themselves
become objects of knowledge ; " and he adds, in a note,
that some concepts "may be the knowledge of other
concepts." But even as to the first kind, he tells us
that the condition of their existence " is the presence of
self-consciousness in the percipient mind." Here Mr.
Romanes suffers from his failure to distinguish between
direct " consciousness " and reflex " self-consciousness."
Concepts, we affirm, are never recepts, though they are
elicited by groups of sense-impressions ; and what he calls
concepts of concepts, are concepts due to our conscious
recognition (but not reflection on the fact of recognition)
of former perceptions of our intellectual faculty.

Mr. Romanes next states his reasons for denying a
difference of kind between the psychical powers of man
and brute, by "a careful analysis of conceptual judgment."

First, he addresses himself to the task of doing away
with any distinction as regards naming. He tells us,t
" When a parrot calls a dog bow-wow (as a parrot, like
a child, may easily be taught to do), the parrot may be
said, in one sense of the word, to be naming the dog ;
* P- 176. t p. 179.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 185

but it is not predicating any characters as belonging to
a dog, or performing any act oi judgmeni with regard to
a dog. Although the bird may never (or but rarely)
utter the name save when it sees a dog, this fact is
attributable to the laws of association acting only in the
receptual sphere. . . . Therefore, all my opponents must
allow that in one sense of the word there may be names
without concepts : whether as gestures or as words
(vocal gestures), there may be signs of things without
these signs presenting any vestige of predicative value.
Names of this kind I have called denotative : they are
marks affixed to objects, qualities, actions, etc., by re-
ceptual association alone." We freely concede that in
such a mere analogical sense vocal or motor phenomena
of the kind may be termed " names," and they are to a
certain sense signs, as smoke may be a sign of internal
heat in a volcano.

He follows this by observing that such a name may
be "extended to denote also another thing, which is
seen [!] to belong to the same" class or kind," when they
become what he has called *^connotative" and in this con-
nection he refers back to his instance of the parrot and
the dog, which we have already* criticized, saying, f
" Even my parrot was able to extend its denotative
name for a particular dog to any other dog which it
happened to see — thus precisely resembling my child,
who habitually extended its first denotative name Star
to a candle." X But this we altogether deny, and must

* See above, p. 157. t p. 180.

X At p. 159 he had said, " On^ of my children learnt to say the
word Star. Soon after having acquired this word, she extended its
signification to other brightly shining objects, such as candles, gas-

i86 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

defend Mr. Romanes's infant from its parent's unjust
depreciation. The child did not, of course, think of the
term " as a term," or set " the term before the mind as
an object of thought ; " that would be a highly complex
reflex act. But it distinctly perceived (by a direct
mental act) that there was a similarity of brightness,
and so formed at once its concept, " bright things," of
which concept. Star was the oral expression. It con-
sciously made this (though not with reflex consciousness),
and so its perception differed toto ccelo from the mere
senception and materially felt likeness which caused
the parrot to give forth, as the result of its plexus of
similar feelings, the dog's name again. To say, with
Mr. Romanes, that the parrot's utterance takes place
because " another thing is seen " to resemble a preceding
one, is ambiguous. That it is seen with the parrot's
corporeal eyes, and impresses its consentience, is, of
course, true ; but we have no reason to suppose that
because it is seen and felt, it is also perceived. There-
fore, instead of " precisely resembling " the act of the
child, the act of the parrot is something fundamentally
different from it.

He continues, " Connotation, then, begins in the
purely receptual sphere of ideation."

Now, by "connotation," as we have seen, Mr. Romanes
means,* attributing " qualities to objects by means of
a name," and this, he says, may be receptual or con-
ceptual. But the parrot cannot be said to "attribute

lights, etc. Here there was plainly a perception of likeness or
analogy."
* p. 162.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 187

qualities," although by the unconscious use of a name
it may make us, who are conscious, recognize the fact
that certain qualities are present. He tell us * that
" it is obviously most imperative for the purposes of
this [his] analysis to draw a distinction between con-
notation as receptual and conceptual." It is, indeed, most
imperative, and the distinction consists in this : that re-
ceptual connotation is connotation improperly so called,
while conceptual connotation alone deserves the name.
The uniting together of these two psychical activities
under one general generic term is most misleading, and
again practically begs the question which Mr. Romanes
has to prove. However, he draws a further distinction,
which we are anxious to give him the full benefit of. He
says, " This distinction I have drawn by assigning the
word denomination to all connotation which is of a truly
conceptual nature — or to the bestowing of names con-
sciously recognized as such^ If by " as such " he does not
mean a reflex cognition that the name is a name, and so
intended ; but only that there is a direct consciousness
of naming, as of every other act, then we accept this
very cordially. Thus, as he truly says,t "the whole
question is narrowed - down to a clearing up of the
relations which obtain between connotation as receptual
and conceptual — or between connotation that is, and
connotation that is not, denominative."

He begins by considering what he calls " an instance

of undenominative or receptual connotation in the case

of a young child." Of course it is obvious that a child

at birth is not able to form judgments, as also that its

* p. 180. t p. 180.

i88 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

latent intellectual nature is called forth into manifesta-
tation 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 Bow-
wow successively of the house-dog, all other dogs, toy-
dogs, models of dogs, and pictures of dogs. He adds t
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 con-
sciousness 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-

* p. i8i. t p. i8i.

X See "On Truth," p. 206. § p. 182.

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 189

sciousness, but direct consciousness there must be, other-
wise the names only connote practically and materially
— as a sieve* practically and materially sorts. Such sort-
ing, however, is fundamentally different from the sorting
performed by a man. Mr. Romanes urges,t "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 asser-
tion 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 J four classes of psychical
acts as follows : —

" (i) Lower ReceptSy comprising the mental life of all
the lower animals, and so including such powers of re-
ceptual 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. t P- 183.

X pp. 184, 185.

I90 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

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 f to term his Higher Recepts, Pre-
concepts, 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,t " 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 classifies them § " as receptual,
pre-conceptual, and conceptual." By the first, he
says, II he means the "practical inferences" allowed
by us to animals. "Also," he tells us,1[ "if a brute
which is able to name each of two recepts separately

* See above, pp. 56, 59. f p. 185. J p. 186.

§ p. 189. II p. 191- 1 P- 189-

REASON AND LANGUAGE. 191

(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 dis-
tinctly advert to its truth, though it must implicitly con-
tain the idea of truth, as Mill says. And if such a judg-
ment of a brute did this, which it must do if it stated
a \x\x\S\ 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 infer-
ence is only the revival of certain sensuous elements in
the imagination, occasioned by the fresh occurrence of
certain actual sensations, whereof such imagined ones
were, in past experience, the complement. We are con-
fident, moreover, that no brute ever united vocal or
other gestures so as to form the semblance of a pro-
position. Mr. Romanes, indeed, tells us " that this pos-
sibility 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 t 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. t See above, p. 136. % p. 191.

192 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

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 :—

His Our

Percepts, Perception = Sencepts, Senception.

Lower Recept = Sensuous cognitions.

Higher Recept = Concepts and percepts as made known

by the gestures of young children.

Lower Concepts = Concepts and percepts as made known

by speech or the gestures of adults.

Higher Concepts = Conceptions concerning matters pre-

viously apprehended.

Receptual naming = The mere unintentional, accidental

making known of facts to intel-
lectual onlookers.

Pre-conceptual judgments = Judgments as made known by the

gestures of young children.

Conceptual judgments = Judgments of more developed minds,

as expressed by either speech or
voiceless gesture.

( 193 )

CHAPTER IV.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

In our author's tenth chapter we at last come upon
a consideration of that question which, in our opinion,
as we before said,* ought to have been the first one
treated of. The question to which Mr. Romanes's whole
book is devoted, is the question whether the mind of
man could have been developed from the psychical
facultie^ of brutes,^ or whether it is fundamentally
different — different in kind and origin.f In considering
this question up to the point at which we have now
arrived, he has again and again affirmed I that the
intellectual knowledge of self, or " self-consciousness "
is the distinctive character of the human mind, and
his task is to show that the difference thus admitted to
exist is one not of kind but of degree. Almost at his
first page § (in describing the scope and purpose of his
book), he declares his intention to "examine" that
"question of the deepest importance" — "the question
whether the mind of man is essentially the same as the
mind of the lower animals." An examination like this
is, and must, of cowse be, an examination into the

* See above, p. 36. t P- 3, note t

t See, e.g., p. 175. § P- 3-

O

194 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

essential nature of the psychical faculty in man and
brute. Yet when he comes at last to apply himself
to this fundamental question, he lays down his arms
and proclaims his utter inability to attack it. "I am
as far as any one can be/' he tells us, * " from throwing
light upon the intrinsic nature of that the probable
genesis of which I am endeavouring to trace " !

But if he can throw no light on "the intrinsic
nature" of the "mind of man," how can he pretend
to decide whether or not it is " essentially the same "
as what he calls " the mind of the lower animals " ?

If, as he affirms,! " the problem of self-consciousness "
is one which, however profoundly reflected on, " does not
admit of solution," by what right does he venture to
affirm that " self-consciousness " is nothing more than the
further developed sensitivity of an ape or of an amoeba ?

He seeks to protect himself from the consequences
of this confession of inability to attack the one only
question of real importance for his cause, as we noted
before,! by a profession of Idealism. With respect to
such a profession we have a few words to say, and
they are not at all intended to apply to Mr. Romanes
himself, for we are firmly persuaded that he is honest
and sincere. We are, however, no less persuaded that
there are others who are not so, but who disingenuously
seek to hide their really crass materialism behind a
carefully painted Idealistic mask. A solemn profession
of Idealism, made with the tongue in the cheek, enables
its professors to throw dust in the eyes of anyone who
may approach to inspect their proceedings too closely.

* p. 195. t p. 194. % See above, p. yj.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 195

Such men are enabled, by assuming the snowy fleece
of an Ovine philosophy, to ravage the student flock
very much at their own sweet will. It is easy for some
materialists to profess Idealism. Let us assume, for
argument's sake, that consciousness really is nothing
more than the temporary accompaniment of a certain
kind of matter under certain conditions. A man fully
persuaded of the truth of such a system could none the
less afiirm : " Consciousness must be more certain about
itself than anything else, can only know other things
through itself, and may therefore regard itself as the
most real of realities, or as the only reality." He may
really hold and, by insinuations, inculcate materialism,
while thus making a profession of Idealism all the time.*
In his profession of Idealistic faith Mr. Romanes

* In our work " On Truth " (p. 135) we have called attention to
this double-dealing, and the whole second section of the book
(pp. 71-141) is devoted to a consideration of IdeaHsm. Some
reviews of this section have afforded curious examples of the
effects of prejudice and one-sidedness. We have been reproached
for ignoring Green, Caird, Wallace, Bradley, and others, as if our
contention had not been directed to a question much more funda-
mental than any with which the various schools of existing Ideal-
ists respectively deal. A man who saws through the trunk of a tree
just above the root, may be dispensed from the task of lopping its
individual branches. We have been absurdly accused of asserting
that modern science cannot be accepted by sincere IdeaHsts. What
we have contended is that the ultimate analysis and interpretation of
the facts of consciousness — our conscious experience— so indubit-
ably affirms the action of efficient causation between bodies which
exist independently of all human thought, as to render the funda-
mental position of every form of Idealism logically untenable. The
carelessness or dishonesty of one reviewer has actually gone so far
as to represent our definition of true or intellectual perception
(given at p. 223) as being that which we have given (at p. 201) as
our definition of mere sense perception.

196 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

declares * " that in the datum of self-consciousness we
each of us possess, not merely our only ultimate know-
ledge, or that which only is * real in its own right,' but
likewise the mode of existence which alone the human
mind is capable of conceiving as existence, and there-
fore the conditio sine qua non to the possibility of an
external world."

This is going too far : it is impossible, with reason,
to affirm absolutely that the self-consciousness known
to us by introspection is the only entity which is " real
in its own right." Neither is it true to say that we
cannot conceive of a world without self-consciousness.
Of course, being always self-conscious when thinking,
we cannot thinlc of a world without consciousness, save
by the help of consciousness — -in other words, we cannot
think without thought. To say this, however, is trivial.
Although we cannot think without thought, we can
none the less conceive of the absence of self-conscious-
ness from the world, as is shown by the fact that there
have been and are thinkers who profess materialism ;
as well as Idealists who, with Hegel, held that God
becomes conscious of Himself in man.

We have already referred to a mistake made by
Mr. Romanes as to what are the necessary conditions
and effects of self-consciousness. This error appears
most plainly developed in the present chapter. Therein
he most truly observes that it is only in man that we
can study the gradual manifestation of consciousness,
but it is especially unfortunate that he seems here to

* p. 194. Readers should study Prof. Veitch's excellent work,
" Knowing and Being," recently published.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 197

identify it with reflex mental action. He says,* " It
will, I suppose, on all hands be admitted that self-con-
sciousness consists in paying the same kind of attention
to internal or psychical processes as is habitually paid
to external or physical processes — a bringing to bear
upon subjective phenomena the same powers of per-
ception as are brought to bear upon the objective."

But this is an utter mistake. If we could not be
self-conscious directly, or without holding up a previous
mental act and recognizing it, we could never be self-
conscious at all. For whatever consciousness we have
of an act performed, must itself be either direct or
reflex. If it be affirmed to be direct, why should we
deem it more difficult to have been directly conscious
of the first mental act than of the second? If it be
affirmed to be necessarily reflex, then how can we ever
obtain any knowledge of it .-* If reflex consciousness is
absolutely necessary in the first case, it must be so like-
wise in the second, and so again for the second act, and
so on ad infinitum. We must be able to know with
consciousness, directly, or we can never consciously
know at all !

He says,t next, *' Again, I suppose it will be
further admitted that in the minds of animals and in
the minds of infants there is a world of images stand-
ing as signs of outward objects ; and that the only
reason vv^hy these images are not attended to unless
called up by the sensuous associations supplied by their
corresponding objects, is because the mind is not yet
able to leave the g/ound of such association, so as to
* PP- 195, 196. t p. 196.

198 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

move through the higher and more tenuous medium
of introspective thought." We object to the above
expression, "standing as signs of outward objects."
We admit the existence in animals of groups and groups
of groups of imaginations, and that they have a material
relation to the objects which produced them and may
result in exciting various results ; but we deny that any
animal ever recognizes any objects in the same sense
as children do, therefore we would keep clear of the
suspicious word, " sign " — particularly suspicious as used
by Mr. Romanes, who has never defined the meaning
he gives to that term.

He next proceeds to observe* that "the founda-
tions of self-consciousness are largely laid in the fact
that an organism is one connected whole. . . . Hence
a brute, like a young child, has learnt to distinguish
its own members, and likewise its whole body from
all other objects." Here we must explain : It has,
of course, feelings of activity and passivity, self and
not-self,t but need not on that account have a scintilla
of consciousness. Similarly it may, by a loose analogy,
be said to " know how to avoid sources of pain " and
to " seek those of pleasure." But Mr. Romanes himself
says, " Such knowledge and such experience all belong
to the receptual order," and this order, as we have
several times pointed out, is no case of true knowledge.
He continues,t " But this does not hinder that they play
a most important part in laying the foundations of a
consciousness of individuality." Of course not! All
sensation " plays a most important part in laying the
* p. 197. t See " On Truth,^' p. 190. % p. 197.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 199

foundations" for intellectual action, just as all mere
vegetative vitality "plays a most important part in
laying the foundations" for the exercise of sensitivity,
and just as the power of chemical action, or even of
physical energy, " plays a most important part in laying
the foundations " for vegetative vital activity. But this
relation does not reduce vital action to mere physics,
or sensitivity to mere vitality. These faculties remain
distinct, and we have no reason to suppose a real transi-
tion or a fundamental identity to exist between them in
any case. Neither, then, because sensitivity serves as a
foundation upon which embodied intellect may act,
does that fact give us any ground for concluding that
sensitivity is intellect.

Mr. Romanes asserts,* as still more important, the
fact that brutes can apprehend (have " recepts " in
"reference to") ^^the mental states of other animals^
This we deny. We admit they are acted upon by, and
respond to, the sensations they receive through the
actions of animals, due to psychical states of such
animals ; but that is a very different matter. Our author
cites Wundt as giving his opinion that "the most
important of all conditions to the genesis of self-con-
sciousness is given by the muscular sense in acts of
voluntary movement." Mr. Romanes himself, while
agreeing with Wundt " that this is a highly important
condition," thinks that the others he has mentioned are
" quite as much, or even more so." All these are, no
doubt, as we have said, important or indispensable
antecedent conditions to the evocation of consciousness,

* p. 197.

230 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

as fire is an important, indispensable antecedent con-
dition to enable the genius of a distinguished chef to
furnish forth an artistic dinner. " That is to say," he
continues,* "the logic of recepts, even in brutes, is
sufficient to enable the mind to establish true analogies
between its own states (although these are not yet the
objects of separate attention, or of what may be termed
subjective knowledge), and the corresponding states of
other minds." This sentence, in spite of the words in
the parenthesis, is a most misleading one. We might
with as much justice and propriety represent a match
coated with a certain phosphoric compound, as capable of
establishing "a true analogy between its own " dynamic
state and the dynamic state of a lighted candle! He
goes on, " I take it to be a matter of general observation
that animals habitually and accurately interpret the
mental states of other animals, while they also well
know that other animals are able similarly to interpret
theirs — as is best proved by their practising the arts of
cunning, concealment, hypocrisy, etc." We take it for
granted that the " general observation " of a multitude
of persons interested in animals, but not experts in the
study of their own mental processes, does often lead
them to form such mistaken inferences. But they are
inferences which the facts do not suffice to prove, and
which, if true, would overthrow the infinitely wider basis
of experiment and observation which has convinced
serious thinkers since Aristotle, that animals are not
rational. That they act in many respects so as to lead
the careless or prejudiced observer to think they really

* p. 198.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 201

have such perceptions and intuitions as those here
attributed to them, is, of course, most obvious ; but their
actions, nevertheless, do not afford us any proof that they
ever experience " perception " or form an " intuition " of
any sort or kind whatever. Mr. Romanes quotes M.
Quatrefages's relation, of an experience such as we are
all more or less familiar with-^namely, a dog playing
with his master, and only biting him most tenderly.
As to this M. Quatrefages says, " In reality it played a
part in a comedy, and we cannot act without being con-
scious of it." To this assertion we reply, " We, indeed,
cannot, but a mastiff may, and nothing in the tale
appears to us in the least to indicate a faculty higher
than that consentience we assign, in different degrees,
to a mastiff and an earth-worm." Mr. Romanes follows
up this citation with another extraordinary, gratuitous
assertion. He says, " It is of importance further to
observe that at this stage of mental evolution the
individual — whether an animal or an infant — so far
realizes its own individuality as to be informed by the
logic of recepts that it is one of a kind. I do not mean
that at this stage the individual realizes its own or
any other individuality as such ; but merely that it re-
cognizes the fact of its being one among a number of
similiar though distinct forms of life." This we strenu-
ously deny. There is no shadow of reason for asserting
that any animal " recognizes " any " fact," though, of
course, it is manifest that their various feelings lead
them to act in ways to a certain superficial extent
similar to the ways in which creatu;'es like ourselves would
act. Many very lowly animals go in troops, and, of

202 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

course, their movements are guided by feelings which
differ according as such movements relate to them-
selves, to organisms of the same kind or to organisms of
other kinds. " In this way," he tells us,* " there arises a
sort of 'outward self consciousness,' which differs from
true or inward self-consciousness only in the absence
of any attention being directed upon the inward mental
states as such." But true self-consciousness by no
means needs for its existence that it should be " directed
upon the inward mental states at all," and, a fortiori,
it does not need that it should be ** directed upon the
inward mental states as such.'' He goes on,t "This
outward self-consciousness is known to us all, even in
adult life — it being but comparatively seldom that we
pause in our daily activities to contemplate the mental
processes of which these activities are the expression."
In order to avoid confusion, it may be well here to
enumerate the states of consciousness that really exist.
We have : —

(i) Reflex consciousness concerning our mental pro-
cesses as such, as, e.g., that in thinking, " That man is
probably a thief," we are making an " act of judgment."

(2) Reflex consciousness as to what we think, but
not as to the nature of our mental process itself, as
when we say, " / do think that man is a thief"

(3) Direct consciousness, as when we think a man
a thief, without adverting to the fact that we think so at
all, and still less advert to the fact that in so thinking
we are making a judgment.

But besides these states of consciousness, we may
* p. 199. t Ibid.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 203

also perform a variety of movements, often complex,
owing to the incidence of sensations in the arousing of
emotions without consciousness, and such mere results
of sensitivity have been distinguished by Mr. Lewes
and ourselves * as consentience, which we freely allow to
animals, and deem amply sufficient to account for all
their highest psychical states and the various external
manifestations thereof

Mr. Romanes, on the other hand, fails to distinguish
between direct self - consciousness and consentience,
saying, t "Receptual or outward self-consciousness, then,
is the practical recognition of self as an active and a
feeling agent ; while conceptual or inward self-conscious-
ness is the introspective recognition of self as an object
of knowledge, and, therefore, as a subject." We repeat,
direct consciousness is not introspective. It does not
think without knowing what it thinks about, but with-
out expressly directing its attention to what it is doing.
In a note Mr. Romanes quotes from Wundt as replying
" to the objection that there can be no thought without
knowledge of thought," by saying, " that before there
is any knowledge of thought there must be the same
order of thinking as there is of perceiving, prior to the
advent of self-consciousness." But we deny that there
is any " perception " without consciousness other than
mere "sense-perception ;" which is only called perception
by analogy. Probably Wundt means that before reflex
thought, there must be direct thought, which is true ; as
well as that before we can think even directly, there
must be antecedent sensitivity in exercise, which is also

* See "On Truth," pp. 183, 354. t pp. 199, 200.

204 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

true. But sensitivity in exercise is not "thought." If
animals had consciousness they would make for them-
selves conceptual signs of one kind or another, and not
merely emotional expressions.

Our author next says, * " I take it, then, as estab-
lished that true or conceptual self-consciousness consists
in paying the same kind of attention to inward
psychical processes as is habitually paid to outward
physical processes." This error we have already fore-
stalled f in our preceding distinction of "direct" from
" reflex " consciousness.

He then tells us, % " All observers are agreed that for
a considerable time after a child is able to use words as
expressions of ideas, there is no vestige of true self-
consciousness."

This is an amazing assertion. Children often
exhibit their self-consciousness in an unmistakable
manner, long before they can use words. A boy may
very likely have " bitten his own arm " — as Professor
Preyer is quoted as relating ; but that does not show
an absence of self-consciousness. Even a grown man
has struck his own head and inflicted other injuries on
his body without thereby giving us the least reason to
suppose he did not know full well that it was his own
body. Mr. Romanes makes, § as we have before noted,
the fact of a child's speaking of itself in the first person
the sign of the advent of self- consciousness and con-
ceptual power. II But when a child speaks of himself

* p. 200. t See above, pp. 197, 202.

X p. 200. § p. 201.

II At p. 230, "self-consciousness" is explicitly stated to be "the
very condition to the occurrence of conceptual ideation."

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 205

as " Jimmy," it is absurd to suppose he does not under-
stand that he is Jimmy, and that Jimmy is himself.

Mr. Romanes really attaches an altogether absurd
importance to the saying of "I." We cannot, of
course, intelligently say it without having a concept
of self, but we cannot intelligently say anything else
without having a concept thereof. The idea of self
is by no means so exceptionally gifted that it alone
of all things is able to evoke mental conception. Any
object indicated by either voice or gesture as being
one of a kind, or being in any particular state, is the
result of a concept, and the index of the presence of
"conceptual ideation." If a thing is not known to be of
any kind or in any state at all, it is not known, but if it
is understood, it must be understood by the medium of
a concept. Any object whatever will serve to give rise
to a concept equally well with the object " self," to which
Mr. Romanes thus attributes such factitious importance.

He further observes, * " It will no doubt be on all
hands freely conceded, that at least up to the time when
a child begins to speak it has no beginning of any
true or introspective consciousness of self."

We concede nothing of the kind, but rather think
that in all cases self-consciousness precedes, and may
for a long time f precede, speech.

Anecdotes of child-language will be more con-
veniently considered in our next chapter, but we cannot

* p. 202.

t Amongst my own friends I know a very striking instance in
confirmation of this. A youth (now a very distinguished medical
man) was long unable to speak after he was able to express most
plainly by gesture-language, what related to his own individuality.

2o6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

refrain altogether from noticing here some instances
quoted from Mr. Sully, as follows : —

" When a child of eighteen months on seeing a dog
exclaims, * Bow-wow,' or on taking his food exclaims,
*0t' (Hot), or on letting fall his toy says, * Dow '
(Down), he may be said to be implicitly framing a
judgment: 'That is a dog,' 'This milk is hot,' 'My
plaything is down.' . . . The boy ... we will call C, was
first observed to form a distinct judgment when nineteen
months old, by saying, ' Dit ki ' (Sister is crying)."

But we deny that any distinction as to explicitness
or implicitness is conveyed by the distinction between
the utterances of these children of eighteen months and
nineteen months respectively. Indeed, we regard the
attempt to draw such a distinction as a most absurd
attempt. '' Dit ki " is admitted to be the expression of
a distinct judgment. Now, in what respect does the
utterence of the monosyllable " Ot " differ from " Dit
ki " } It merely differs in the emission of two sounds
instead of one, but the one sound, "Ot," means as
much as do the two sounds " Dit ki." The sound " Ot "
was understood by those present to predicate heat of the
food, and no one, out of Bedlg^, can question that the
child meant to convey the notion that its food was hot.
But, as Mr. Romanes has most truly observed,* it is
what is meant, not what is said, which is the really
important matter.f It comes to this, then — that a
sentence is conveyed in the one instance by two sounds,

* p. 164.

t Even adults often express a full judgment by a single word.
Suppose two men are watching birds not distinctly to be seen, and
trying to make out what they are. When one man, having made

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 207

and in the other by the utterance of a monosyllable.
The latter mode is only inferior in so far as it seems
incapable of being adapted to express the complex
ideas of later life. If it were only possible to follow
out that mode without confusion, then the use of mono-
syllables to express whole sentences, instead of being
inferior, would be the very highest ideal of language.

Of course, as children grow up, they more and more
conform to their environment and imitate the adults
about them, and it is, as we have said, practically much
more convenient to use distinct articulate sounds to
express the several ideas involved in a sentence. Thus
it is natural enough that a child somewhat older should
say, " Ka in milk (Something nasty in the milk) ; milk
dare now (There is still some more milk in the cup),"
and so on ; also that a child, " towards the end of the
second year," should say, " Dat a big bow-wow (That is
a large dog) ; Dit naughty * (Sister is naughty)," and
" Dit dow ga (Sister is down on the grass)."

It was with little short of amazement that we read
Mr. Romanes's comment f on these facts : —

" Were it necessary, I could confirm all these state-
ments from my own notes . . . but I prefer ... to
quote such facts from an impartial witness. For /
conceive that they are facts of the highest importance\ in
relation to our present subject."

sure, cries out " Grouse ! " is that less truly the expression of a
judgment than saying, " They are grouse " ?

* It is very difficult to see what important difference exists
between the nineteen months expression, " Dit ki," and the nearly
two year old expression, " Dit naughty."

f p. 203. X The italics are ours.

2o8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

He then proceeds to " show " their importance, ob-
serving—

*' We have now before us unquestionable evidence
that in the growing child there is a power, not only of
forming, but of expressing a pre-conceptual judgment,
long before there is any evidence of the child presenting
the faintest rudiment of internal, conceptual, or true
self-consciousness."

We have now before us, to our judgment, unques-
tionable evidence that in the growing child there is
consciousness and a power of conception, long before
there is any power of speech whatever ; as also that
clearly conceived judgments are explicitly made known
sometimes by the utterance of two sounds, and some-
times by a mere monosyllable, as is frequently the case
with adults also — even Fellows of the Royal Society.
Therefore, instead of saying with Mr. Romanes * that
expressions of children are 7iot examples of " true pre-
dication in the sense of being the expression of a true
or conceptual judgment," because the child using them
has not yet spoken of itself as " I," we say that, being
at once true predications — true conceptual judgments —
they prove that self-consciousness preceded them, in
spite of the very unnecessary habit of using the term
" I " not having come into use. He tells us f that the
child's expression, " Mama pleased to Dodo," would have
no meaning as spoken by a child, unless the child knew
" what is the state of mind he thus attributes to another."
So when the child Dodo further says, " Dodo pleased
to mama," he is conscious that he is pleased. Mr.
* p. 205. t P- 206.

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 209

Romanes says, " Thus the child is enabled to fix these
states before his mental vision as things which admit
of being denoted by verbal signs." We do not say this :
The child thinks nothing of " signs," or his own mental
states as such. To do that would be to make acts of
reflex consciousness. But he knows well enough he is
pleased, and means to make it known ; and this he
could not do had he not self-consciousness.

Mr. Romanes quotes the late Mr. Chauncey Wright
as saying, " It does not appear impossible that an
intelligent dog" may be aided by purposely directing
its attention to the accessories of a spot where a lost
bone may have been buried.

Attention, in the sense of what we have called
**sensuous attention "* (or the intensifying of the looking,
by some object associated with the lost bone striking
the senses), is one thing, but true or intellectual atten-
tion is quite another thing.

With respect to the development of self-conscious-
ness, Mr. Romanes affirms it to be " gradual," because
" the process is throughout of the nature of a growth."

In this connection, however, comes a passage f to
which we think it desirable to call special attention. It
is as follows : —

" Nevertheless, there is some reason to think that
when this growth has attained a certain point, it makes,
so to speak, a sudden leap of progress, which may
be taken to bear the same relation to the development
of the mind as the act of birth does to that of the
body. . . . Midway between the slowly evolving phases
See " On Truth," pp. 198, 219. f p. 208.

P

2IO THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

in utero^ and the slowly evolving phases of after-growth,
there is in the case of the human body a great and
sudden change at the moment when it first becomes
separated from that of its parent. And so, there is
some reason to believe, it is in the case of the human
mind."

We by no means accept the analogy as here given,
but we deem it well to note this admission of a sudden
leap in psychical human development. In principle it
admits all we demand, and may be regarded as a case
resembling that other sudden leap of evolution, before
referred to * — the junction of the spermatozoon and the
ovum, etc. f The existence of some real changes of
kind in nature can hardly be denied by the consistent
biologist, and we have seen % how strongly even Mr.
Wallace has quite recently affirmed their existence. But
a change of kind must be sudden. An essential nature is,
or it is not. It can never partly be and partly not be.

Mr. Romanes employs here, as in his former work,
the uncouth and somewhat repulsive term "ejects," to
denote the feelings accompanying a creature's spon-
taneous activities, and readily appreciated by other
creatures seeing them. He says § he desires to " lay
particular stress upon the point, which I do not think
has been sufficiently noticed by previous writers —
namely, the ejective origin of subjective knowledge."
He regards such appreciation as hereditary, as shown by
" the smile of an infant in answer to a caressing tone,

* See above, p. 12.

t As to these sudden psychical changes occurring in nature, see
" On Truth," pp. 458, 439, 507, 508.

X See above, pp. 10, 27. § p. 209.

RE/iSON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 211

and its cry in answer to a scolding one." It is this, he
thinks, which leads savages to endow inanimate objects
and the forces of nature with psychical attributes, and
he finds further evidence of it " in the fact of psycho-
logical analysis revealing that our idea of cause is
derived from our idea of muscular effort." *

This tendency, he adds, f leads man " in his early
days" to regard the Ego as an ejection, resembling the
others of his kind by whom he is surrounded, and he
regards Max Miiller's generalization that " I " is trace-
able to the expression, " This one," as " additional and
more particular evidence of the originally ejective cha-
racter of the idea of self" This we must reluctantly
declare to be, to our judgment, simply nonsense.
That men should be apt to attribute life to what is
inanimate is but an instance of the law that we judge
by experience, and that motion is commonly a sign of
vitality. It is the same law which leads us spontane-
ously to judge other persons and things by ourselves.
That animals instinctively apprehend in their way the
dispositions of others, is surely a very simple form of
Instinct. But to regard the "idea of self" as really
made up of an assemblage of "ideas of other people,"
is like saying that a straight line is made up of a
number of crooked ones, or that a collection of a
number of musical instruments, all silent, could pro-
duce sound.

* Would Mr. Romanes, then, say that from such analogies he
has good cause to disbelieve in Cause ? For what we believe to
be the true relation of our feelings of effort, etc., to our appre-
hension of causation, see " On Truth," pp. 48-52.

t p. 211.

212 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Wundt says, " It is only after the child has distin-
guished by definite characteristics its own being from
that of other people, that it makes the further advance
of perceiving that these other people are also beings
in and for themselves." This Mr. Romanes quotes,
adding, very remarkably, " Now, this I do not question,
although I do not think there can be much before or
after in these two concepts." This sentence is indeed
remarkable^ since Wundt's position is simply fatal to
that of Mr. Romanes. However quickly the idea of
other people may come after the idea of self, the fact
of such ideas coming after at all is absolutely fatal to
the idea that what precedes them can be due to them
and composed of them. Whether or not Wundt is justi-
fied in saying that a child must first distinguish its
own being by definite characteristics, we regard it as
absolutely certain that it could not have a conception
of other people without also having a conception of
itself also.

Nothing in Mr. Romanes's chapter on self-conscious-
ness, even tends to show us how the gulf between
mere sensitivity and intellect can be bridged over ; or
how consciousness can have arisen by any natural pro-
cess whatever. We have, of course, long known that
there are certain conditions antecedently necessary for
its manifestation in man — such as mechanical forces,
chemical energies, life, and sensitivity — but none or all
of these suffice to explain consciousness, the origin of
which remains shrouded in mystery as inscrutable to
mere physical science as the origin of sensitivity, life,
or physical energy itself We see it there, where it

REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS, 213

shows itself in our fellow-men, and we note its in-
creasingly clear manifestation in infancy. We can,
indeed, make rational, and (we are convinced) perfectly
valid, inferences as to its origin, just as our own mind
can reveal to us its nature ; but its origin is entirely
removed from that field of observation which is
furnished to us by a study of the physical and psychical
powers of merely animal life.

214 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

CHAPTER V.

REASON AND THE INFANT.

In his eleventh chapter Mr. Romanes applies himself
directly to the task of endeavouring to show how in-
tellect is developed in the infant, from a state in which
that faculty is non-existent. This he calls *'the transition
in the individual." We have already had to consider
briefly and by anticipation, some statements made and
anecdotes given by our author in support of his view ;
but here we have to consider its full and complete enun-
ciation. From our position, as stated in our introductory
chapter,* it follows that we have no difficulty in under-
standing the fact which is patent to every one ; namely,
that intellect becomes gradually manifest, in what seems
at first but a mass of living, sentient matter — the new-
born infant. We, of course, affirm that it is thus
evolved, simply because it was potentially there from the
first. Mr. Romanes would probably reply that he also
regards it as potentially present in the infant, adding
that it is potentially present in the brute also. He
might possibly make a further distinction, and say that
intellect is so potentially present in the child that but
little is wanted to make it active and manifest, but that
* See above, p. 8.

REASON AND THE INFANT, 215

it could only be developed into active manifestation in
the remote descendants of any existing brute — descend-
ants which should be submitted to a series of influences
and conditions more or less similar to those which
evolved it in the earliest intellectual ancestors of man.
This would be the old scholastic distinction between in
potentia ad actum and in potentia ad esse. Our position
is that intellect is really in esse in the infant, though
it is but in potentia ad actum, while in the brute we
deny that there are grounds for asserting it to be poten-
tially present in either sense of the term " in potential
We would not venture dogmatically to affirm that God
cannot have given to brutes a truly intellectual nature ;
but there is no evidence that they do possess it — even
the highest of them in their adult condition. All evi-
dence, as far as it goes, is also against the possibility
of such a thing having been brought about even by
Omnipotence, since it would seem to involve an ob-
jective contradiction.*

Mr. Romanes's view is a very different one. He
says at the outset f of this chapter, " Is it conceivable
that the human mind can have arisen by way of a
natural genesis from the minds of the higher quad-
rumana ? I maintain that the material now before us
is sufficient to show, not only that this is conceivable,
but inevitable."

It would be enough, then, to refute Mr. Romanes,
to show, not that his conclusions are false, but merely
that they are not necessary ones-^that the facts are

* See " On Truth," pp. 385, 468.
t p. 213.

2i6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

susceptible of another interpretation. We hope to do
more than this.

Mr. Romanes begins his task by reiterating what no
one dreams of denying, namely, that we share with
animals our lower mental powers, and that differences
between various conditions of the human intellect are
but dififerences of degree. "The only question, then,
that obtains is," he tells us, " as to the relation between
the highest recept of a brute and the lowest concept
of a man."

He then proceeds to recall to his reader's recollec-
tion his preceding exaggeration about the counting
crow and the ape which discovered the " mechanical
principle " of the screw,* statements which we have
already criticized. f These "intelligent" animals he
compares with the picture his imagination draws of
palaeolithic man, who, he tells us, % for " untold thou-

* Mr. Romanes says (p. 214), "Even here there is nothing to
show that the monkey ever thought about the principle as a
principle ; indeed, we may rest well assured that he cannot
possibly have done so, seeing that he was not in possession of the
intellectual instruments — and, therefore, of the antecedent con-
ditions— requisite for the purpose. All that the monkey did was
to perceive receptually certain analogies : but he did not conceive
them, or constitute them objects of thought as analogies. He was,
therefore, unable \.o predicate the discovery he had made, or to set
before his own mind as knowledge the knowledge which he had
gained." We quote this passage in our desire to do full justice to
Mr. Romanes ; but when we recollect that he denies conceptual
power to any being which cannot speak of itself in the first person,
his admission as to the limited powers of the monkey becomes
valueless. Moreover, at p. 60, he has said (referring to this very
same ape) that the " logic of recepts " is " able to reach generic
ideas o{ principles^ as well as of objects, qualities, and actions.'*

t See above, pp. 79, 86. % p. 214.

REASON AND THE INFANT, 217

sands of years made no advance upon the chipping of
flints." We would by no means be understood as
denying- the truth of this assertion,* but we regard it as
one made somewhat too hastily. We have not yet met
with evidence sufficiently decisive as to so prolonged a
residence of palaeolithic man in one region, nor do we
see why palaeolithic and neolithic man may not have
existed simultaneously in different regions, just as
" bronze " men and " iron " men, or even " bronze " men
and "gunpowder" men did, ages afterwards.

After some pleasantry concerning our supposed
" slovenly error " (elsewhere called " inexcusable ") about
" the simplest element of thought," f and after recapitu-
lating assertions about animal language, Mr. Romanes
proceeds to address himself to what he declares is, in his
apprehension, " the central core of the question," and to
give additional instances of what he calls " receptual
and preconceptual ideation " on the part of infants.
He tells us { a daughter of his, aged eighteen months,
gave the proper baby names to sheep, cows, pigs, etc.,
whether seen in unfamiliar picture-books, or on wall-
papers or chair-covers in strange houses. In doing this
we consider her to have made deliberate conscious
affirmations concerning things whereof she had formed
true concepts. Somewhat later, having called first her
brother and then other children " Ilda," " whenever she

* See above, p. ^2)-

t The assertion that " an explicit judgment " was " the simplest
element of thought " would have been much worse than " slovenly,"
had it ever been made. We have already explained ourselves
upon this point. See above, p. 175, and below, p. 242.

X p. 218. See also above, p. 206.

2i8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

came upon a representation of a sheep with lambs, she
would point to the sheep and say, Mama-Ba^ while to
the lambs she would say, Ilda-Ba" Yet he ventures to
affirm that in her case " speech in the sense of formal
predication " had not begun. For our part, we consider
this most distinctly shows true intelligence and pre-
dication. Essentially there is no difference between
such an affirmation and the most abstruse mathematical
statement ever written down by a senior wrangler.
Prof. Preyer is quoted * as saying that it is " a very
general error " to suppose " all children on first beginning
to speak use substantives only, and later pass on to the
use of adjectives." Mr. Romanes's daughter "almost
contemporaneously" acquired the use of a few proper
verbs and prepositions. Yet he does not scruple to say
(as we have seen) that in her case " speech in the sense
of formal predication " had not begun ! Her earliest
gestures were, of course, very simple, but by the time
she had attained two and a half years, she had deve-
loped them into regular pantomime. " Coming into
the house, after having bathed in the sea for the
first time," she narrated her novel experience "by
first pointing to the shore, then pretending to take
off her clothes, to walk into the sea, and to dip : next,
passing her hands up her body to her head, she sig-
nified that the water had reached as high as her hair,
which she showed me was still wet. The whole story
was told without the use of a single articulate sound."
Mr. Romanes observes \ that " in its earliest stages, and
onwards through a considerable part of its history," this
* p. 219. t p. 221.

REASON AND THE INFANT. 219

sign-making " is precisely identical with the correspond-
ing phases of indicative sign-making in the lower ani-
mals " ! As if similar external movements may not be
due to very different internal causes, as in this case
the diverse results of the outcome of gesture-develop-
ment proves them to have been. A man, a monkey,
and a toy automaton may take off the hat ; but that
material sign of salutation is fundamentally different
in each case. Dogs beg for water, and pull dresses
to open doors, and so far the movements of some young
children, of course, do to a certain extent resemble them ;
but no one who will look into the eyes of such a child
can well fail to note therein an expression of meaning
and intelligence which not the keenest desires or emo-
tions of a brute will impart to its organs of sight.* But
even if this difference did not exist, the diverse outcome
is enough to make known an original difference of
nature.

Strongly, then, do we deny Mr. Romanes's assertion f
that "so far as the earliest phase of language is con-
cerned, no difference even of degree can be alleged
between the infant and the animal." It is wonderful
how he misunderstands the system of his opponents.
He asks,t "Will it be suggested that my daughter
had attained to self-consciousness . . . before she had
attained to the faculty of speech, and therefore to the
very condition to the naming of her ideas? If so, it
would follow that there may be concepts without names,

* This has been repeatedly observed by me. My attention was
first called to the fact by the late Dr. Noble, of Manchester,
author of " Mind and Brain," Churchill.

t p. 222. % p. 223, note.

220 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

and thus the whole fortress of my opponents would
crumble away." Why, of course, we say there can be
concepts without names. We have always strenuously
affirmed it, and its affirmation, instead of being destruc-
tive to our "fortress," is the very rock on which it is
built. Mr. Romanes says * that if his opponents do
not "commit argumentative suicide" they must con-
cede that the speechless infant is "confined to the
receptual sphere of ideation." But instead of conceding
this we have strenuously affirmed the very reverse.f

Having, then, so mistakenly assumed that self-con-
sciousness must be reflex, and having attributed to the
logical and conceptual gesture-language of children no
more value than to the emotional manifestations of
brutes, he says J : " The named recepts of a parrot
cannot be held by my opponents to be true concepts,
any more than the indicative gestures of an infant can
be held by them to differ in kind from those of a dog."

Certainly, we are far indeed from regarding "the
named recepts of a parrot" as concepts, but we none
the less affirm that "the indicative gestures of an in-
fant " are " different in kind from those of a dog " —
just as "the indicative gestures" of the arms of a dog
are different in kind from those of a telegraph post.
External resemblance in action does not prove simi-
larity of kind, if there is reason for thinking that
the actions are respectively the result of influences
which themselves are radically different in kind. The
actions as external motions may be similar in appear-

* p. 225. t See " On Truth," p. 234.

X p. 226.

REASON AND THE INFANT. 221

ance, but as regards their real nature they may be
fundamentally contrasted.

Mr. Romanes goes on * to consider that stage in the
life of a child which he regards as anterior to the forma-
tion of true mental concepts, though a stage superior
to the highest of those which mere animals can attain
to. " Let us," he says, " consider the case of a child
about two years old, who is able to frame such a proposi-
tion as Dit ki (Sister is crying)." This he affirms to be
no truly intellectual act, but merely the bringing " into
apposition'" of two recepts (perceptions of its senses)
which it has experienced simultaneously.

"The apposition in consciousness of these two
recepts," he tells us, " is effected for the child by what
may be termed the logic of events : it is not effected
by the child in the way of any intentional or self-
conscious grouping of its ideas."

Now, of course, Mr. Romanes does not here mean
to deny that the child reflects on its mental act. Even
adults very rarely do that. Such a denial, then, would
be too absurdly superfluous. All he can mean to deny
of the child, then, must be that direct, ordinary con-
sciousness which attends all our everyday actions.
Such a denial is, however, quite unwarranted. In
saying Dit ki, the child gives expression (as we before
said) to a true judgment. It is a judgment composed
of two named concepts and an implied copula affirming
through one concept, " ki," the existence of an action
performed by an object, to which the other concept,
*' Dit," relates.

* p. 227.

222 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON,

The absolute enunciation of the copula " is " cannot
be needed if we can see that it is meant ; for, as Mr.
Romanes has so well said,* so that any one means,
the mode of expressing that meaning is 'unimportant.
In such childish sentences as that quoted, the copula
is evidently present in intention, though it may not
be uttered, and as Mr. Romanes further on truly ob-
serves, t the greatest of all distinctions in biology is
"potentiality." That is just it It is the distinction
between a nature which can and a nature which cannot
form intellectual conceptions, which is the distinction
between man and brute. But this latent power or
" potentiality " can only be made known by the out-
come. It is this which gives us such abundant reason
for regarding new-born infants and defectively organized
persons as potentially rational, and which justifies our
denying rationality to animals, since they never show us
they possess it — while we cannot doubt but that if they
did possess it they would soon convince us all of that
fact. We thus avoid both horns of our author's dilemma.t

We conclude that the brute does not "judge," be-
cause it does not give the evidence of judgment which
a child who says " Dit ki " does give. The child who
uses that expression not only makes a judgment, but
the things it affirms exist in its mind beside the judg-

* p. 164. t p. 233.

$ He says (p. 227), " I put to my opponents the following
dilemma. Either you here have judgment, or else you have not.
If you hold that this is judgment, you must also hold that animals
judge. ... If, on the other hand, you answer that here you have
not judgment, I will ask you at what stage in the subsequent
development of the child's intelligence you would consider judg-
ment to arise?"

REASON AND THE INFANT. 223

ment as well as in it. If they did not so exist, i.e, if
the child did not consciously perceive both his sister
and her crying condition, the statement would be mere
meaningless babble. But, of course, the child does not
advert to such psychical facts, and recognize what it
says with reflex consciousness.

Mr. Romanes then attempts * to prove that there is
no distinction of kind between what he calls precon-
ceptual acts and true mental conception. But this is, of
course, an utterly vain attempt, because every one who
understands the position of Mr. Romanes's opponents
knows that they affirm not only what he calls "precon-
ception," but also what he calls " higher reception," to
be truly conceptual. He distinguishes " ideation which
is capable " of itself becoming an object of thought, from
"ideation which is not" so capable — that which is denoted
by speech being supposed by him to be alone so capable.
But why cannot a statement made in gesture by a dumb
man be thought of by him as being a statement ? Mr.
Romanes has himself declared that a deaf-mute had told
him that he always thought by means of mental images
of hand and feature movements, and therefore that deaf
mutes must have thought of his statements as state-
ments, i.e. must have reflected about them.

Finally, he deals with two supplementary considera-
tions : (A) the first concerns f the great progress which
can be made between childhood and maturity, and he
concludes I that "self-consciousness marks a com-
paratively low level in the evolution of the human
mind." To show this he cites the case of his little girl
* p. 230. t p- 232. X p. 233.

224. THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

when four and a half years old, who when asked to say
what room was beneath the drawing-room of her home,
"first suggested the bath-room, which was not only
above the drawing-room, but also on the opposite side
of the house ; next she suggested the dining-room,
which, although below the drawing-room, was also on
the other side of the house ; and so on, the child clearly
having no power to think out so simple a problem,"
although she herself had wished to know what was
under the drawing-room. But this, in our eyes, did not
indicate a low level of intellect, but only a certain
incapacity for one kind of imagination. Such partial
incapacities are by no means rare. There are very good
classical scholars who seem unable to form for them-
selves the phantasmata they need in order to become
good mathematicians, and there are excellent mathe-
maticians who have but a very feeble power of retaining
those sensuous distinctions which underlie, and are
needful for, classical proficiency.

Mr. Romanes continues,* " There is thus shown to be
even less reason to regard the advent of self-conscious-
ness as marking a psychological difference of kind, than
there would be so to regard the advent of those higher
powers of conceptual ideation which subsequently —
though so gradually — supervene between early childhood
and youth. . . . Or, otherwise stated, the psychological
interval between my cebus and my child (when the
former successfully investigated the mechanical principle
of the screw by means of his highly developed receptual
faculties, while the latter unsuccessfully attempted to solve

REASON AND THE INFANT. 225

a most simple topographical problem by means of her
lowly developed conceptual faculties) was assuredly much
less than that which afterwards separated the intelligence
of my child from this level of its own previous self."

Now, as to the cebus, etc., we have already made our
criticism. But the answer to all this is given by Mr.
Romanes himself a few lines later on, where he says
(in words already quoted by us), " The greatest of all
distinctions in biology, when it first arises, is thus seen
to lie in hs potentiality ." Once more, that is just it. It is,
as we just said, the distinction between a nature which
can, and a nature which cannot, possess conceptual
power. Mr. Romanes completes his sentence by adding
the words, "rather than in origin." The meaning of
these words is not clear. By this "potentiality" in
which he declares lies the greatness of a distinction,
he must mean the nature thus distinguished ; for the
^^potentiality" cannot lie in " the distinction itself ^ With
this we fully agree. We have no objection to say also
that such distinction lies more in the nature of an organ-
ism than in its origin. The distinction between a living
man and a brute does, perhaps, lie rather in the distinct-
ness of his nature from theirs than in his origin. For
it is conceivable that the immaterial, psychical principle
of any brute might have been formed by a distinct
kind of action, as has been that of man ; but this simi-
larity of origin would be of small account compared to
the difference between these principles as regards their
potentiality. On the other hand, had the human body
been formed separately, but not endowed with a rational,
but merely with a sentient nature, such a diversity of

226 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

origin from the mode of origin of a brute would be
of no account compared with the diversity between their
innermost natures as revealed by their divergent capa-
cities. This, however, cannot have been Mr. Romanes's
meaning in the sentence quoted, which is certainly a
very obscure one.

(B) His second supplementary consideration refers *
to the fact " that even in the case of a fully developed
self-conscious intelligence, both receptual and precon-
ceptual ideation continue to play an important part."
But this is what his opponents have ever distinctly
affirmed, and we have reaffirmed it in our introductory
chapter. Man is a sensitive organism ; an organism
possessing vegetative powers ; a theatre of chemical
changes, and a material substance manifesting physical
properties— man is all this — as well as an intellectual
being. Moreover, as we have also pointed out again and
again, we have both consentience and simple, or direct,
consciousness, as well as reflex consciousness. Mr.
Romanes says,t " When I say, 'A negro is black,' I do
not require to think all the formidable array of things
that Mr. Mivart says I affirm." Certainly not! Neverthe-
less, whoever so affirms, affirms these things implicitly, and
a very little examination suffices to show they were, and
must have been latent, and to make their existence patent.J

Certainly there is no need that we should "examine
our own ideas " whenever we use rational language
— direct knowledge, or consciousness, is enough to

* p. 234. t p. 235.

X See " On Truth," p. 103, for implications contained in the
assertion, " That is a horse."

REASON AND THE INFANT. 227

constitute it such. It is also true that what we have
learned with many an effort, may come afterwards to
be done automatically, and it is lucky indeed for us
that such is the case.* Were it not so, our time and
labour would be incessantly occupied with the lowest
stages of mental growth. Fortunately for us, after
acquiring habitual images of objects, we acquire habitual
recognitions of past mental acts, and so on, and thus the
intellect is left free for higher activity, as we become
able to do automatically, that which at first could only
be done with much effort and great attention.

Here Mr. Romanes's psychological examination
" comes to an end." f We think he has conspicuously
failed to show that intellectual action (conceptual,
pre-conceptual, or higher receptual) is "but a higher
development" of the language of brutes. A fortiori^
then, has he failed to show that such a development is,
as he has said, % " inevitable." But he has also failed to
put before us any rational system of psychology, be-
cause he does not address himself to the real problem,
having mistaken the true indication of self-conscious-
ness. He has also failed because he does not distinguish
between direct and reflex consciousness ; because he
attributes to brutes " ideas," and deems that perceptions
generate recepts [!] (sensuous universals) — instead of
being themselves intellectual acts of an intelligence
which, with the aid of sense-impressions, perceives the
actual presence of objects conceptually apprehended.
He fails also, finally, because he ever greatly exagge-
rates the psychical faculties of brutes.

* See " On Truth," pp. 363, 364. t p. 237. % p. 213.

228 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

CHAPTER VL

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES.

Having considered the infant mind, Mr. Romanes next
turns to the very interesting study of divers tongues
which various races of men speak or have spoken. He
initiates his twelfth chapter very confidently. After
asserting that he has refuted a position (our own)
which he has entirely misunderstood, he adds * that
the time has come when he "can afford to take a
new point of departure. It is to Language that my
opponents appeal : to Language they shall go." But
the language to which they appeal is not that mere
verbal predication which Mr. Romanes assumes it to be,
but the external expression, whether by articulate or
inarticulate sounds or by gesture, of internal intellectual
apprehension. It is the verbum mentale which is alone
important.

Our author here makes an observation which is not
a little surprising. He tells us that " the new science of
Comparative Philology has revealed the important fact
that, if on the one hand speech gives ^;irpression to ideas,
on the other hand it receives ^'//^pression from them."
A " new science " was hardly needed to make this

* p. 238.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 229

known : a fact which the whole school of Mr. Ro-
manes's opponents have ever taught, and which we have
again and again insisted upon to ears and minds
evidently somewhat slow of apprehension.

In commencing his exposition of doctrines of
comparative philology, Mr. Romanes modestly dis-
claims any right to speak as an expert in that science.
We desire to make even less claim to any special know-
ledge on the subject. The criticisms we shall make,
however, do not require or depend upon any special
knowledge of that kind. We all admit that speech
changes and grows, and every assertion (not a repetition
of already noted errors) made about philosophy by Mr.
Romanes might be freely conceded without weakening
our own position. Still we think it expedient to
examine what follows, for although it is relatively
unimportant, the matter it deals with is valuable as
throwing some useful side-lights on the main question.
This is especially the case with some statements of Mr.
Romanes which we deem more or less interestingly
erroneous.

He says,* " Let it be noted that we are in the
presence of exactly the same distinction with regard to
the origin of language, as we were at the beginning of this
treatise with regard to the origin of man. For we then
saw that while we have the most cogent historical
evidence in proof of the principles of evolution having
governed the progress of civilization, we have no such
direct evidence of the descent of man from a brutal
ancestry. And here also we find that, as long as the

* p. 242.

230 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

light of history is able to guide us, there can be no
doubt that the principles of evolution have determined
the gradual development of languages, in a manner
strictly analogous to that in which they have determined
the ever-increasing refinement and complexity of social
organization. Now, in the latter case we saw that
such direct evidence of evolution from lower to higher
levels of culture, renders it well-nigh certain that the
method must have extended backwards beyond the
historical period ; and hence, that such direct evidence
of evolution uniformly pervading the historical period,
in itself furnishes a strong prima facie presumption that
this period was itself reached by means of a similarly
gradual development of human faculty. And thus,
also, it is in the case of language. If philology is able
to prove the fact of evolution in all known languages as
far back as the primitive roots out of which they have
severally grown, the presumption becomes exceedingly
strong that these earliest and simplest elements, like
their later and more complex products, were the result
of a natural growth."

There is, of course, a parallelism between the course
of human speech and human intellectual conditions
generally, because the former is the explicit expression
of the latter. But since, as Mr. Ilomanes most truly
says, we have no evidence (beyond inferential evidence)
as to the actual origin of man or of speech, it by no
means follows either that they arose by evolution, or
that their earliest condition was inferior to that of which
we have the earliest indication. We have as much
evidence of decay and retrogression as of progression,

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 2t,i

and even Mr. Herbert Spencer considers that all existing
savages are degraded beings. It is hardly less im-
probable that primitive man was like one of the more
degraded existing savages, than that he was what we
should call highly civilized.

We are convinced we have certain evidence that
man differs from every brute by a difference of kind,
and if his nature is essentially different, his origin must
also have been different, and there is an a priori
probability that the difference as to the mode of his
origin must run parallel with the difference of his nature.
It may be that the earliest men in whose minds
spontaneously arose the intellectual conceptions evolved
by the aspects of nature, had clearer intuitions as to
the real nature of things, and of the relations between
them, than had later men, whose minds had become
burthened with a multitude of conflicting impressions
and opinions. That such is the case seems probable
when we compare the clear, simple, yet profound con-
ceptions of the Greek intellect, as exemplified by
Aristotle, with the relatively obscure, involved, yet un-
satisfactory philosophic speculations of our own day.

Mr. Romanes describes,* in an interesting manner,
the Isolating, Polysynthetic, Agglutinative, Inflectional,
and Analytic forms of language, and puts before us
views as to their relative antiquity and inter-relations.
He adopts Dr. Hales's suggestion t that new languages
may have independently arisen from children who
were isolated having accidentally lost their parents, and
he supports his view by the assertion that languages
* p. 250. t p. 260.

232 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

are most numerous in those most favoured regions —
California and Brazil — where life might be most easily
maintained by children thus circumstanced. We note
this view without adopting it, but without any wish
to contend against it. The facts * that " neglected
children in some of the Canadian and Indian villages,
and in South Africa, who are left alone for days, can
and do invent for themselves a sort of lingua franca,
partially or wholly unintelligible to all except them-
selves," and that " deaf-mutes have an instinctive power
to develop for themselves a language of signs " (as we
have before seen), well accords with the fact that man
has ever an innate faculty for the external expression
of internal conceptions.

In his thirteenth chaper, on roots of language, he
quotes the one hundred and twenty-one given by Prof
Max Muller from Sanskrit. As to these he says,t
*' Scarcely any of them present us with evidence of
reflective thought, as distinguished from the naming
of objects of sense-perception." But they are, as he
allows,^ " concepts," always expressive of abstract or
general ideas.

In a note§ he justly stigmatizes as "absurd"
Prof Max Mliller's doctrine that "the formation of
thought is the first and natural purpose of language,
while its communication is accidental only." He very
properly adds, " Such a * purpose ' would imply
'thought' as already formed." This may be quoted
against Mr. Romanes himself, where he represents !| that

* p. 263. t p. 273- X P- 269.

§ p. 274. II p. 83.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 233

thought or reason is as much, or more, due to speech
as speech to it.

Mr. Romanes remarks, after Prof. Max M tiller,
that the list of Sanskrit roots is composed exclusively
of verbs. This is just what we should expect. For
that of which all men are most immediately, constantly,
and unreflectingly conscious, is their own activity or
passivity.* We do not refer to feelings related to such
states, but to direct, intellectual cognizance of them.
This we think a noteworthy fact, however far these
Sanskrit roots may be from being really primitive.
Whatever may be their true date, they are, at any rate,
the oldest we can, as yet, get at in language, and it is
fair in the first instance to presume that the sort of
words which are primitive in one or two languages are
the sort of words which are primitive in all languages.

Mr. Romanes says,t " Words which were expressive
of actions, would have stood a better chance of surviving
as roots . . . because . . . more frequently employed,
and because many of them must have lent themselves
more readily to metaphorical extension — especially under
a system of animistic thought!^ " Metaphorical exten-
sion " ! But what is metaphor^ and what sort of being
must have first employed it ?

Had not the intellect the power of apprehending
through sense, and expressing by sensible signs, what
is beyond sense, metaphor would not exist. Neither
would it exist if thought arose from language and
followed it, instead of the opposite. It is precisely
because speech is too narrow for thought, that words
* See " On Truth," pp. 16-27. t p. 275.

23\ THE ORIGIN OF HI/MAN REASON.

are far too few to convey the ideas of the mind, that
metaphor exists. It is interesting also to note that
figurative, metaphorical language is natural and espe-
cially abundant amongst various uncultured tribes.
We may conceive of primitive man, as it were, bursting
with mental conceptions for which he had not adequate
expression; he would have been spontaneously impelled
into metaphor to a much greater extent and more
universally than are the most metaphorical races of
our own day.

Nothing could well be more unwise than to take the
plainest and most material meanings of primitive words
as being necessarily their only meanings. Figure, or
metaphor, has been occasioned by poverty and ste-
rility of visible or audible signs, but their cause is the
wealth and fruitfulness of thought. Many primitive
terms had thus, no doubt, double meanings from the
first, and the mental and moral applications of hard,
sharp, low, and high, were probably double accordingly.
To this question, however, we shall return.*

As to ** animistic thought," Mr. Romanes quotes,t in
a note, as follows : " ' It must be borne in mind that
primitive man did not distinguish between phenomena
and volitions, but included everything under the head
of actions, not only the involuntary actions of human
beings, such as breathing, but also the movements of
inanimate things, the rising and setting of the sun, the
wind, the flowing of water, and even such purely in-
animate phenomena as fire, electricity, etc. ; in short,
all the changing attributes of things were conceived as
* See below, pp. 271-273. f p. 275.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 235

voluntary actions' (Sweet, Words, Logic, and Gram-
mar)y

But this implies no defect of intelligence on the part
of primitive man, who probably was far wiser in this
matter than are many moderns. In ultimate analysis,
all the phenomena of nature are to be recognized as
really voluntary, being the result either of Divine voli-
tion or the permitted free-will of creatures. That the
modes of expressing such a clear early intuition were
defective, so as to have led to misinterpretation, is likely
enough. To fancy, however, that primitive man, in
attributing " volition " to fire, must have had a merely
absurd meaning, such as ours would be were we to
attribute volition to fire, may well be a mistaken fancy,
seeing later differentiations of thought and expression
had not yet taken place. In another note Mr. Romanes
further says,* "There is an immense body of purely
philological evidence to show that verbs are really
a much later product of linguistic growth than either
nouns or pronouns." But he, following Archdeacon
Farrar, represents it as being " the correct view, that
at first * roots ' stood for any and every part of speech,
just as the monosyllabic expressions of children do."
But if this was the case, such roots did practically
include verbs. A very young child is conscious in
acting and when being acted on, but predicates by mono-
syllables.

Concerning Prof. Max Miiller's view that speech
from its earliest origin must have been expressive of
general ideas or concepts, Mr. Romanes remarks,t
* p. 275. t p. 276.

236 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

" Now, of course, if any vestige of real evidence could
be adduced to show that this ' must have been ' the case,
most of the foregoing chapters of the present work would
not have been written. For the whole object of these
chapters has been to show, that on psychological grounds
it is abundantly intelligible how the conceptual stage of
ideation may have been gradually evolved from the
receptual — the power of forming general, or truly con-
ceptual ideas, from the power of forming particular and
generic ideas. But if it could be shown — or even
rendered in any degree presumable — that this distinctly
human power of forming truly general ideas arose de
novo with the first birth of articulate speech,* assuredly
my whole analysis would be destroyed : the human
mind would be shown to present a quality different in
origin — and, therefore, in kind — from all the lower orders
of intelligence : the law of continuity would be inter-
rupted at the terminal phase : an impassable gulf would
be fixed between the brute and the man."

This is most true, but of course Mr. Romanes regards
it as being so much evidence on his side.

He tries to weaken Prof Max Muller's position by
affirming t that the 121 Sanskrit roots are not "the
aboriginal elements of language as first spoken by
man." But there is not the least need for us to
suppose they were. He is, however, unwarranted in
making the assertion: "The 121 concepts themselves
yield overwhelming evidence of belonging to a time

* We do not say this. What we affirm is that with the origin
of the intellectual faculty, external expression by sound or gesture,
or both, arose also.

t P- 277-

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 237

immeasurably remote from that of any speechless pro-
genitor of homo sapiens ; and in the enormous interval
(whatever it may have been) many successive generations
of words must certainly have flourished and died." Why
so ? we may ask. The assertion that such time must
have been " immeasurably remote " is a purely gratuitous
assertion ; as also is the affirmation that many genera-
tions of words " must certainly have flourished and died."
Supposing that speechless men did exist before speaking
ones, there is nothing to show they might not have
performed all the actions referred to in the list, and if
articulate speech began afterwards, then the 121 roots
might have easily been evolved in the " immeasurable "
period of (we should say) some twelve months at the
most !

He incidentally mentions * that Archdeacon Farrar
' " has observed that the whole conversational vocabulary
of certain English labourers does not exceed a hundred
words," and adds, " Probably further observation would
have shown that the great majority of these were em-
ployed without conceptual significance. Therefore, if
these labourers had had to coin their own words, it is
probable that, without exception, their language would
have been destitute of any terms betokening more than
a pre-conceptual order of ideation. Nevertheless, these
men must have been capable, in however undeveloped
a degree, of truly conceptual ideation : and this proves
how unsafe it would be to argue from the absence of
distinctively conceptual terms to the poverty of con-
ceptual faculty among any people whose root-words

* p. 280.

238 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

may have come down to us." This is most true. But
to show what even an uneducated Sussex labourer (a
mere cowherd) may be capable of, I will give the results
of my questioning one, to elicit latent philosophical
convictions of his, bearing on Idealism :

Myself. Lacey ! You often hear Sir Spencer Wilson's
clock strike ?

Lacey. Bless you, sir, very often.

M. What do you think that sound is — something in
the bell, something in the air, or something in your
head ?

L. Why, something in the bell, sir, of course ; but
the air has got something to do with it too, I think.

M. But when the clapper hits the bell it sets the
bell shaking, that sets the air next it shaking, and so on
to your ear, where it sets a very thin bit of skin shaking,
and so you hear the sound.

L. Yes, sir.

M. Is there anything, then, in the bell altogether the
same as your feeling of sound ?

L. Of course not, sir. Can't be.

M. And yet you say the sound is in the bell ?

L. Yes, sir.

M. Suppose every man and animal were dead, and
the wind set the bell shaking, with no one to hear it ;
would there be any sound }

L. I can't answer that directly, sir ; that wants
thinking about.

M. What was in the bell when it struck before
would be in the bell when it struck now, wouldn't it ?

L. Of course it would, sir.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 239

M. You say, then, that the sound is in the bell, yet
nothing is there altogether the same as your feeling of
sound?

L. That's what I say, sir.

M. You must mean, then, that the cause of the
sound is in the bell, and that that cause is like, but not
altogether the same as, your feeling of sound ?

L, Yes, sir, that's just it ; but the air has something
to do with it too.

It seems to us that this rustic would be recognized by
Aristotle as perfectly right in his philosophy of sound,
and we consider that he is far ahead of Berkeley, Kant, or
any other Idealist,* who has learnt s'egarer avec mHhode,

As to the use of onomatopoeia, Mr. Romanes very
reasonably says that such words may easily become so
disguised as to lose all trace of their mode of origin.

Noting facts as to a grandchild of the late Mr.
Darwin, he tells us,! " The child, who was just begin-
ning to speak, called a duck 'quack,' and by special
association it also called water ' quack.' " It next ex-
tended the term to birds, insects, and fluids, and ulti-
mately to coins, because it had seen an eagle on a
French sou. These latter applications would truly show
no trace of onomatopoeia, but another remark is also to be
noted. If this word " quack " was found amongst roots,
how its real meaning would probably be underestimated !

The different onomatopoetic words which are used
in different languages to denote the same thing, show

* As to Idealism, see "On Truth," Section II., and as to Sound
and Idealism, see the same, pp. 114-118.
t p. 283.

240 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

clearly, as Archdeacon Farrar says,* "words are not mere
imitations, but subjective echoes and reproductions."

M. Noird's theory as to the origin of speech, so
favoured by Prof. Max Miiller, is designated f by Mr.
Romanes the " ' Yeo-he-ho ' theory ; " but he is ready to
accept it as one form of onomatopoeia. Yet he by no
means assigns the origin of speech to any or all forms
of onomatopoeia. " If even," he says,J " civilized children
. . . will coin a language of their own in which the element
of onomatopoeia is barely traceable ; and if uneducated
deaf-mutes will spontaneously devise articulate sounds
which are necessarily destitute of any imitative origin,"
why, he asks, should primitive man be supposed to have
been only capable of mimicry .? Why, indeed !

As to children of our own day, he truly says,§ " Even
after the child has begun to learn the use of actual
words, arbitrary additions are frequently made to its
vocabulary which defy any explanation at the hands of
onomatopoeia — not only in cases where they are left to
themselves, but even where they are in the closest
contact with language as spoken by their elders." ||
When not controlled by their elders, children left much
together may develop a newly-devised language, " un-
intelligible to all but its inventors."

He declares that, in any case, words were originally
due \.o psychogenesis^ which we not only allow but assert.

In his next two chapters Mr. Romanes occupies

* p. 286. t p. 290. X p. 291. § p. 292.

II He refers to his foot-note on his page 144.

^ This term was, we believe, originally introduced by ourselves.
See " On Truth," pp. 440, 509, 510, 521 ; also "The Cat" (John
Murray), p. 526.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 241

himself with what he calls "The Witness of Philology." *
Premising that his opponents place the psychological
distinction between man and brute in the faculty of
judgment possessed only by the former, he adds,*]- "I have
shown that, by universal consentX this faculty is identical
with predication." With good reason we may object
to this statement, since he has actually quoted § from
us, amongst his categories of language, " Sounds which
are rational but not articulate, ejaculations by which we
sometimes express assent to or dissent from given pro-
positions ; " also " Gestures which answer to rational
conceptions, and are therefore 'external' but not oral
manifestations of the verbum mentale."

He also says || that he has been meeting his
" opponents on their own assumptions, and one of these
assumptions has been that language must always have
existed as we now know it — at least to the extent of
comprising words which admit of being built up into
propositions to express the semiotic intention of the
speaker." But certainly we have never made any
assumption of the kind.

" As a matter of fact," our author dogmatically in-
forms us, " language did not begin with any of our
later-day distinctions between nouns, verbs, adjectives,
prepositions, and the rest : it began as the undifferenti-
ated protoplasm of speech, out of which all these ' parts
of speech' had afterwards to be developed by a pro-
longed course of gradual evolution."

* Chapters xiv. and xv. f p. 294.

I The italics are ours.

§ p. 86. See also " On Truth," p. 235. || p. 295.

R

242 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

He quotes Schelling as saying, " Die Sprache ist
nicht stiickweis oder atomistisch ; sie ist gleich in alien
ihren Theilen als Ganzes und demnach organisch ents-
tanden," adding, " This highly general and most im-
portant fact is usually stated as it was, I believe, first
stated by the anthropologist Waitz, namely, that 'the
unit of language is not the word, but the sentence ; '
and, therefore, that historically the sentence preceded
the word. Or, otherwise and less ambiguously ex-
pressed, every word was originally itself a proposition,
in the sense that of and by itself it conveyed a
statement."

Now, here, in the first place, we would remark that
on Mr. Romanes's Nominalist principles, if a thought
is nothing but a word, and if the earliest and " simplest
element of language " is a statement or judgment, then
obviously the simplest element of thought must be a
judgment. It is surely, then, somewhat unreasonable to
reproach us with having been guilty of gross and "un-
pardonable" negligence, for asserting what Mr. Romanes
himself not only asserts, but so places it at the root
and foundation of his whole system, that to remove it
necessarily brings down his own unstable intellectual
edifice in utter ruin !

Our position is as follows : —

(i) Thought is the root of and primary to language,
oral or other.

(2) Language is the external expression of the
verbum mentale,

(3) The simplest element of thought is an implicit
judgment.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 243

(4) The simplest element of language must, there-
fore, also be the external expression of an implicit
judgment, i.e. a term.

Thus, that in primitive speech every word should be
an implicit judgment, is most natural, and what might
be expected. But much more follows from these pre-
misses.

If Mr. Romanes's assertion could be proved true, it
would but make yet more glaring the distinction be-
tween the intellect of man and the highest psychical
power possessed by any brute. All language and all
ratiocination are but consequences of the peculiarity of
our nature, which consists of an intellect coexisting
with a material organism in one essential unity. It is
the less perfect, material side of our dual being which
alone necessitates either language or ratiocination. An
intelligence of a higher order than ours, capable of
energizing without an organism — which, as we expe-
rience it, is thus an impediment — could dispense with
both signs and ratiocinations, and would see latent and
implicit truths at once. Therefore, the less of either
may be needed for the perception of truth or for the
making it known, by so much the more is a higher
intellectual condition approximated to. Thus it is that
specially gifted intellects can attain, at a glance, truths,
to reach which less gifted natures need a long course of
demonstration. Thus, also, it is that some exceptionally
endowed minds can, with a few pregnant words, bring
to the minds of others perceptions which could be con-
veyed by inferior natures only by long and laboured
discourses. Therefore the minimum of language and

244- THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

of reasoning which can possibly coexist with the due ex-
pression of thoughts and inferences is the best. There-
fore, again, since the quickest and easiest signs are
articulate ones, in an ideal language, every sentence
should be capable of expression by a monosyllabic
word, and every inference by the utterance of three
monosyllables.

It is not at all true, or a matter of course that " the
more that a single word thus assumed the functions now
discharged by several words when built into a proposi-
tion, the more generalized — that is to say, the less
defined — must have been its meaning." Such may or
may not have been the case, according to circumstances.
Mr. Romanes cites * various childish expressions to
support his view ; but, in the first place, primitive man
was not a child nor in the position of a child, and a very
young child does not adequately pourtray the mental
condition of an adult human ancestor, any more than
its body shows us what any adult human ancestor's
body was actually like. In the second place, supposing
a child does use the words, " Ta, ta," or " Ba-ba," or
" Bye-bye," in more senses than one, we may ask, why
should it not? It can do so quite as rationally as
when, being adult, it uses the one word ''box" in
several senses.

Much that Mr. Romanes here urges might be ques-
tioned ; but for our purpose it is quite unnecessary so to
do. We have thus no objection, for argument's sake, to
concede that f " the earliest indications of grammar are
given by the simultaneous use of sentence- words and
* p. 296, t P- 297.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 245

gesture-signs," or " that predication is but the adult
form " of the sign-making of many a speechless child.

It is also quite true, as Mr. Romanes quotes * Prof.
Max Miiller as saying, that "F«, weave, whether as a
reminder or as a command, would have as much right to
be called a sentence as when we say ' Work,' Le.^ ' Let
us work.' ... A mastef requiring his slaves to labour,
and promising them their food in the evening, would
have no more to say than * Dig — Feed,' and this would
be quite as intelligible as ' Dig, and you shall have
food,' or, as we now say, * If you dig, you shall have
food.' "

It may also be quite true, as the Professor is further
quoted f as saying, that " if we watch the language of a
child, which is really Chinese spoken in English, we see
that there is a form of thought, and of language, per-
fectly rational and intelligible to those who have studied
it, in which, nevertheless, the distinction between noun
and verb, nay, between subject and predicate, is not yet
realized."

Mr. Romanes tells us | (and we have no objection)
"that one of the earliest parts of speech to become
differentiated " were pronouns " originally indistinguish-
able from " adverbs, and " concerned with denoting
relations of place. . . . 'Hie, iste, ilk, are notoriously a
sort of correlatives to ego, tu, sui. . . .' There is very
good reason to conclude that these . . . were in the
first instance . . . articulate translations of gesture-
signs—/.^., of a pointing to place-relations. / being
equivalent to this one, he or she or it to that one, etc."
* p. 299. t p. 300. X Ibid.

246 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

He affirms, and quotes others who agree with him
in deeming, that man originally spoke of himself in the
third person, Sayce telling us that "the Malay ulun,
*I,' is still *a man' in Lampong, and the Kawi ugwang,
* I,' cannot be separated from nwang, ' a man.' " But
it would not be of the slightest consequence to our
argument if we Englishmen, here and now, never spoke
of ourselves but as " this man," or " this one here." By
such expressions we should mean " I " not a bit the
less, and, as Mr. Romanes has truly said, the only
really important thing in the question is what a man
means.

If, again, what Prof. Max Miiller is represented *
as saying about the Aryans is true, it does not matter
to us. Prof Max Miiller says, " It was one of the
characteristic features of Sanskrit, and the other Aryan
languages, that they tried to distinguish the various
applications of a root by means of what I have called
demonstrative roots or elements. If they wished to
distinguish the mat as the product of their handiwork,
from the handiwork itself, they would say, ' Platting —
there ; ' if they wished to encourage the work they
would say, ' Platting — they, or you, or we.' We found
that what we call demonstrative roots or elements must
be considered as remnants of the earliest and almost
pantomimic phase of language."

This may be very true, and we have no objection ;

but, to show how uncertain it all really is, we have but

to quote the next paragraph of Mr. Romanes. He

there says : f "It is the opinion of some philologists,

* p. 302. t Ibid.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 247

however, that these demonstrative elements were prob-
ably ' once full or predicative words,' " and he quotes
Prof. Sayce as saying, " It is difficult to conceive
how a word could ever have gained a footing if it did
not from the first present some independent predicative
meaning." To this Mr. Romanes again replies that we
should "remember the sounds which are arbitrarily
invented by young children and uneducated deaf-mutes,
not to mention the inarticulate clicks of the Bushmen."
But why are we to suppose that such clicks and arbi-
trarily invented sounds never had any "independent
predicative meaning"? Certainly the arbitrarily in-
vented sounds of many children and deaf-mutes must
indisputably have such meaning.

Prof Sayce is quoted* as saying that "an in-
flectional language does not permit us to watch the
word-making process so clearly as do those savage
jargons, in which a couple of sounds, like the Grebo
ni ne, signify ' I do it,' or ' You do not,' according to
the context and the gestures of the speaker. Here
by degrees, with the growth of consciousness and the
analysis of thought, the external gesture is replaced
by some " uttered sounds. Now, if the Professor means
by "the growth of consciousness," its evolution from
a state of mind devoid of consciousness, he errs greatly.
For the sounds ni ne could never be uttered with
meaning by any unconscious being. We take it he
only means the greater diversity of direction of con-
sciousness, and we are supported in this belief by his
expression — "and the analysis of thought." But, how-

* p. 303.

248 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

ever this may be, the quotation affords an admirable
example of the cheap and easy way in which the in-
tellectual processes of different races of mankind are
disposed of as may happen to suit the purpose of the
disposers. The utterer of ni ne is just as rational
essentially as Prof. Sayce or the present writer.
We have in our own language precisely similar phe-
nomena. The expression, " My work," may signify
either " I do it," or " You do not^' according to the
context and the gestures or tones of the speaker. A
man may say, " My work,'' pointing to the product with
a look showing lively satisfaction at being able to boast
himself as the performer of so remarkable a feat. He
may say, " My work " while pointing to his own body,
with a look showing strong disapprobation at the idea
of another person pretending to have been the doer of it.

We have no desire to affirm the existence of any
original distinction between adjectives and substantives
as regards words, though we are quite sure it existed
as to meanings as it does to-day in a multitude of
instances — such, e.g., as "cannon-ball" and "pocket-
book," in which a word is not only, as Mr. Romanes
says,* an adjective "in virtue of" "position," but in
virtue of the intention of the utterer of it. As Prof.
Max Miiller very truly observes, f adjectives are out-
wardly like substantives, but " are conceived as different
from substantives the moment they are used in a
sentence for the purpose of predicating or of qualifying
a substantive."

Such terms % as "digging-he " to express a labourer,
* P- 305- t p. 306. X See p. 307.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 249

or " digging-it " to denote a spade, or " digging-here "
for labour itself, answer fully to express really intellec-
tual conceptions.

We have now to advert to, and animadvert upon,
the censures expressed by Mr. Romanes on his psycho-
logical opponents, concerning their statements with
reference to the "idea of being." Our author says,*
" Seeing that my psychological opponents have laid so
much stress upon the substantive verb as this is used
by the Romance languages in formal predication, I will
here devote a paragraph to its special consideration
from a philological point of view. It will be remem-
bered that I have already pointed out the fallacy which
these opponents have followed in confounding the sub-
stantive verb, as thus used, with the copula — it being
a mere accident of the Romance languages that the
two are phonetically identified." It will also be re-
membered that we have already replied f to this, but
we may again remark that in the word " is," used as a
copula, existence (real or ideal) is implicitly contained.
Mr. Romanes goes on, "Nevertheless, even after this
fallacy has been pointed out to them, my opponents
may seek to take refuge in the substantive verb itself :
forced to acknowledge that it has nothing especially
to do with predication, they may still endeavour to
represent that, elsewhere, or in itself, it represents a
high order of conceptual thought. This, of course, I
allow ; and if, as my opponents assume, the substantive
verb belonged to early, not to say primitive modes
of speech, I should further allow that it raises a formid-
* p. 308. + See above, p. 179.

250 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

able difficulty in the otherwise even path of evolu-
tionary explanation. But, as a matter of fact, these
writers are no less mistaken about the primitive nature
of the substantive verb itself, than they are upon the
function which it accidentally discharges in copulation."

He then refers to the following assertion of ours—
before quoted * by Mr. Romanes : " If a brute could
think ' is,' brute and man would be brothers. * Is/ as
the copula of a judgment, implies the mental separation,
and recombination of two terms that only exist united
in nature, and can therefore never have impressed the
sense except as one thing. And 'is,' considered as a
substantive verb, as in the example, ' This man is,'
contains in itself the application of the copula of judg-
ment to the most elementary of all abstractions —
* thing,' or ' something.' Yet if a being has the power
of thinking—* thing,' or * something,' it has the power of
transcending space and time by dividing or decomposing
the phenomenally one. Here is the point where instinct
ends and reason begins."

To this statement of ours f we most thoroughly
adhere, and are unable to find that Mr. Romanes can
bring one valid argument against it. But he seems
to think that people who have no distinct vocables
answering to our words " exists," or " existence," cannot
have the conceptions thereto answering. His whole
contention rests on this, and on the absurd notion that
a child who only speaks of himself as " Charley," is not
a self-conscious being. Nevertheless we shall see that,

* p. 167.

t Originally made in " Lessons from Nature," pp. 226, 227.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES, 251

only four pages further on,* he declares unequivocally
that existence can be signified and made plain by
expressions which nevertheless do not denote it by a
separate term.

Then he goes on,t "In order to prove that the
substantive verb is really very far from primitive, I will
furnish a few extracts from the writings of philological
authorities upon the subject." He then tells us that the
Hebrew word Kama means primitively "to stand out,"
and that the verb Koum, "to stand," passes into the
sense of " being." But what more could we require ?
Does Mr. Romanes think we suppose that primitive
man started a word to denote abstract existence without
any other meaning accompanying it } We are far
indeed from entertaining such a notion. Again, the
Sanskrit ^^--w/ (the foundation of all the Indo-European
words denoting " to be ") is declared to be " but a forma-
tion on the demonstrative pronoun sa^ the idea meant
to be conveyed being simply that of local presence."
But what then? How does the use of the term to
denote " local presence " deprive it of the power of
denoting "existence"? Is "existence" inconsistent
with " local presence " ? In order that a thing may be
present anywhere, is it absolutely needful that it should
not exist at all f

" May we not then," says Mr. Romanes, " ask
with Bunsen, ' What is to be in all languages but the
spiritualization of walking or standing or eating? ' " To
this we reply, Certainly you may so ask, and a rational
man will probably give some such answer as the follow-

* p. 312. t P- 309-

252 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

ing one : " What are we to understand by your use of
the term ^spiritualization ' ? Is it a hocus pocus, by
which you would slip in an intellectual signification
into what is merely sensuous?" We think it better to
use a less equivocal term. We say, first, that actual
real material "walking, standing, and eating" neces-
sarily imply existence in whatever walks, stands, or eats.
Secondly, we say that the ideas of "walking, standing, and
eating " necessarily carry with them the idea of existence
as therein implicitly contained. Thirdly, we say that
" to be " in all languages is much more than an implicit
signification contained in " walking, standing, or eating ; "
for it is contained really in every other real action
and object, and ideally and implicitly in every other
ideal action or object, as in the three actions which
Bunsen selected. If it be rejoined, what was meant was
simply that in most or all languages which have not the
substantive verb itself, its place is supplied by an
extension or specialization of meaning applied to the
three terms given, we further reply that we are very
happy it should be so. We have not the philological
knowledge requisite to affirm or deny the assertion,
which is an interesting one from a philological point of
view, but has no special interest for us, being utterly
beside the question under consideration.

Mr. Romanes then quotes from Mr. Garnett (" On
the Nature and Analysis of the Verb "), very much to
our satisfaction, as that writer quite expresses our own
view. The only important matter, as Mr. Romanes has
said,* is what a man means, and if he means to predi-

* p. 164.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 253

cate existence, and succeeds in doing what he wants,
that is all that he or we could require. Mr. Garnett
tells us * that the Coptic is defective as regards the
substantive verb, but he significantly adds that the
Egyptians " had at least half a dozen methods of
rendering the Greek verb-substantive when they wished
to do so. ... If a given subject be 'I,' 'thou,' 'he,'
'this,' 'that,' 'one;' if it be 'here,' 'there,' 'yonder,'
' thus,' ' in,' ' on,' ' at,' ' by ; ' if it be ' sits,' ' stands,'
' remains,' or ' appears,' we need no ghost to tell us that
it isr

Mr. Romanes next depicts what he regards as the
gradual impoverishment of language as we go backwards
in time through progressive simplifications, as to all
which, though we do not profess agreement, we have,
for our purpose, no occasion whatever to contest his
assertions. " In view of these facts," he tells us,t "it is
impossible to withhold assent from the now universal
doctrine of philologists — ' language diminishes the farther
we look back, in such a way that we cannot forbear con-
cluding it must once have had no existence at all' "
This " universal doctrine " is a quotation from Geiger,
whose ignorant prejudice is apparent to every qualified
observer. But we fully allow there was a time when
no rational language existed, and it was a time which
existed before man's appearance on the surface of this
planet. With the advent of man, the advent of language
simultaneously occurred.

Mr. Romanes, in his effort to show the evolution
of language (which evolution he deems, so mistakenly,
* p. 310. t p. 314.

254 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

to be fatal to his opponents), calls in the aid of other
writers, and, amongst them, he once more quotes from
Mr, Sweet * as to Primitive Man not having used
the copula, but only placed words in apposition. Thus,
he tells us, " the verb gradually came to assume the
purely formal function of predication." He continues,
" The use of verbs denoting action necessitated the
formation of verbs to denote * rest,' ' continuance in
state,' and when, in course of time, it became neces-
sary in certain cases to predicate permanent as well
as changing attributes, these words were naturally
employed for the purpose, and such a sentence as
* The sun continues bright ' was simply * The bright
sun ' in another form." But this is what we meant by
saying the simplest element of thought is a judgment.
The concept " bright sun " is implicitly the judgment
" the sun is bright." But what is meant by the expres-
sion, " when it became necessary " f Necessary : why, and
for whom t There could be no necessity save for man,
" the meaner," when he felt a need to give expression to
his " meaning." But to feel the necessity of expressing
his meaning, he must first have it. Therefore it is
manifest that the thought must have preceded the ex-
pression. It was not and could not have been formed
by a word ; but it existed, and so formed the word.
The same writer goes on to say that not only the order
but " the very idea of the distinction between subject and
predicate is purely linguistic, and has no foundation in
the mind itself In the first place, there is no necessity
for a subject at all : in such a sentence as * It rains '

* P- 315-

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 255

there is no subject whatever, the it and the terminal s
being merely formal signs of predication." This is a
great mistake : not only in " it rains," but also in the mere
concept " rain," subject, predicate, and copula may truly
and implicitly exist. What is meant by the word " rain,"
and still more by "it rains," uttered in the sense meant,
is really this : (i) The conception of the falling of rain ;
(2) the conception of time present ; and (3) the concep-
tion of the existence of the falling action during present
time. " Falling rain is present now " is the full explicit
statement of the implicit predication contained in the
words "rain" and "it rains." He goes on, "'It rains :
therefore I will take my umbrella,' is a perfectly
legitimate train of reasoning, but it would puzzle the
cleverest logician to reduce it to any of his figures."
But this is not true. It is most easily so reduced as
follows : —

A time of falling rain is the time to take an umbrella.
The present time is a time of falling rain ; therefore the
present time is the time to take an umbrella.

But of course we do not, for we have no need to,
consciously go through any such explicit process, on
account of the lightning-like rapidity of thought.

He continues,* "Again, the mental proposition is
not formed by thinking first of the subject, then of the
copula, and then of the predicate; it is formed by think-
ing of the three simultaneously." Of course it is : they
are evolved simultaneously into explicit recognition from
their implicit coexistence in a concept. Again, he says,
"When we formulate in our minds the proposition, *AU

* p. 316.

256 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

men are bipeds/ we have two ideas, * all men ' and * an
equal number of bipeds/ or, more tersely, * as many-
men, as many bipeds,' and we think of the two ideas
simultaneously {i.e., in apposition), not one after the other,
as we are forced to express them in speech." But who
supposes that our thoughts are bound to follow the order
which may be necessary for expression ? Only a
Nominalist would be guilty of such an absurdity.
Besides this, the statement is doubly erroneous : it errs
both by excess and defect. We have no need of the
conception of equality of numbers, or of any numerical
relation at all, in thinking " all men are bipeds." On
the other hand, the ideas of coexistence and identity
are absolutely essential. In the form which Mr.
Romanes gives, however, these ideas of coexistence and
identity have no place. The words " as many men, as
many bipeds " are quite insufficient to express the
notion " all men are bipeds." " As many X, as many
Y " might mean things existing in succession, or coexist-
ing, but distinct in kind. Thus, in speaking of trains of
railway carriages, we may say, "As many foremost
vehicles, so many hindmost vehicles," or we may say,
of sheep in a flock, "As many sheeps' heads, as many
sheeps' tails." But in saying, " All men are bipeds," we
mean that the men actually are identical with the bipeds
supposed, and that they all were, are, and will be bipeds,
twofootedness and humanity being recognized as coexist-
ing. Therefore the idea of " existence " forms a neces-
sary part of the notion, and, however its expression may
be suppressed, must be present in the conception if it is
not to be meaningless. Therefore the author cited is

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 257

utterly wrong in saying, " When we formulate in our
minds the proposition, ' All men are bipeds,' we have two
ideas." We have three ideas: (i) men; (2) twofooted-
ness ; and (3) identity of existence.

Mr. Romanes next observes * that " we are not left
to mere inference touching the aboriginal state of
matters with regard to predication. For in many
languages still existing we find the forms of predica-
tion in such low phases of development, that they bring
us within easy distance of the time when there can have
been no such form at all."

As an example, he tells us f that " in Dayak, if it is
desired to say, * Thy father is old,' * Thy father looks old,'
etc., in the absence of verbs it is needful to frame the
predication by mere apposition, thus : — * Father-of-thee,
age-of-him.' Or, to be more accurate, ... * His age,
thy father.' Similarly, if it is required to make such
a statement as that * He is wearing a white jacket,' the
form of the statement would be, ' He-with-white with-
jacket,' or, as we might perhaps more tersely translate it,
' He jackety whitey.' " But how does this in the least
tell against the presence of distinct intellectual meaning
in the utterance of such phrases ? They may strike
the imagination of the unthinking, but, in sober truth,
the assertion, " He jackety whitey," is essentially as
good as the assertion, "That man's upper outmost
vesture has the hue of snow."

Again, he tells us, J "In Feejee language the func-
tions of a verb may be discharged by a noun in
construction with an oblique pronominal suffix, e.g.,

* p. 316. t p. 317. X p. 318.

s

258 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

loma-qu = heart or will-of-me, = / wilir But why should
" will-of-me " be considered incapable of plainly making
known a voluntary assent ? In our English tongue an
emphatic assent may be given by an expression appa-
rently much less close to the idea of volition. An
English youth asking another whether he is willing to
take part in some project would be sufficiently assured
of the assent of the latter if he replied, " I believe you."
We do not doubt that the parts of speech of Euro-
pean grammarians are, "as far as external form is
concerned," inapplicable to the Polynesian languages.
But the fact, however interesting, is not of the slightest
importance to our contention. "I will eat the rice,"
may require to be rendered, " The-eating-of-me-the-
rice = My eating will be of the rice." Such expressions
are as reasonable and logical as need be.

Recurring to his opponents' challenge * to " produce
the brute which * can furnish the blank form of a judg-
ment'— the 'is' in A is B," he observes,! "Now, I
cannot, indeed, produce a brute that is able to supply
such a form ; but I have done what is very much more
to the purpose — I have produced many nations of still
existing men, in multitudes that cannot be numbered,
who are as incapable as any brute of supplying the
blank form that is required. Where is the ' is,' in * Age-
of-him Father-of-thee ' = * His-age-thy-father ' = * Thy-
father-is-old ' ? Or, in still more primitive stages of
human utterance, how shall we extract the blank form
of predication from a * sentence-word,' where there is
not only an absence of any copula, but also an absence
* See "Lessons from Nature," pp. 226, 227. f p. 312.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 259

of any differentiation between the subject and the
predicate ? " To this we can reply in the lately cited
words,* " If a given subject be ' here,' * there,' " etc.,
" we need no ghost to tell us that it is!' Here Mr.
Romanes's whole contention shows the absurdity of
Nominalism. " Is " the concept, is there plainly enough,
though " is " the " spoke word " be absent.

He continues,! " Of course all this futile argument
on the part of my opponents, rests upon the analysis of
the proposition as this was given by Aristotle." To this
we reply, it does not rest one bit on any such analysis,
but on the perception of the thought underlying pro-
positions, whether expressed in Greek, Dayak, Chinese,
or Polynesian phraseology.

This answer Mr. Romanes anticipates as a possi-
bility, X saying, that in order to meet it, he must refer to
points which he considers were established by him in
previous chapters, and which we have already, we think,
sufficiently refuted.

He then refers to propositions made by children,
anteriorly to what he deems the advent of self-con-
sciousness, "prior to the very condition which is required
for any process of conceptual thoughts But, as we have
shown, consciousness is plainly present long before the
period which Mr. Romanes arbitrarily assigns for its
advent. Again, he says § that such propositions are
" due to merely sensuous associations and the external
logic of events " — a thing we utterly deny. " Will any
opponent venture to affirm," he asks, " that preconcep-
tual ideation is indicative of judgment ? " We reply, of

* From p. 312. t P- 320. t P- 321. § p. 323-

26o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

course it is, and we affirm that this is manifestly an
utterly different thing from confounding recepts and
concepts.

Again, he asks, will we affirm that " even in the
earlier and hitherto undifferentiated sentence-word we
have that faculty of predication on which is founded
the distinction between man and brute"? and we reply
most certainly we do. He next declares.* that if we
answer as we have just answered, " the following brief
considerations will be sufficient to dislodge " us. " If,"
he says, " the term * predication ' is extended from a
conceptual proposition to a sentence-word, it thereby
becomes deprived of that distinctive meaning upon
which alone [as he supposes] the whole argument of my
opponents is reared. For, when used by a young child
(or primitive man;, sentence-words require to be supple-
mented by gesture-signs in order to particularize their
meaning, or to complete the ' predication.' But, where
such is the case, there is no longer any psychological
distinction between speaking and pointing: if this is
called predication, then the predicative 'category of
language ' has become identified with the indicative :
man and brute are conceded to be ' brothers.' "

This is an entire mistake. The use or need of gesture
does not make language a bit less truly conceptual and
abstract. There is no psychological distinction between
speaking and pointing, or we could have no expression
of abstract ideas by pantomime as in ballets. Mr.
Romanes, as an example in point, tells us f of an infant
of his still unable to articulate a word, but who, having

* P- 324. t p. 324.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 261

knocked his head, ran to his father. On being asked
where he was hurt, "he immediately touched the part
of his head in question." " Now, will it be said," he asks,
" that in doing this the child was predicating the seat
of injury? " We reply, most unquestionably it was. The
predication was of a rudimentary kind ; but our
knowledge of the nature of children from their growth
and development, makes us perfectly clear that it really
was a predication. Then, says Mr. Romanes, there is
no essential difference between men and brutes, for " the
gesture-signs which are so abundantly employed by the
lower animals would then also require to be regarded as
predicatory, seeing that . . . they differ in no respect
from those of the speechless infant." This assertion we
hold to be untenable, for our knowledge of the growth and
development of animals makes it clear that apparently
significant movements * made by them (as when a cat
has a bone fixed between its back teeth) are not really
a predication. No gestures of brutes need be taken as
being assertions about facts, since they are all otherwise
explicable. Could they, once more, make gestures due
to a real, conscious memory and intention similar to that
of Mr. Romanes's child, they would soon make us quite
certain of their power in this respect. If they could do
it at all they would do it repeatedly and whenever they
had need to make their meaning known to other
conscious intelligences. Thus Mr. Romanes's opponents,
in allowing the quality of predication not only to
sentence-words, but to mere manual signs also, in no
way thereby impair the full force of the essential
• See " On Truth," p. 355.

262 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

distinction they assert. They can thus maintain as
firmly as ever that intellectual language is " the Rubicon
of Mind." Between the mere language of feeling and
the sensuous cognition of brutes, on the one hand, and
intellectual language and perception on the other, there
remains an essential distinction of kind — that is, of
origin. Whether we look to the psychogenesis of the
individual or to that of the race, we alike see the full
force of the distinction, and recognize, in harmony there-
with, the entire absence of any evidence of transition
from the emotional sign-making power of the brute to
the faculty of conceptual expression possessed by man.

Mr. Romanes passes next * (in Chapter XV.) to a
consideration of what he calls " the passage of receptual
denotation into conceptual denomination, as this is
shown to have occurred in the prehistoric evolution of
the race." He means by this, the origin of words
expressing concepts. He every now and again makes
use of assertions which much too strongly affirm as true
that of which he has got to prove the truth. Thus he
speaks t of " what is undoubtedly the earliest phase of
articulate sign-making," as if he had witnessed primitive
man at work, and this though (to show how uncertain
even less disputable matters may be) he has himself
told us { that while some authorities consider polysyn-
thesis to be a survival of what was once the universal
form of languages, yet, " on the other hand, it is with
equal certainity affirmed that * polysynthesis ' is not a
primitive feature, but an expansion of agglutination."
Again, speaking § of the child's '' ultimate germ of

* p 326. t p. 327- X P- 255- § p. 327-

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 263

articulate sign-making," he tells us that in it this phase
" does not appear to be either so marked, or important,
or, comparatively speaking, of such prolonged duration
as it was [!] in the development of speech in the race."
Yet he is really sustained by nothing but an a priori
prejudice as to what he thus dogmatically says " wasT
His feeling is based on the notion that the ontogeny
of the individual in zoology is a guide to the phylogeny
of the race which it represents in a much shortened form.
This zoological fact, however, if certainly a fact, is not
at all a constant one. Often, e.g., in the metamorphoses
of some insects, special adaptations are interposed, and
often, e.g., in spiders, the process is an exceedingly direct
one. We cannot, therefore, be sure that the development
of the child is a contraction of that of the race. Mr.
Romanes contends with much reason that infants who
do not seem to use distinct parts of speech nevertheless
mean them, and in their own way do virtually use them.
He takes as instances * the before-cited childish ex-
pressions, "Ot" = "This milk is hot;" " Dow " = "My
plaything is down ; " " Dit ki " = " Sister is crying ; "
"Dit dow ga" = " Sister is down on the grass." He
says, " In all these cases it is evident that the child is
displaying a true perception of the different functions
which severally belong to the different parts of speech "
Of course Mr. Romanes means a practical perception,
i.e. that the child consciously, but without reflex con-
sciousness, tries to express meanings, the perfect ex-
pression of which would require parts of speech, and so
instinctively and meaningly uses its imperfect terms as

* p. 328.

264 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

it does. Of course the child has no reflex perception of
any function of any kind.

Our author continues,* " So far as psychological
analysis alone could carry us, there would be nothing to
show that the forcing of one part of speech into the
office of another, which so frequently occurs at this age,
is due to anything more than the exigencies of expression t
where as yet there are scarcely any words for the con-
veyance of meaning of any kind. . . . What may be
termed this grammatical abuse of words becomes an
absolute necessity where the vocabulary is small, as we
well know when trying to express ourselves in a foreign
language with which we are but slightly acquainted.
And, of course, the smaller the vocabulary, the greater
is such necessity ; so that it is greatest of all when an
infant is only just emerging from its infancy." He adds,
"■ It is on account of the uncertainty which here obtains
as between necessity and incapacity, that I reserved my
consideration of * sentence-words ' for the independent
light which has been thrown upon them by the science
of comparative philology."

The difference which he affirms between the infant
of to-day and primitive man, as to the duration and
importance of the use of terms not yet differentiated into
parts of speech, he tries to explain as follows : % " An
infant of to-day is born into the medium of already-
spoken language ; and long before it is itself able to
imitate the words which it hears, it is well able to
understand a large number of them. Consequently,

* pp. 328, 329. t The italics are ours.

% PP- 329-331.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 265

while still literally an infant, the use of grammatical
forms is being constantly borne in upon its mind ; and,
therefore, it is not at all surprising that, when it first
begins to use articulate signs, it should already be
in possession of some amount of knowledge of their
distinctive meanings as names of objects, qualities,
actions, states, or relations. Indeed, it is only as such
that the infant has acquired its knowledge of these
signs at all ; and hence, if there is any wonder in the
matter, it is that the first-speaking child should exhibit
so much vagueness as it does in the matter of gram-
matical distinction.

" But how vastly different must have been the case
of primitive man ! The infant, as a child of to-day,
finds a grammar already made to its use, and one which
it is bound to learn with the first learning of denotative
names. But the infant, as an adult in primeval time,
was under the necessity of slowly elaborating his
grammar together with his denotative names ; and
this, as we have previously seen, he only could do by
the aid of gesture and grimace. Therefore, while the
acquisition of names and forms of speech by infantile
man must have been thus in chief part dependent on
gesture and grimace, the acquisition by the infantile
child is now not only independent of gesture and
grimace, but actively inimical to both. The already-
constructed grammar of speech is the evolutionary
substitute of gesture, from which it originally arose ;
and, hence, so soon as a child of to-day begins to
speak, gesture-signs begin at once to be starved out
by grammatical forms. But in the history of the race

266 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

gesture-signs were the nursing-mothers of grammatical
forms ; and the more that their progeny grew, the
greater must have been the variety of functions which
the parents were called upon to perform. In other
words, during the infancy of our race the growth of
articulate language must not only have depended, but
also reacted upon that of gesture-signs — increasing their
number, their intricacy, and their refinement, up to
the time when grammatical forms were sufficiently
far evolved to admit of the gesture-signs becoming
gradually dispensed with. Then, of course, Saturn-like,
gesticulation was devoured by its own offspring ; * the
relations between signs appealing to the eye and to the
ear became gradually reversed ; and, as is now the case
with every growing child, the language of formal utter-
ance sapped the life of its more informal progenitor."

We have thought it better to cite this passage
entire, that Mr. Romanes's position and argument may
be thoroughly well understood by our readers.

Now, we will put entirely on one side, for argument's
sake, any notion of man having been created at once in
the plenitude of his intellect, and bodily and mental
activity. We will assume him to have had an origin,
different indeed in kind from that of any other animal,
but yet not such as to have placed him in a better posi-
tion than the lowest we could assign to a mature rational
being at all. Under such circumstances, need we
assign to the earliest form of language the conditions
which Mr. Romanes assign to it }

* It had hitherto been our impression that Saturn devoured his
children himself, not that he was devoured by them.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 267

Clearly we need not. Primitive man must have felt,
as Mr. Romanes says * the child did, " the exigencies of
expression;' and if so, expressed himself as best he
could, by combinations of bodily, facial, and oral move-
ments. If he meant to express anything, that, as Mr.
Romanes has allowed,t was the one thing necessary. A
sign made up of an inarticulate sound accompany-
ing motions of the hands and body and facial contor-
tions, may be as truly the expression of conceptions
{essentially intellectual language) as would be the utter-
ance of a group of articulate sounds. No doubt such
primitive men would have had difficulties to contend
with which our children have not ; but how does such
a circumstance even tend to show that their intel-
lectual nature was diffisrent from that of our own senior
wranglers and cabinet ministers }

Mr. Romanes next addresses himself to the con-
sideration of " sentence-words," and he asks % the
strange question, " Can anything in the shape of spoken
language be more primitive than the very first words
which are spoken by a child, or even by a parrot ? "
He considers that sentence-words are more primitive
still, because even a parrot may learn to use words by
association, while primitive man could not have learned
them thus, but must have invented them. But what a
curious confusion is here ! Because one man makes a
machine, his action may be called less perfect and
more primitive than the act of another man who uses it
after it is made ; but the intelligence of the man who
acts in the latter case need be very small compared with
* p, 329. t p. 164. % p. 331.

268 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

that of the first inventor of the machine. How infinitely
less the intelligence of a brute who may happen to use
a machine of the kind ! Is the intelligence of a squirrel
or white mouse which turns in its wheel-cage greater
than that either of the child who purposely gets the
wheel-cage to put its pet in, or that of the man who
made the cage ? Mr. Romanes must somehow see this,
for he says,* *' In order that he should assign names,
primitive man must first have had occasion to make his
preconceptual statements about the objects, qualities,
etc., the names of which afterwards grew out of these
statements, or sentence-words." That is to say, he
must have been an essentially intellectual person.

Mr. Romanes next considers | the value of these
supposed earlier sentence-words. After stating his
hypothesis about the genesis of such early words with
the help of gesture — the sound having no meaning apart
from the gesture — he says, " From these now well-
established facts, [!] we may gain some additional light
on . . . the extent to which primitive words were
' abstract ' or ' concrete,' ' particular ' or ' general,' and
therefore, 'receptual' or * conceptual.' " Here he cen-
sures Prof Max Miiller for proclaiming the truth that
language proceeded from the abstract to the concrete,
or, as Mr. Romanes phrases it,J that human thought
** sprang into being Minerva-like, already equipped with
the divine inheritance of conceptual wisdom."

He blames § the Professor for adopting, as he says,
" the assumption that there can be no order of words
which do not, by the mere fact of their existence,

* p. 332. t p. 334. X p. 335- § p. 336.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 269

imply concepts." He tells us that the Professor " does
not sufficiently recognize that there may be a power of
bestowing names as signs, without the power of think-
ing these signs as names." Mr. Romanes thus implies
that a name cannot denote a concept unless he who
employs it adverts to the fact of its being a name.
But a name signifies a concept, without any advertence
on the part of the utterer of it to its conceptual nature,
or to the fact that it is a name ; nor is it less con-
ceptual in essence because the utterer of it is at the
time of his utterance and for some time afterwards
unable from circumstances to advert to and recognize
the fact that it is a name. Mr. Romanes gives,* as his
case in point, the instance of a child of his who "on
first beginning to speak had a generalized idea of simi-
larity between all kinds of brightly shining objects, and
therefore called them all by the one denotative name
of ' star.' The astronomer has a general idea answering
to his denominative name of ' star ; ' but this has been
arrived at after a prolonged course of mental evolution,
wherein conceptual analysis has been engaged in con-
ceptual classification in many and various directions :
it therefore represents the psychological antithesis of
the generalized idea, which was due to the merely
sensuous associations of preconceptual thought. Ideas,
then, as general and generic severally occupy the
very antipodes of Mind." This is really nonsense.
The child's term *' star," was in its way as good and
true a " universal " as the term " star " of the greatest
astronomer who ever lived or shall live. But the

* P- 336-

270 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

two terms, though identical in sound and appearance,
denote two very different concepts or universals — as
truly as the term " trumpeter " respectively stands for
the two very distinct concepts — a man and a pigeon.

**No one," he says,* "will maintain that the sentence-
words of young children exhibit the highest elaborations
of conceptual thought, on the ground that they present
the highest degree of ' generality,' which it is possible
for articulate sounds to express." Indeed ! we reply.
We ourselves will maintain it, and stoutly, too, if Mr.
Romanes considers the word " thing," as used by young
children, to be a " sentence-word." Naturally he denies
to early man what he thus denies to the child. Just as
naturally we affirm that primitive man in a sentence-
word, even if thought out only by the aid of gesture,
may, nay, must have, attained to concepts of the very
highest generality, though, of course, neither the child,
the ancient man, nor the modern peasant, recognizes its
nature and generality by a reflex mental act We alto-
gether, then, deny the distinction which Mr. Romanes
seeks to establish between generic and general ideas,
other than the distinction (which is profound indeed)
between (i) general ideas and (2) psychical states which
are no ideas at all, but the mere unconscious, consen-
tient energies named by us " Sensuous Universals."

The next point urged by Mr. Romanes is the re-
semblance which he affirms to exist between the syntax
of gesture-language, that of baby-talk, and what he
therefore assumes to have been the mode of speech of
primitive man. This we do not in the least care to

* p. 338.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 271

contest. It shows how perfectly logical gesture-language
may be, and therefore, we may infer, always was as
soon as it existed at all.

He then endeavours to show that language was at
first essentially sensuous (what he calls receptual), and
not intellectual. Here we must distinguish : As we
have said again and again, being rational animals, we
must use bodily signs to denote our thoughts, and
require to have- our conceptions first aroused by the
incidence of sense-impressions in groups and groups of
groups. Every highest conception of ours depends on
the recognition of preceding acts of conception, and
these on the imagination of the sense- impressions which
called them forth. Thus there is, and must be, a
sensuous element accompanying every concept.* But
this sensuous element is not the concept itself, since
it exists beside, or rather, underlies the concept. Our
earliest perceptions, though, of course, truly conceptual,
contain concepts of a lowly order, called forth by
sense cognitions. Nevertheless, the very highest uni-
versal, even that of " being," are latent in every one
of them. Now, Mr. Romanes, believing as he does
that the lower concepts are but sense cognitions with
names to them, naturally declares \ that the evolu-
tionist would clearly "expect to find more or less
well-marked traces, in the fundamental constitution of
all languages, of what has been called ' fundamental
metaphor ' — by which is meant an intellectual extension
of terms that originally were of no more than sensuous
signification. And this," he adds, " is precisely what we
* See " On Truth," p. 88. f P- 343-

272 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

do find." But "what we do find" is exactly what our
combined intellectual and corporeal nature would lead
us to expect, and is absolutely fatal to the doctrine of
the common nature of man and brute. As we have
before said, * the very existence of " metaphor " is proof
positive of the intellectual nature and activity of the
human mind. Had not the intellect the power of
apprehending through sense, and expressing by sensible
signs, things which are beyond sense, metaphor could
not exist. Neither could it exist if thought arose from
language and followed it, instead of the opposite.

It is precisely because speech is too narrow for
thought, and because words are too few to convey the
ideas of the mind, that metaphor exists. It is interest-
ing to note that figurative, metaphorical language is
natural to, and especially abundant amongst, various
uncultured tribes. Mr. Romanes says,t "The whole
history of language, down to our own day, is full of
examples of the reduction of physical terms and
phrases to the expression of non-physical conceptions
and relations." We say, not the " reduction',' but the
^^ elevation''' of such terms; and how could such eleva-
tions take place if " names " preceded " thoughts " }

With truth does Mr. Romanes say that metaphor is
universal, and he quotes Carlyle as making the just
remark, "An unmetaphorical style you shall seek in
vain, for is not your very attention a stretching to ? "
The sensuous element in language does not show that
the earliest ideas were themselves sensuous, but rather
the wonderful spontaneity of the human intellect,
* See above, p. 233. . t PP. 343, 344-

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 273

whence, by the help of the '' beggarly elements " sup-
plied by the senses, the loftiest concepts spring forth,
Minerva-like, armed with the sharp spear of intellectual
perception and swathed in the ample mantle of signs,
woven of the warp of matter and the woof of thought.

It is this power of metaphor-making which most
plainly displays to us the intellect actually at work,
evolving ever new external expressions for freshly
arising internal perceptions. Metaphor belongs to man
alone. It is the especial privilege and sign of his
nature. Not the highest brute — no elephant, no chim-
panzee— could ever evolve a metaphor.

That a higher meaning must be latent in terms
which Mr. Romanes would regard as exclusively sen-
suous, is made especially evident by ethical propositions.
He tells us that such propositions are made up of terms
no one of which is itself ethical. We would ask him
then : What do you understand by an ethical proposi-
tion itself when fully evolved } Do you deny that you
can understand by it any ethical conception at all .? If
so, you deny that there is any distinction between right
and wrong, and if you deny that you have any such
perception now, no wonder you deny that early man
had any perception of the kind. If, on the other hand,
you affirm that you can understand such a fully evolved
ethical proposition, whence did its meaning come ? It
must have been put into it by some irrational agency or
by man himself If the former, then we have a positive
deification of unreason. If the latter, then clearly man
must be different in nature and essence from any and
every brute whatever.

T

274 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

Mr. Romanes concludes this chapter by some ob-
servations concerning the real or supposed deficiency
of language-structure amongst savages. In a note he
tries to meet * the assertions of such writers as " Du
Ponceau, Charlevoix, James, Appleyard, Threlkeld, Cald-
well, etc., who have sought to represent that the lan-
guages of even the lowest savages are 'highly systematic
and truly philosophical,' " as follows : He tells us that
their opinion " rests on a radically false estimate of the
criteria of system and philosophy in a language. For
the criteria chosen are exuberance of synonyms, intri-
cacies or complications of forms, etc., which are really
works of a low development."

Hov/ever this may be, such languages are lofty indeed
compared with any signs which are made by even the
highest animals. The tales we read about the mental
defects of savages are hardly, if at all, more trustworthy
than anecdotes about the psychical powers of animals.
Love of the marvellous, credulity, exaggeration, and,
above all, hasty and inconclusive inferences, abound
in both — as Mr. Tylor has shown us again and again.

Mr. Romanes tells us, f as one example, that " the
Society Islanders have separate words for dog's-tail,
bird's-tail, sheep's-tail, etc., but no word for tail itself —
i.e.y tail in general." This is no great loss. We have
one, and ours is wrong and hopelessly misleading. J To
use the same term, as we do, for what we call the
" tails " of a peacock, a monkey, and a lobster, is to be

* p. 349- t p. 350-

:j: See our lecture on "Tails," reported in Nature of Sept. 25
and Oct. 2, 1879.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 275

in far worse plight than a Society Islander thus seems
to be. As to the Tasmanians, he tells us,* on the
authority of a vocabulary, that they had no word for
tree, hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, and round.
We do not believe the vocabulary, and regard its repre-
sentation as being as absurd and incredible one way as
the tales about the rational cockatoo and the pious bees
on the other. Does Mr. Romanes really mean that no
one Tasmanian could make another understand that
anything was hot or cold, or that a weapon was too short
or too long t We are persuaded he does not mean
this ; but if he does not, then he does not really mean
to deny that Tasmanians could explain themselves " by
equivalent expressions " as to such matters.

Dr. Latham is quoted as telling us, " that a Kurd
of the Zara tribe, who presented Dr. Sandwith with a
list of native words, was not * able to conceive a hand
or father except so far as they were related to himself
or something else.'" Now, it is very likely that we
have here some misunderstanding on the part either of
Dr. Latham, Dr. Sandwith, or the Kurd. It is simply
incredible that the Kurd could not think of a hand
(or a father), not his^ nor that of Dr. Sandwith, nor that
of so7ne other given man. It is, however, very likely
that the Kurd understood his questioner as asking hirn
whether he could conceive of a father or a hand not
related to him or any one else } The natural and
proper reply to that would be that he could not, nor
could either Dr. Latham, Dr. Sandwith, or Mr. Romanes,
unless it was a merely ideal hand or father. As to any

* p. 352.

276 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

further questions about savages, we are content to refer
our readers to what we have elsewhere * written on the
subject.

Mr. Romanes seems to imagine f that a Tasmanian,
having had no word for " tree," could only have been
surprised at seeing a tree " standing inverted with
its roots in the air and its branches in the ground,
in just the same way a dog is surprised when it first
sees a man walking on his hands : the dog," he tells
us, "will bark at such an object because it conflicts
with the generic image which has been automatically
formed by numberless perceptions of individual men
walking on their feet But, in the absence of any
name for trees in general, there is nothing to show
that the savage has a concept answering to ' tree,'
any more than that the dog has a concept answering
to * man.' " This is, indeed, a surprising assertion, since
Mr. Romanes allows that even the Tasmanians must
have had many concepts since they had true language ;
but to no dog would he concede the possession of any
concept at all. Surely, then, a being whose mind was
stored with many concepts, must be allowed to have
been affected by a sight of an inverted tree,, in a very
different way from that in which a dog is affected by
the sight of an inverted man !

One of the most wonderful sentences in Mr.
Romanes's book, however, is that which comes next.
He says, % " Indeed, unless my opponents vacate the
basis of Nominalism [!] on which their opposition is
founded, they must acknowledge that in the absence of

* See " On Truth," chap. xix. f P- 353- X Ibid,

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 277

any name for tree there can be no conception of tree."
But his opponents, as he ought to know, are most
ardent opponents of Nominalism, which they regard as
a most unreasonable philosophy.

Finally, we must traverse the conclusions with
which Mr. Romanes ends this chapter, because, as
we have more than once observed, the need of adding
bodily and facial expression to voice, in no way
destroys the conceptual character of language, while
*' sentence-words " are so far from being non-concep-
tual that, as we have said, an ideally perfect language
would consist of nothing but monosyllabic sentence-
words. Neither can we regard names, due to onoma-
topoeia, as less truly conceptual than any of the
terms which Mr. Romanes has freshly coined for this
work, nor need metaphorical expressions, derived from
such onomatopoetic terms, be less truly conceptual
than metaphoric expression derived from other sources.
We have also pointed out how the placing two terms
in apposition, as in saying A B, may truly constitute
an essential predication, and involve the presence of
self-conscious intellect, as truly as saying A is B.

Mr. Romanes asks,* " Will it be maintained that the
man-like being who was then [i.e., before spoken lan-
guage was used] unable to communicate with his fellows
by means of any words at all was gifted with self-con-
sciousness .? " To which we reply, supposing man did
primitively exist in such a condition (which we regard
as a mere groundless speculation), he certainly tuas
" gifted with self-consciousness."

* p. 356.

278 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

Mr. Romanes founds his hypothesis upon Geiger's
assertion that " language diminishes the farther we
look back in such a way, that we cannot forbear con-
cluding it must once have had no existence at all." *
"Who will venture to doubt it?" Mr. Romanes asks.
We reply, we not only doubt it, but we deny it, and say
it is demonstrably absurd. All that we should be war-
ranted in concluding from such a fact, if it were a fact,
would be that language, at its origin, was in a very
undeveloped condition. Suppose a tribe of animals or
plants to have been found to have been smaller and
smaller in size, by a regular and unvarying degree
of diminution, as we proceeded downward through the
successive geological strata : who from that would
conclude that the earliest members of the group had
no dimensions at all? There was, we are quite sure, a
time when language was not, but that was the time
when man himself was not.

Mr. Romanes continues,! " Should so absurd a state-
ment be ventured [as that speechless man might be
self-conscious], it would be fatal to the argument of
my adversaries ; for the statement would imply, either
that concepts may exist without names, or that self-
consciousness may exist without concepts." But that
concepts may exist without names is the very essence
of our contention. The anecdote of his " talking bird,"
is next recurred to, as if there was any parity between
the so-called '' naming " of dogs by a parrot and the
"naming" of bright things "star" by a child. There

* "Development of the Human Race," Eng. Trans., p. 22.
t p. 356.

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 279

is no proof whatever that the bird "names." The bird
may, on seeing a dog, be thereby excited to emit the
sound the emission of which it had previously associ-
ated with the feelings aroused by the dog's presence.
Supposing the bird to have a consentient, unconscious
craving* for the sight of the dog, the automatic
emission of the sound would then be abundantly
accounted for by such past association. It would be
an unconscious employment of a means to an end
sensuously craved after. The subsequent history, or
outcome, in the case of the child, gives us reason to
suppose that it really named at first, because it indu-
bitably " names " afterwards. In the case of the parrot
this kind of evidence tells the other way.

Reversing, then, Mr. Romanes's concluding observa-
tions, t we say : brief and imperfect as our criticism of
Mr. Romanes's position has been, we are honestly
unable to see how the testimony of consciousness and
observation combined could have been more uniform,
multifarious, consistent, complete, and overwhelming,
than we have found it to be. In every single case
the witness of philology has agreed with the teaching
of psychology. The faculty of language being a power
living in us, directly and circumstantially narrates to us
the necessary conditions of its own origin and evolution.
It has told us that even if we suppose there was once
a time when men were altogether speechless, and able
to communicate with one another only by means of
gesticulation and grimace, that yet bodily and facial
expression were the expressions of conceptual thought.

* See " On Truth," pp. 200, 350. t pp. 357, 359-

28o THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

Nor if sentence-words could not be understood without
the accompaniment of gesture, did such gesture in the
least deprive them of their intellectual, conceptual
nature. Assuming, for argument's sake, that the gram-
matical structure of spoken-language was originally
the offspring of gesture-signs, its intellectual character
is in no way thereby destroyed. Nor was early man,
any more than the child of to-day, a bit less truly
self-conscious, if he spoke of himself exclusively
in what we call the third person. We find in all
languages (other than emotional), whether of word or
of gesture, just that sensuous accompaniment which
reason and observation combine to show us must be
present in every external expression of the meanings
of an intellectual animal like man, because it must be
present beside his internal thought, since we can never
think without phantasmata. On the one hand, every
act of our intellect needs a sensuous accompaniment,
which must have preceded it ; while, on the other hand,
every perception of, and through our senses, contains
what is altogether beyond sense. If, then, it is true in
this sense to say, " Nihil in intellectu quod non prius
fuerit in sensul' it is no less true to say, " Nihil in
intellectu quod unquam fuerit in sensu." So also if in
one sense we say, with Garnett, " Nihil in oratione quod
non prius in sensu!' we must none the less also say in
another sense, " Nihil in oratione quod prius in sensu!'

The impossibility of the evolution of intellect from
speech having been recognized through the recognition
of what "thought" really is, we see how only "the
flippant and the ignorant " can deem such agencies as

REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 281

those allowed by Mr. Romanes, adequate "to produce
such a result." It is true, as Herder says, that no
abstract term in any tongue has been attained to
without the aid of sensation and of tone, but the
abstraction itself no more consists of the mere aids to
its production, than the new-born child is identical with
the accoucheur or the obstetric forceps which may
have brought it into the world. To our mind it is
simply inconceivable that any stronger proof of the
utter impossibility of mental evolution could be fur-
nished, than is furnished by the one great fact of the
structure, the warp and woof, of the thousand dialects
of every pattern which are now spread over the surface
of the globe. We cannot speak to each other in any
tongue without declaring the presence of an intellectual,
conceptual element in every vocal term. Such elements
are the most essential part of every utterance of speech
now, and must therefore have coexisted with the sensuous
elements at the origin of speech. We cannot so much
as discuss the "origin of human faculty" itself, without
announcing in the very medium of our discussion how
necessarily distinct that origin has been. It is to
Language that Mr. Romanes, following his opponents,
has resolved to appeal : by Language he is hopelessly
condemned.

282 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

CHAPTER VII.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN.

The next section of the subject — to the consideration of
which Mr. Romanes addresses himself * in his sixteenth
chapter — is what he regards as having been the most
probable course of man's actual physical evolution from
some non-human animal — a process he calls, " The
transition in the race."

Almost at the beginning of the chapter he observes,
with much justice, "Any remarks which I have to
offer upon this subject must needs be of a wholly
speculative or unverifiable character. ... I will devote
the present chapter to a consideration of three alter-
native— and equally hypothetical — histories of the
transition. But, from what I have just said, I hope it
will be understood that I attach no argumentative
importance to any of these hypotheses."

Such being the case, we might almost dispense
ourselves from the task of following him over ground
which is thus avowedly not solid enough to really serve
the purpose of a happy hunting-ground, or to sustain
Mr. Romanes in any struggle with an opponent. We
think, nevertheless, that our readers might have some

* p. 360.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN 283

just cause to feel disappointed if we passed by this
sixteenth chapter entirely in silence. Therefore we will
very briefly refer to what appear to us to be the most
noteworthy portions of its contents.

Our author first notices the hypothesis of sundry
German philologists, to the effect that sounds (articulate
and other) had first been emitted " in the way of instinc-
tive cries, wholly destitute of any semiotic intention,"
which cries, " by repeated association," acquired, " as it
were automatically, a semiotic value." Now, as we
pointed out in our introductory chapter, we are far from
contesting that there never could have been creatures
more man-like than any existing ape, which creatures
gave forth articulate, instinctive cries, having a practical,
but no intentional, significance. Such creatures, how-
ever, obviously were not men. Nevertheless, Mr.
Romanes himself very rationally rejects * this German
hypothesis as " ignoring the whole problem which stands
to be solved — namely, the genesis of those powers of
ideation which first put a soul of meaning into the
previously insignificant sounds." The hypothesis is, we
think, none the less distinctly worthy of note, as showing
the absurd lengths to which theorists in difficulties
will go.

Mr. Romanes, however, only rejects the theory
because it assumes that men began to speak without
having first acquired a sign-making faculty of gesture
sign-making. But the very same fundamental ignoratio
elenchi tells as much against him, as it does against the
hypothesis he thus criticizes. For his view really "ignores

* p. 362.

284 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

the genesis of those powers of ideation which first put
a soul of meaning into the" gesture signs, as much
as the hypothesis he objects to ignores the process of
putting meaning into vocal signs. Not, of course, that
Mr. Romanes thinks so. He fancies that he finds
*' even in the lower animals, the signmaking faculty in
no mean degree of development." But this we deny,
for the reasons before stated.* Animals, of course,
make instinctive movements, which are responded to by
their fellows, and so might the " Urmenschen " of these
German theorists ; but real signs such movements would
not be, unless they were meant to be signs^ and con-
sciously depicted something a knowledge of which they
were intended to convey.

The second hypothesis of the origin of language he
adverts to, is the well-known one of Mr. Darwin — the
spontaneous vocal imitation by a monkey of some other
animal's voice as a sign to denote its presence. In
this connection Mr. Romanes says,t speaking of the
chimpanzee " Sally " at the Zoological Gardens, " It does
not seem to me difficult to imagine that such an animal
should extend the vocal signs which it habitually
employs in the expression of its emotions and the
logic of its recepts, to an association with gesture-
signs, so as to constitute sentence-words indicative of
such simple and often- repeated ideas as the presence
of danger, discovery of food, etc." There is, of course,
not the least difficulty in imagining this ; but, as a
fact, the animal does not do it, though, if it did do so,
.such a fact would not constitute any difficulty for
* See above pp. 7, 65, 128. f p. 368.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN, 285

us, since we have already observed, here and else-
where,* and Mr. Romanes himself has declared, that
animals make practical signs of the kind, though not
articulate ones, and the presence of such mere practical
means to a practical end, gives no clue to the intro-
duction of a " soul of meaning " into them. Mr. Darwin
is quoted as asking, " May not some unusually wise ape-
like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey,
and thus told his fellow-monkeys the nature of the
expected danger ? " and Prof. Whitney as saying of some
hypothetical pithecoid men, "There is no difficulty in
supposing them to have possessed forms of speech, more
rudimentary and imperfect than ours." We say again,
of course not ; there is no difficulty in supposing
anything we want to suppose ; but no intensity or
reiteration of idle " suppositions " will afford a fragment
of evidence in support of what is so " supposed." It is
always the same kind of fallacy which besets these
speculators : sensitive phenomena are supposed to be
divided and subdivided till they are imagined to be
subdivided enough for the entrance of a grain of
conceptual power into them. Such a grain having once
been smuggled in unnoticed, there is then really no
difficulty in seeing how it may augment till it attains
the level of the intellect of a Scotus. But phenomena
are not really to be explained by merely being sub-
divided or even pulverized. Of course Mr. Romanes him-
self thus slips in intellect, without saying so, although
not with any personal disingenuousness, but with an
entirely innocent unconsciousness of what he is doing.
* See " On Truth," p. 352.

286 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON

His own (the third) hypothesis is substantially like
Darwin's, save that he imagines the spontaneous evolu-
tion not of significant sounds, but of significant gestures,
which subsequently serve to guide and develop sub-
sequently arising vocal sounds, articulate and in-
articulate.

*' Let us try to imagine," he says,* a community of
beings " considerably more intelligent than the existing
anthropoid apes, although still considerably below the
intellectual level of existing savages. It is certain [!]
that in such a community natural signs of voice,
gesture, and grimace, would be in vogue to a greater
or less extent. As their numbers increased . . . such
signs would [through natural selection] require to
become more and more conventional, or acquire more
and more the character of sentence-words." Here,
indeed, we have the intellect slipped in surreptitiously.
•' The first articulation," he subsequently tells us,t
" probably consisted in nothing further than a semiotic
breaking of vocal tones, in a manner resembling that
which still occurs in the so-called ' chattering ' of
monkeys. . . . The great difference would be that . . .
it must have partaken less of the nature of cries, and
more of the nature of names." " More ! " But things
are " names " or " not-names " ; there can be no " more "
or " less " in the matter. It is by such gross philo-
sophical mistakes and consequent verbal slovenliness
that we have " intellect " unwarrantably introduced
where it has no legitimate place.

A great deal is said about the " clicks " of Hot-

* p. 371. t p. 372.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN 287

tentots, which Prof. Sayce is quoted * as observing " still
survive to show us how the utterances of speechless
man could be made to embody and convey thought."
It could, of course, convey it fast enough if thought was
there to be conveyed ; but no " clicking " could ever
originate and introduce it. The Hottentot word for the
moon is said to be " clicks," followed by the monosyllable
'"'' Khdpy But why is this not as truly conceptual a
name for the moon as either Luna or SeXtJvtj ?

Mr. Romanes makes use of Time as a very potent
magician to effect the transformations his hypothesis
needs. Speaking of his hypothetical speechless-man,
he says, t " I believe this most interesting creature
probably lived for an inconceivably [!] long time before
his faculty of articulate sign-making had developed
sufficiently far to begin to starve out the more primitive
and more natural systems ; and I believe that even
after this starving-out process did begin, another incon-
ceivable [!] lapse of time must have been required for
such progress to have eventually transformed Homo
alalus into Homo sapiens!' Again, he tells us % that the
epoch during which sentence - words prevailed was
probably immense ; and, again, § " The probability cer-
tainly is that immense [!] intervals of time would have
been consumed in the passage through these various
grades of mental evolution ; " and yet again, li " It was
not until, after aeons of ages [!] had elapsed that any
pronouns arose as specially indicative of the first
person." In fact, however. Time could do absolutely

* p. 374- + P- 379- X P- 385-

§ p. 386. II p. Z^l'

288 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

fiothmg in bringing about any change of the kind ;
whereas, if intellect could be thus introduced at all, it
might have made its subsequent progress at a relatively
very rapid rate.

But we must let Mr. Romanes describe in his own
words the stages by which he is disposed to think the
progress of mental evolution from the brute to man
most probably took place. His words are * : —

" Starting from the highly intelligent and social
species of anthropoid ape, as pictured by Darwin, we
can imagine that this animal was accustomed to use its
vtice freely for the expression of its emotions, uttering
of danger-signals, and singing. Possibly enough, also,
it may have been sufficiently intelligent to use a few
imitative sounds in the arbitrary way that Mr. Darwin
suggests ; and certainly sooner or later the receptual
life of this social animal must have advanced far enough
to have become comparable with that of an infant at
about two years of age. That is to say, this animal,
although not yet having begun to use articulate signs,
must have advanced far enough in the conventional use
of natural signs (or signs with a natural origin in tone
and gesture, whether spontaneous only or intentionally
imitative), to have admitted of a tolerably free exchange
of receptual ideas, such as would be co,ncerned in animal
wants, and even, perhaps, in the simplest forms of
co-operative action. Next, I think it probable that the
advance of receptual intelligence which would have
been occasioned by this advance in sign-making, would
in turn have led to a further development of the latter —

* p. 377.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN. 289

the two thus acting and re-acting on one another, until
the language of tone and gesture became gradually
raised to the level of imperfect pantomime, as in children
before they begin to use words. At this stage, however,
or even before it, I think very probably vowel-sounds
must have been employed in tone-language, if not also
a few of the consonants. And I think this not only on
account of the analogy furnished by an infant already
alluded to, but also because in the case of a ' singing '
animal, intelligent enough to be constantly using its
voice for semiotic purposes, and therefore employing a
variety of more or less conventional tones, including
clicks, it seems almost necessary that some of the vowel
sounds — and possibly also some of the consonants —
should have been brought into use. But, be this as it
may, eventually the action and re-action of receptual
intelligence and conventional sign-making must have
ended in so far developing the former as to have
admitted of the breaking up (or articulation) of vocal
sounds, as the only direction in which any further
improvement of vocal sign-making was possible. I
think it not improbable that this important stage in the
development of speech was greatly assisted by the
already existing habit of articulating musical notes,
supposing our progenitors to have resembled the gibbons
or the chimpanzees in this respect. But long after this
first rude beginning of articulate speech, the language of
tone and gesture would have continued as much the
most important machinery of communication : the half-
human creature now before our imagination would
probably have struck us as a wonderful adept at making

U

290 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

significant sounds and movements, both as to number
and variety ; but in all probability we should scarcely
have been able to notice the already developing germ
of articulation. Nor do I believe that, if we were able to
strike in again upon the history tens of thousands of years
later, we should find that pantomime had been super-
seded by speech. On the contrary, I believe we should
find that, although considerable progress had been made
in the former, so that the object then before us might
appear deserving of being classed as Homo, we should
also feel that he must needs still be distinguished by the
addition alalusT

He then continues, * " Lastly, I believe that this
most interesting creature probably lived for a consider-
ably long time," etc., as just before quoted by us.

As to this passage, we have, of course, to protest
against the idea of the imaginary ape uttering any
" danger-signals," still more against its using " imitative
sounds in the arbitrary way that Mr. Darwin suggests,"
and instead of allowing that " it must have advanced,"
sooner or later, so as " to have become comparable with
an infant about two years of age," we affirm it could
never have done so, or attained to any " tolerably free
exchange [!] of receptual ideas " — which are not " ideas "
at all. What, also, can be more misleading or unreason-
able than to say, "Next, I think it probable that the
advance of receptual intelligence which would have
been occasioned by the advance in sign-making, would
in turn have led to a further development of the latter —
the two thus acting and reacting on one another " ? But

* P- 379-

REASON AND PRIM IT I VE MAN. 291

no irrational bodily movements could generate intellect,
nor could mere consentience cause " a further develop-
ment " of signs, since, as we have seen,* in order that a
sign should even exist, true intelligence -must be already-
present. We have here presented to us the interaction
of merely sensuous faculties under the misleading terms,
" receptual intelligence " and ^' signs," with an implied
supersensuous result. Thus is intellect again silently
" slipped in," and when once it has been so smuggled in
unnoticed, it is, of course, easy enough to explain any
subsequent progress by it. If once an ape in some
mysterious way became (like a child) potentially a
man, any one can see how human characteristics would
thereafter become manifest in it. Only thus can we
rationally say (as Mr. Romanes says) that the animal's
intelligence " must have advanced."

As to Noire's hypothesis, we think, with Mr.
Romanes,! that it can at best be considered but a
branch of the onomatopoetic theory ; but we think it
most improbable that it contains any measure of truth,
or that it was " one among many other ways in which,
during many ages, many communities of vociferous
though hitherto speechless men may have slowly evolved
the act of making articulate signs."

Mr. Romanes says that his hypothesis will probably
be objected to on the ground that it amounts to ^ petitio
principii — as, in fact, it does ; and this, we hope, has been
made sufficiently clear. He further observes : " The
question has been raised expressly and exclusively on
the faculty of conceptual speech, and it is conceded that
* See above; pp. 65, 122, 128. t p. 381.

292 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

of this faculty there can have been no earlier stage than
that of articulation." But, as we have pointed out again
and again, the question does not concern conceptual
speech, but mental conception ; and it has been also
expressly pointed out that mental conception by no
means depends on the power of articulation, but may
exist for a long time, or always, without it.

Mr. Romanes accuses his opponents of begging the
question if they assume " that prior to the appearance
of the earliest phase of articulation, it is impossible that
any hitherto speechless animal should have been erect
in attitude, intelligent enough to chip flints, or greatly
in advance of other animals in the matter of making
indicative [non-conceptual] gestures, and probably vocal
tones." But we assume nothing of the kind. It is
possible, as we said in our first chapter, that so-called
palaeolithic man may not have been human at all. We
have also no evidence as to the degree of development
to which mere instinct can attain without being able to
make one gesture indicative of the possession of a real
idea of any kind. Mr. Romanes cites * an account of
monkeys opening oysters with selected stones, which we
can well credit. Nor would the shaping of a stone by
an anthropoid ape greatly surprise us, any more than
the skilful treatment of trees by the beavers which fell
them.

As to Mr. Romanes's further observations concern-
ing the possible or probable growth and development
of articulation, as it is altogether beside our conten-
tion, nothing need now be added to what has already
* Note, p. 382.

REASON AND PRIMITIVE MAN. 293

been said. But we may as well, perhaps, once more note
the absurd importance attached to the use of the first
person in speech, as to which Mr. Romanes says,* " Now,
this point I consider one of prime importance. For," he
adds, " it furnishes us with direct evidence of the fact
that, long after mankind had begun to speak, and even
long after they had gained considerable proficiency in
the art of articulate language, the speakers still continued
to refer to themselves in that same kind of objective
phraseology as is employed by a child before the dawn
of self-consciousness. . . . The outward and visible sign
of this inward and spiritual grace is given in the sub-
jective use of pronominal words." All this we once
more utterly deny. A man, pointing to himself, may,
by that alone, as truly say " I " mentally, as if he uttered
that vocable in every known language which possesses
such a term.

"But if these things," he argues,! "admit of no
question in the case of an individual human mind —
if in the case of the growing child the rise of self-
consciousness is demonstrably the condition to that of
conceptual thought, — by what feat of logic can it be
possible to insinuate that in the growing psychology of
the race there may have been conceptual thought before
there was any true self-consciousness?" By what //logi-
cal feat, indeed, can such an absurdity as unconscious
conception be made to seem possible ? Mr. Romanes's
argument is valid but vain, because consciousness
exists in the child unable even to speak at all, and
therefore may well have existed in tribes of men (if such
* p. 388. t Ibid.

294 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

there are, or ever were) with no way of speaking of
themselves save in modes which correspond with our use
of the third person. We do not deny that what is vah'd
for the child is valid for the race, though the parallel
between *' the race " and " a child " is by no means
exact. Mr. Romanes, however, affirms the resemblance,
and since in the child the origin of self-consciousness is
not " marked by the change from objective to subjective
phraseology," neither need it be so in the race.

This penultimate chapter, though it is interesting as
a record of speculative imaginings, and as indicating
conspicuously the fallacies which traverse Mr. Romanes's
work from cover to cover, is in itself valueless, since (as
we have seen) its author, with commendable candour, has
declared * that he attaches " no argumentative import-
ance to any of these hypotheses."

The last chapter of Mr. Romanes's work, being
merely a summary and brief restatement of what has
gone before, does not, we think, need any detailed
criticism from us. Therein he speaks f of a great weight
of " authority " on his side. Did we so appeal, we, in
our turn, might boast that we have supporting us a con-
sensus of the deepest and acutest intellects which the
world has ever seen. But, as we said at the outset, we
rest our case on no " authority," but on reason only ;
and, with a simple appeal from Mr. Romanes, to that
reason which he has so inadequately appreciated, we
leave the arguments we have advanced to the calm and
unprejudiced judgment of our readers.

* p. 361. t p. 395-

( 295 )

CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

In the foregoing chapters we have set forth and esti-
mated, to the best of our ability, the arguments of what
may be deemed the crowning effort of that school which
would deduce all the faculties of the human intellect
from the powers of the lower animals. The author of
the book we have criticized is a man in many ways ex-
ceptionally gifted. Earnest, versatile, active, and indus-
trious, and able to devote as much time as he pleases
to the prosecution of what is evidently a labour of love,
we think it unlikely that he can be succeeded by any
one better qualified personally for the task he has under-
taken. When we further call to mind the fact that he
has had the advantage of intimacy with the late Mr.
Charles Darwin, and with the still surviving Mr. Herbert
Spencer, and that he also enjoys the friendship and
sympathy of most of the leading members of the party
of whose opinions he is the exponent, we deem it
extremely improbable that any one could come forth
from a more favourable environment than that from
which he issues, as a champion specially trained and
carefully armed, to do effective battle against the
asserters of the essential intellectuality of man.

296 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

For eighteen years we have looked in vain for a
Darwinian ready and wiUing to address himself seriously
to the arguments which seemed to us to demonstrate
the impossibility of the evolution of intellect from sense.
During the last half-dozen years or so we have, how-
ever, been more hopeful, for we thought we had some
reason to believe that Mr, Romanes was industriously
preparing himself to undertake that task. But what,
after all, is the result of this long preparation, these
arduous studies, the counsel and advice of prede-
cessors and contemporary sympathizers ? Do we
meet in this book, in spite of the pains and labour
which have been lavished upon it, with one really new
argument in defence of the cause it would sustain }

We must confess to no small feeling of disappoint-
ment at finding we had no real novelty, no freshly dis-
covered difficulty to contend with, but had mainly to
occupy ourselves with the explanation of misunderstand-
ings and the unravelling of curiously entangled concep-
tions. The real contention of the author is an old and
familiar one, and may be thus briefly put : " The infant
shows no intellectual nature, therefore it has none.
Savages are intellectually inferior to us in varying
degrees, therefore their ancestors had no intellect at all."
The argument in favour of these assertions really reposes
almost exclusively on a supposed a priori probability
derived from that view of evolution which Mr. Romanes
(following Mr. Darwin, Professor Haeckel, etc.) favours.
But the author, as we have seen, seeks to sustain
these two fundamental propositions by statements and
representations which we have successively combated

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 297

in the preceding pages. Such are (1) his representation
that a child which can talk, but which does not speak
of itself as " I," cannot be self-conscious ; (2) his state-
ment that concepts are but sense-perceptions named ;
(3) his representation of " percepts " as not being truly-
intellectual states at all ; (4) his failure to distinguish
between direct and reflex self-consciousness ; (5) his
serious relation of incredible tales about animals ; (6)
his confused representation of sign-making, wherein,
from neglect to define what is and should be meant
by " a sign," he is led to read into the so-called " sign-
making " actions of animals, meanings which need not
necessarily be attributed to them, and which other facts
show us ought not to be attributed to them ; and, lastly,
(7) his curious statements about his opponents, which
result from his inexplicable failure to comprehend their
standpoint. This failure is so utter that, as we have
seen, he actually takes for granted that his opponents
are " Nominalists " — a mistake which, when we first
met with it, seemed to us so impossible, that we
thought we must ourselves have misunderstood the
author we had undertaken to criticize.

Having most carefully considered every argument
put forward by Mr. Romanes, and tried our best to
weigh accurately every fact brought forward by him,
we must confess ourselves more than ever confident of
the truth of the judgment we have now so long main-
tained—the judgment that between the intellect of man
and the highest psychical power of any and every brute
there is an essential difference of kind, also involving,
of course, a difference of origin.

298 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

This position we believe to be at one and the same
time a dictate of the highest science and of the simplest
common sense. We know that our infants grow into
rational beings, but we have no reason to suppose that
they undergo, while under our care, a profound trans-
formation of nature. Common sense therefore concludes
that they are essentially " rational " from the first. On
the other hand, no race of men has anywhere been found
destitute of speech or incapable of plainly showing by
gestures that they have a meaning they desire to
convey, and that, by their gestures, they intentionally
seek to depict their ideas and to converse by signs. At
the same time, no race of animals has anywhere been
found possessed of speech or capable of plainly showing
by gesture that they have a meaning they desire to
convey, and that, by their gestures they intentionally seek
to depict their ideas and to converse by signs. Common
sense, therefore, concludes that man has, but that anima|s
have not, a nature capable of rational language, ex-
pressed orally or by gesture.

No facts brought forward by Mr. Romanes con-
tradict these dicta of common sense, nor what we
believe to be the dicta of the most developed science.
Nevertheless, there is a widely diffused prejudice
amongst both leaders and followers of physical science,
which indisposes them to assert the existence of such
a fundamental difference of nature. We are per-
suaded that this prejudice is largely due to a merely
imaginary cause. Many men feel strongly the difficulty
of imagining the first advent of man upon this planet,
or how either a new creature could have been suddenly

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 299

formed, or a new nature infused into one which already-
existed. Now, we should be the last to deny the
difficulty of " imagining " such things ; since we uncom-
promisingly assert that it is simply impossible to
imagine them. For who even pretends to have wit-
nessed the formation of a new creature, or the infusion
of a new nature ? While what we have never ex-
perienced, we can never imagine. But whenever we are
convinced we have really good reasons for accepting as
true the occurrence of something whereof we have had
no experience whatever, surely the rational thing to
do is, to say that we assent to its truth, while affirming
the impossibility of our imagining it.* The besetting
sin of our day — the sin which leads to the degradation
of art and science alike — is "sensationalism." This it
is that would reduce painting and sculpture to an
exclusive reproduction of what the mere eye sees,
neglecting what the refined and cultivated intellect
may apprehend. This it is, again, which has made
possible novels like those of Zola, or poems like
those of Richepin — not to refer to yet more nefarious
productions. In physical science, also, we again en-
counter this besetting tendency to exaggerate the
value of the sensuous imagination at the expense of
the intellect ; resulting in an avidity for mechanical
explanations, because those are the explanations most
welcome to our lower faculties, as we have already
pointed out.f

* As to Imagination and Conception, see " On Truth," pp.
Ill, 112.

t See above, p. 30.

300 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

If the reader of these concluding remarks will calmly
consider the dictates of his own reason, he will, we are
persuaded, clearly see there is no evidence for him that
a break cannot take place in nature of a kind and in a
mode he is unable to imagine : while he must admit
that, as regards the first introduction of life and
sensitivity,* such a breach of continuity must have taken
place. His reason will further tell him that he is
impotent to imagine the first introduction of either life
or sensitivity, or to picture to himself the mode in which
a creature that did not possess the faculty of feeling,
could have been endowed with that wonderful and
unprecedented power. With a mind informed and
strengthened by a free inquiry of this kind as to what
reason declares, let him ask himself whether he has
evidence that, in a world in which at least two breaches
of continuity have certainly occurred, and two novel
natures (the living and the sensitive), essentially
different in kind, have somehow come to be, — let him
ask himself whether, under these circumstances, a third
breach of continuity and the uprising f of a third new
nature — a rational nature — is a thing impossible or even
improbable ? With a mind thus freed from the mists of
imaginary prejudice, let the reader next consider the
arguments in favour of a difference of kind between
man and brute — the presence in the former and the
absence in the latter of intellect, as manifested by
language, and, above all, by language expressing moral

* See above, p. lo.

f As to the origin of man, see " On Truth," p. 521.

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 301

judgments and asserting merit and demerit.* We are
strongly persuaded that he will then clearly see that
language is the " rubicon of mind," and that it is so
simply because it is the index of that intellectual power,
the presence of which makes a true and necessary
" liniit to evolution," in the ascending series of organic
transformations. It is our hope that in the preceding
pages we have made it clear that there can be no such
things as real signs without intentional meaning, and that
unmeant signs are not language : also that there is no
meaning without mental conception, and no perception
without implicit judgment. Thus, as we have said, the
impressions made by the objects of nature on sensitive
organisms are different according to the nature of such
organisms, each being affected according to its nature
and innate powers. In the vital organization of the
animal they excite those sensations and more and more
complex feelings, imaginations, and emotions which
correspond with our own lower mental powers. In the
living organism, man, they call forth not only such
feelings, but also, by and through them, truly intellectual
perceptions spontaneously start forth, containing within
them implicitly the very highest abstract ideas, even that
of " being." That the prattle of the infant is the out-
come of consciousness, and that self-perception and the
predication of the copula not only may, but must be
present in the rudest forms of language known to us,
we have also, we trust, not urged in vain. The ideal
portrait of primitive man sketched for us by the author
♦ See Ibid., pp. 243-254, 274, 275, 282-286.

302 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON.

we have criticized, hardly, as he himself admits, demands
or can well receive a grave and serious examination,
and our brief criticism of it is, we think, amply sufficient
for the purpose of this work.

We desire, finally, to take leave of Mr. Romanes
with gratitude and sympathy : gratitude for his honest
labour, the pains he has taken, and his studious en-
deavour to be just and fair to us personally. We
take leave of him with sympathy, for we cannot
regard otherwise than with kindly regret the thank-
less, the impossible, task he has gratuitously taken
upon himself, and which has wasted so many well-
meant efforts. Heartily do we wish that he would
consent for a time to put physical science on one side,
and devote his very considerable energy and ability to
the study of science properly so-called. Would he only
consent so to do, we feel a strong conviction that un-
mixed good to himself and others would be the by no
means distant result. We are persuaded that a patient
study of philosophy would, in a mind so candid and
open to conviction as we believe his to be, lead to a
permanent reconciliation between the author of " Mental
Evolution in Man "and the thesis he at present opposes,
as well as to a prolific union between the declarations
of objective Reason and the subjective psychological
conceptions of Mr. Romanes himself. We have selected
his work for careful examination because in it may be
found an exposition of all the most recent hypotheses
in favour of the evolution of intellect from mere
sentience. In examining it, we have examined these

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 303

hypotheses to the best of our ability, and now offer the
results at which we have arrived to the judgment of
readers interested in that problem which we deem the
most important one of our time — the problem which
concerns the distinctness or non-distinctness as to
nature, and therefore as to origin, of human reason.

INDEX

A name more than a word, 46, 53
Abbe Sicard and deaf-mutes, 143
Abnormal condition of deaf-mutes,
164

man may be lower than brutes, 8

Absolute distinctness of man shown

by ethics, 273
• truth and mechanical hypo-
theses, 30

■ truths, knowledge of, 29

Abstract concepts and deaf-mutes, 145
idea of danger and animals, 76

"time," expressed by

gesture, 145

ideas, 56, 59

of ripeness, appearance, de-
tection, direction, and surprise, 142
Abstraction, 47, 51, 54, 64, 70

, power of, not in brutes, 42

Absurd tale about a cockatoo, 136
Accidental acts, 122, 127

, unintentional, making of facts

known, 192
Accidentally isolated children and

language, 231
Accoucheur, illustration from, 281
Acquired semiotic value asserted, 283
Acquisitional signs, 123, 127
Actions instantaneous in nature, 12

, irrational, of animals, 124

misread, 85

of parrots explained, 154, 16 1

, volitions, and primitive man,

234
Acts, conventional ones, 122, 120,
127

formally and materially inten-
tional, what they are, 122

, imitational ones, 124

, impulsional ones, 122

Acts, intellectual, not necessarily
reflex, 125

of salutation apparently similar

may differ profoundly, 219

■ reveal inner nature, 49

Adam, 33

Adjectives and substantives, 248

by position, 248

Adoption of the easiest imaginations,
30

Adumbration of higher naturej in
lower, 21, 22, 83

Adverbs and pronouns, 245

Affections, sensuous and cognitive, 59

(sensuous) and ideas, relations

between, 94

Africa, South, and children, 232

Agglutination, 262

Agglutinative language, 23 1

Agriculture and primitive man, 33

All men are bipeds, meaning of, 257

Alternative, an, may express a con-
junctive sentence, 144

Amalgamation of feelings not an idea,

45
Ambiguity of phrase "Arise out of,"

43

of the term *' conventional,*' 122

of the term "discriminate," 67

of the term " know," 154

Ambiguous expression, growth of

consciousness, 247

use of the term " seen," 186

use of the word "understand,"

151

Amoeba, psychical principle of, 73

An avowed prejudice of Dr. Wtis-
mann, lo

Analogy between flight and thought,
172

indicates discontinuity in evolu-
tion, 14

X

3o6

INDEX.

Analogy of feelings to universals, 57,
158

• reveals nature of infants and

savages, 8

Analysis of the verb, 252

, ultimate, of nature shows voli-
tion, 235

Analytic language, 231

Anecdote, absurd one about a cocka-
too, 136

Anecdotes about savages' defects ex-
aggerated, 274

of animals, exaggerations in,

129, 149

of shot monkeys, 133-135

Animals and infants, asserted parallel-
ism between, 16

, dumb, if rational would invent

a gesture-language, 163

, irrational acts of, 124

may have unimaginable powers,

61

obtaining help, 133

share our lower mental powers,

216

speechless, 298

understanding words, how, 148,

160

Animals' acts, their nature misrepre-
sented, 130

natures may modify their re-

cepts, 94, 124

Animistic thought, 233, 234
Animus of narrators of anecdotes of

animals, 130
Ant, psychical principle of, 73
Antecedent conditions for evocation

of consciousness, 199
Anthropoid apes and primitive man,

33

shaping stones, 292

Ants, tales of, 130, 131

• tunnelling, and Mr. Belt, 76

Any objects will call forth concepts,

205
Ape and principle of the screw, 86

, psychical principle of, Ti^

Apes and children, 17

and primitive man, 33

, chattering of, 286

, gesture-signs of, 133, 135

pointing, 82, 135

Aphasia and gesture-language, 138
Apparently similar actions may differ

profoundly, 219
Appearance, abstract idea of, 142
Apple-tree and boy, tale in gesture,

140

Appleyard, 274

Apposition in consciousness, 221, 256

not necessarily assertion, 256,

257

with meaning may be assertion,

277
Apprehension, first, of general cha-
racters by nascent intelligence, 1 56

of causation by dog, 85

Aprons, etc., pulled by dogs, 132, 153,

164
Apteryx, 108, 113
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 39, 57
Arbitrary signs invented by children,

161
Archdeacon Farrar, 235, 237, 240
Archiepiscopal collie-dog, 78
Arguments, scholastic, against nomi-
nalism, 39
"Arise out of," ambiguity of the

phrase, 43
Aristotelian system of philosophy,

39, 57
Aristotle, 25, 31, 40

and man, 25, 31, 32, 200, 231,

239, 259

, Buffon, and Bureau de la Malle,

25
Arms of dog and telegraph-post, 220
Art and primitive man, 33
Article of Prof. Max Miiller in

Ni7ieteeitth Ceiituiy^ 117
Articulate irrational sounds, 120
rational sounds, 12 1

signs said to be extended by

parrots, 157, 185

the quickest and easiest

ones, 244
Articulation and dog's tail, 152

and prehistoric animals, 33

, innate tendency to, 172

, meaningless, 146

not necessarily intellectual, 152

, primitive, 147

Articulns slantis vel cadentis ecclesicc^

. 32 ,

Artistic faculties, origin of, 27
Aryan languages, 246
"As many men as many bipeds,"

256
As-mi, the Sanskrit term, 251
Asserted funereal rites of bees, 134

parallelism between animals and

infants, 16
Assertion not apposition, 256, 257
Associated and expectant feelings, 63
Association, British, at Sheffield, 22
Associational sign-making, 127

INDEX.

307

Associations of feelings and Dr.
Wilks, 155

Astronomer and star, 269

Attention and stretching to, 272

, sensuous, 209

Attribute of existence, its signifi-
cance, 177

Authority not appealed to, but evi-
dence, 39, 161, 294

Author's position, 5, 202, 242

B

Babbage's calculating machine, 175

Baby names for objects, 217

talk, 206, 221, 222, 245, 263,

270

Bain, Prof., and exaggeration in anec-
dotes of animals, 149

Ballets, pantomime of, 218, 260

Balls, small, in motion, 33

Bates, Mr., staggered, 130

Bathing described in pantomime, 218

Bathos and a cockatoo, 25, 136

Bear pawing for floating bread, 75

Beavers, 292

Bees practising funereal rites, 134

Beggarly elements of thought, 273

Begging dogs, 123

the question, 21

Beginning of language, 241

" Being and Know^ing," work of
Prof. Veitch, 196

, as expressed in Hebrew, 251

, idea of, 70, 249

, , and deaf-mutes, 145

, , and substantive verb, 249

, , latent in every concept,

271

Belt, Mr., and ants in conclave, 130

, , and tunnelling American

ants, 76

Benson, Miss, and collie-dog, 78

Berkeley, 40, 239

Besetting sin of our day, 299

Best language is the minimum that
expresses clearly, 243

Bestiality of man, 4, 32

Bias of narrators of anecdotes of
animals, 129, 149

Bible, idea of, and ignorant deaf-
mutes, 165

Big-enough-to-be -worth-a-prolonged-
effort, idea of, 49

Binet, M., ill, 112

Biological distinction as to poten-
tiality the most important one, 222

Birds talking, 154, 156, 160, 191, 278

Bodily requirements of a rational
animal, 83

Body-begging by monkeys, 134

Bolting a door, illustration from, 67

Born-mutes and Mr. Tylor, 146

Bottle, sight of, and parrot, 155

Boy and apple-tree, tale in gesture,
140

biting his own arm, 204

striking another, as expressed by

the deaf and dumb, 143

*' Box,'^ the term, 244

Bradley, 195

Brain and mind, 219

Bramston, Miss, and collie-dog, 79

Brazil and children, 232

Breaking vocal tones, 286

Breaks in nature, 10

, no evidence against, 300

of dynamic order, 13

Bridgman, Laura, 166

Bright things and child, 185, 186,
269, 278

British Association at Sheffield, 22

Bronze men and iron men, 217

Brush unscrewed by a monkey, 86

Brute evolved into man, representa-
tion of, 288

Brutes demonstrated of different na-
ture from us by ethics, 273

dumb, 298

have no ideas, 41

— : — have no power of abstraction, 42

higher than abnormal men may

be, 8

, rational, and objective contra-
diction, 215

, their nature, and Catholicism,

32

BLichner, Prof., and pious bees, 134

Bufifon, Aristotle, and Bureau de la
Malle, 24

Bunsen and language, 251

Bushmen, their clicks, 247, 286, 287

Cage, illustration from, 268

Caird, Prof., 195

Calculating machine, Babbage's, 175

Caldwell, 274

California and children, 232

Calling of dogs by parrots, 157, 159,
184

Canadian villages and neglected chil-
dren, 232

3o8

INDEX.

Cannon-ball, 248

Captain Johnson and shot monkey,

134
Carlyle and metaphor, 272
Cartesianism, 39
Cat and his friend the dog, 159

and knocking at doors, 84

■ ' ■ ■ and piano, illustration from,

• with bone fixed in mouth, 261

Categories of language, 121, 126, 127,

241
Catholicism and nature of brutes, 32
Cats getting help, 133

jumping on chairs, 133

Causation, apprehension of by dog.

Cause for disbelief in cause, 211

, idea of, and muscular effort, 211

Chambers and exaggeration in anec-
dotes of animals, 149
Charlevoix, 274
Chattering of apes, 286
Chauncey Wright, Mr. , 209
Chef and dinner, illustration from,

200
Chemical action lays a foundation for

vital activity, 199
Chemistry, physics, vitality, sensi-
tivity, and intellect, 199
Child-language and Chinese, 245
Child saying " Ego " spontaneously,

146
Children and apes, 17

and conceptual power, mistake

about, 190

■ have most abstract ideas, 270

, idiotic, and Dr. Scott, 137

■ invent arbitrary signs, 161

, isolated, originating languages,

231

, language of, 206, 221, 222, 245,

263

, though speechless, may gesture

intelligently, 138, 204
Children's names for objects, 217
Child's pantomime, 218

• recognition of dogs, 188

Chimpanzee "Sally," her tricks, 80

uses no metaphor, 273

Chinese and child-language, 245
Civilization and early man, 33
Clamor concomilans, 103, 107
Classifications of ideas and sensuous

cognitive affections, 59
Clearer possible intuition of first

men, 231
Clicks of Africans, 247, 286, 287

Climates favourable for isolated chil-
dren, 232

Clock, sound of, 238

Clock's hand, illustration from, 12

Cloud of materialism, 31

Coachman and parrot, 155, 161

Cockatoo, absurd tale concerning one,
136

Code, semiotic, of our common hu-
manity, 138

Cognition, unconscious and intellec-
tual, 65

Cognitions, direct and reflex, must be
distinguished, 61, 62

Cognitive sensuous affections, 59

Collected silent instruments do not
sound, 211

Collective ideas, 40

Collie-dog and Miss Benson, 78

Colonel Mallery and gesture-lan-
guage, 138, 145

Common sense and children, 298

Comparative philology, 228, 229

Completion of feeling of harmony
craved, 77

Complex ideas, 56

Compound ideas, 56

Concept "is," 259

of the sun, 69, 254

Conception is not taking or putting
together, 68

Conceptions concerning previous ap-
prehension, 192

, ethical, and man's distinctness

of kind, 273

Concepts, 56, 58, 59, 66, 73, 88, 93,

95» 97» 145, 175. 177-179, 189,
190, 236, 254, 271

, all, imply existence, real or

ideal, 179

and percepts of children and

adults, 192

called forth by any objects, 205

contain intellectual and sensuous

elements side by side, 271

, higher ones, 190

in Sanskrit roots, 236

, innate faculty of their external

expression, 232

, logic of, 38, 90, 92

, lower ones, 189, 220

not to be degraded to recepts,

, objective and subjective, 89

of being, etc., as expressed by

deaf-mutes, 145

of primitive man, 234

without names, 219, 220

INDEX.

309

Conceptual ideation, 205

not a mere result of physi-
cal conditions, 152

judgments, 192

power and children, mistake

about, 190

Conclave of ants, 130

Concluding remarks, 295

Concrete ideas, 55, 59

Condition of early man, 33

Conditions antecedent to evocation
of consciousness, 199

of knowledge, 183

of structure and faculty of lan-
guage, 142

Conjunctive sentence expressed by
an alternative or contrast, 144

Connotative terms, 126, 174

or signs, 174, 185, 186,

187

Consciousness, 37, 62

and reason, 193

, conditions antecedent to its

evolution, 199

, direct, not reflex, indispensable

to knowledge, 183

does not necessitate use of the

first person, 204

inscrutable in origin, 212

Consentience, 62, 203

Consequences of upholding man's
rationality, 32

Continuity, illustrations concerning,
12

• not universal in nature, 10

Contradictory opinions about sur-
vivals in language, 262

Contrast may express a conjunctive
sentence, 144

Conventional acts, 121, 122, 126-
128

Conversation held with a cockatoo,

136

in gesture of different Indians,

139

with a cowherd, 238

Coptic, 253

Copula, fallacy as to, 1 79, 249

implied, 221, 222

may be latent, yet essentially

present, 145

Counting crow, so said, 79

of the chimpanzee " Sally," 80

, what it implies, 81, 91

Cousin, 39

Cowherd's conversation, 238
Craving feeling for completion of a
harmony, 77

Craving, feeling of, 279
Credulity, instances of, 133, 134, 153
Cries, instinctive, 283
Crow, counting, as atf rmei, 79
Crystals, dolomite, and spathic iron,
21

Day, our own, its besetting sin, 299
Danger, idea of, and animals, 76

signals, 290

Darwin, Mr., his grandchild, 239
Darwin's dog looking up into a tree,

75
hypothesis as to speech origin,

284, 288

pleasure in exalting plants, 149

views as to man, 3

Dayak language, 257
De Harlez, Mgr., 33
Deaf and dumb first express what they

most desire to express, 143
Deaf-mute and Mr. Romanes, 223
, ignorant one's idea of the Bible,

165

who must have reflected, 223

Deaf-mutes, 96

and idea of being, 145

and Indians, 138, 139

and inherited organization, 141

and the Abbe Sicard, 143

, innate intellectuality of, 143,

^45» 232

, their abnormal condition, 164

, uneducated, their status, 164

Decay of social conditions, 230
Defect of our nature necessitates

language and ratiocination, 243
Defects of savages exaggerated, 274
Definition of a sense-perception, 41

of an idea, 41

Degradation of art and science, 299
Degraded concepts are not recepts,

117
Degrees of self-consciousness, 202
Delusion of explaining feeUngs by

motions, 30
Denominational science, 31
Denominative terms, 126, 174, 185,

187, 192
Denotative terms, 126, 174, 18$
Descartes, 23, 37-39
Desire, secret, to exalt animals, 149
Despising, the unreasonably, terms

not ours, 165
Detection, abstract idea of, 142

3IO

INDEX.

Development, mental, supposed leap
of progress in, 209

of man and time, 237

Difference, as to potentiality of su-
preme importance, 222

of essential nature involves that

of origin, 5

of kind between recepts and

concepts, 66

, profound, of acts externally

similar, 219
Differences betvi^een ideas and feelings,

45> 46

in animals' natures may modify

their recepts, 94, 124

, natural, of talent, 224

Different groups of languages, 231

races of Indians can converse

together by gesture, 139

Difficulty as to imagining man's

separate origin, 299
*'Dig, feed," 245
*' Digging he," 248
Dinner and chef^ illustration from,

200
Dinornis, 108, 113
Dionsea and Drosera, 22, 49
Direct and reflex cognitions must be

distinguished, 61, 62

consciousness, 202

suffices for intellect, 125,

, not reflex, consciousness indis-
pensable for knowledge, 183, 197,
203

thought must precede reflex,

183, 197, 203

Direction, abstract idea of, 142
Disbelief in cause, caused? 211
Discontinuity in nature, 10
Discourse held with a cockatoo, 136
Discovery of principle of the screw

by a monkey, 86
Discrimination, an ambiguous term,

67
Disputed primeval family of Ian'

guage, 262
Distinct nature of man demonstrated

by ethics, 273
Distinction as to origin, 5, 225

as to potentiality greatest in

biology, 222

between ideas and feelings, 45,

46

between reflex and direct cogni-
tions must be recognized, 61, 62

■ of generic and general terms un-
tenable, 270

Distinction of man lies in mental, not
verbal affirmation, 180

of noun and verb as not yet

realized, 245

"Dit ki," 206, 221, 222, 263
Divers tongues and reason, 228
Divine voHtion and natural pheno-
mena, 235
Dr. Hales, 231

Latham, 275

Noble, of Manchester, 219

Sandwith, 275

Scott and idiotic children, 137

Wilks and associated feelings,

155
Dog and his cat-friend, 159

and inverted man, 276

and thunder, 85

hunting pigs after family

prayers, 78

of Darwin looking up into a

tree, 75

playing and M. Quatrefages,

201

wagging or stiffening its tail,

152

Dogs and tidal waves, 75

begging, 123, 219

called by parrots, 157, 159, 184,

278

distinguished by young child-
ren, 188

of Sir John Lubbock, 133

pointing, 132

pulling aprons, 132, 219

, thirsty, running to hollows, 75

Dog's arms and those of telegraph-
post, 220

Dolomite, crystals, and spathic iron,
21

Double meanings to primitive terms,

234

Doubling of stags, 77

Dough, parrot up to its knees in, 133

Drawing upon time, 287

Dread of wolves, not of a particular
wolf, by sheep, 158

Drosera and Dionaea, 22, 49

Du Ponceau, 274

Dugong, io8, 113

Duilhe, Canon F., 166

Dumb animals, if rational, would in-
vent a gesture-language, 163

Dureau de la Malle, Aristotle, and
Buffon, 25

Dynamic breaks in nature, 13

state of a lighted candle, 200

Dynamical principles, 28

INDEX.

311

E

Early man, condition of, 33

Ease of imagining what is wanted,

284, 285, 298
Easiest imaginations tend to be

adopted, 30

signs are articulate ones, 244

Effect of spoken language on gesture,

140
Efforts, muscular, and idea of cause,

211
" Ego " said spontaneously by child,

146
Egyptians and the substantive verb,

253

Ejective origin of subjective know-
ledge, 210

Ejects, 210

Element of thought, the simplest,, a
judgment, 175, 217, 242, 243

Elements of thought, what they are
not, 117

Elephant blowing to bring an object
nearer, 75

Elevation of terms, 272

Embodied intellect, 199

Emotion of the ludicrous, 19

Emotional language, I2i, 156

signs, 126, 127

English labourers and intellect, 237,
238

Enrichment of material for gesture,
expression, 140

Enunciation of copula not essential,
222

Equality, idea of, 96

, , expressed by gesture, 145

Essence of moral judgments different
from all others, 273

Essential characters of a sign, 7

presence of copula when not

expressed, 145

Essentially different natures must
differ in origin, 5

distinct nature of man shown by

ethics, 273

Ethical propositions, 273

Ethics demonstrate man's distinction
of nature, 273

Events, logic of, 221

Every concept and proposition im-
plies existence, 179

includes idea of "being,"

271

Evocation of consciousness, 1 99

Evolution judged by analogy discon-
tinuous ultimately, 14

Evolution of language by dumb ra-
tional animals, 163

of man from brute, representa-
tion of, 28S

Exaggeration of defects of savages,
274

of importance of term " I," 205

Exaggerations in anecdotes of animals,

149
Exalting plants, Darwin's pleasure

in, 149
Examples of monosyllabic proposi-
tions, 206, 207, 245
Exercise of sensitivity must precede

and is not thought, 203
Exigencies of expression, 264
" Exist " and *' existence " as terms,.

250, 251
Existence and local presence, 25,1

as implied in propositions, 177

, idea of, expressed by gesture^

145,

of names not necessary for con-
ception, 218, 22O)

, possible and ideal, is real, 178

Existences, simultaneous, and con-
tinuity, 1.2

Expectant feelings from association,

63 . ■ . . .

Experience necessary for imagination,,

26, 61
Explanation of feelings by motions,.

delusive, 30.
of parrot's actions, 154, 161

of phenomena by pulverizing

them, 285

Explicit judgments, 174,217

language, 127

Expression and intellect simultaneous.

in origin, 236

'< arises out of," ambiguous, 43

by gesture of the idea time, 145

first given by deaf and dumb to

what they most want to express,

143
in Hebrew for existence, 251

must be preceded by thought,

254

" my work " meaning different

things, 247

of a conjunctive sentence by

alternative or contrast, 144

of abstract ideas by deaf-mutes,

145

of concepts, innate faculty of, 232

of copula not essential, 222

of willingness by term "belief,"

258

31?

INDEX.

Expression, order of, does not bind
thought, 256

Expressions meant must be enter-
tained, 254

, monosyllabic, 207

of children, 206

of propositions by monosyllables,

206, 207, 245

Extension, alleged, of articulate signs
by parrots, 157, 185

Externally similar acts may differ
profoundly, 219

Exuberance of synonyms, 274

Facial contortions and intellect,

267
Faculties, innate, 232
, mathematical, musical, and

artistic, origin of, 27
Faculty of conception generally, not

constituted by nervous structure,

142

of language and nervous in-
herited structure, 141, 142

Fallacy as to copula, 1 79, 249
Families of languages, 231
Farm-yard and fox, illustration from,

Farrar, Archdeacon, 235, 237, 240
Father Maurus's " Questiones Philo-

sophicse, 57
*' Father-of-thee, age-of-him," 257
Fear of thunder by dog, 85
Feejee language, 257
Feeling of craving, 279

' of ?nalaise, 74

without knowledge, 66

Feelings analogous to universals, 57,

158

and ideas, differences between,

45 » 46

, expectant ones, from associa-
tion, 63

' explained by motions, a delu-
sion, 30

, logic of, 71

of association, and Dr. Wilks,

155

of others, how known, 22

Fichte, 40

Figurative language and savages,

234, 272
Figures of speech due to its poverty,

.234
First expressed by deaf and dumb

what they most desire to express,

.143

First men had possibly clearest in-
tuitions, 231

person, use of, not necessary for

consciousness, 204

Fittest, survival of, and reason, 108-
112

Flight of thought, 173

, utility of, 173

Flora of St. Helena, loS, 113

Fly and spider, 87

Fogs of Realism, 104

Following the line of least resistance,
30

Forbes, Mr., and a monkey, 133

Forceps, obstetric, illustration from,
281

Foreshado wings in nature, 22

Formal and material activities, 67,

85

and material classifying, etc.,

64

Formally or really intentional acts,
122

Foundation of higher natures laid in
lower, 21

Foundations of intellect and self-con-
sciousness, 198, 199

Fox and farm-yard, illustration from,

50
Freedom of Catholics as regards the

nature of brutes, 32

of thought, 33

Free-will and nature's phenomena,

235
Friedrich Miiller, 99
Fundamental metaphor, 271

relations between physical,

chemical, and vital powers, 199

Funereal rites of bees, 134

Galton, Mr. F., 44, iii

photographs, 44

Garnett, Mr., 252, 253, 280

Geiger, Herr, 99, 253, 278

General characters first apprehended

by nascent intelligence, 156
nature of words, nominalists

must admit they can perceive, 39

ideas, 56, 59

, or notions, of plants, 49

parallelism between speech and

intellect, 230
Generation, spontaneous, 10

INDEX.

313

Generic and general terms not really

distinct, 270
- — ideas, 52, 58, 59, 95
Germ of the sign-making faculty,

128
German philologists' hypothesis as to

speech origin, 283
Gesture and spoken language, 280

and tone, 137

, conceptual, 260

, effect of on, and effect on from,

v spoken language, 140

expressive of idea " time," 145

not due to speech, 147

Gestures, indicative, of an infant,

220

of speechless children, intelli-
gent, 138, 204

, rational and irrational, 121

to express abstract ideas, 145

Gesture-conversation of Indians of

different tribes, 139
Gesture-language and aphasia, 138

and Colonel Mallery, 138

and Ml*. Tylor, 139

, its innate intellectuality, 143

, its syntax, 142

would be invented by dumb

rational animals, 163

Gesture-signs by monkeys, 133-135

, how meaning put into ? 284

Gesture-told tale about apple-tree,
140

about melons, 139

Ghost not needed to show existence,

253

God becoming conscious of Himself
in man, 196

imagined as thought enthroned

somewhere, 166

, intellectual brutes, and objec-
tive contradiction, 215

" God made nothing," 144

Good-for-eating, idea of, 48

Gorilla and emotional language, 156

(Grammatical structure of sentences,
160

Grandchild of Mr. Darwin, 239

Grebo language, 247

Greek verb substantive, 253

Green, Professor, 195

Grotesque mental images, 165

Groups of experiences, 59

of languages, 231

" Grouse " as a proposition, 207

Growth of consciousness, ambiguous
term, 247

Gunpowder men, 217

H

Habits, power of forming them, 60

Hsecceity, 95

Hales, Dr., 231

Hamilton, Sir William, and signs, 92

Hand of a clock, illustration from, 12

Harlez, Mgr. de, 33

Harmony, craving for feeling of
completion of, 77

Hat taken off, and its significance,
219

"He" as that one, 245

*' He jackety whitey," 257

Hearth-brush and monkey, 86

Hebrew and expression for being, 251

Hegel, 39, 83, 196

Helena, St., flora of, 113, 118

Help obtained by animals, 133

Herbert Spencer and savages, 231

Herder and language, 281

Higher concepts, 190, 192

inorganic intelligence could dis-
pense with signs and reasoning, 243

natures superposed on lower,

21

recepts, 189, 190, 192

" His-age-thy-father," 257, 258

"Hiss" as an onomatopoetic word,
161

Historical relation of word and sen-
tence, 242

Hobbes, 39, 109, 180

Hollows and thirsty dogs, 75

Homo alahis, 287, 290

sapiens, Z^J, 287

Homonymy, 110, n6

Hoste, Sir William, and shot monkey,

134

Hottentots, clicks of, 247, 286, 287

House-fly and spider, 87

Houzeau's exaggeration about j>ar-

rots, 154
Huber and queen-bee, 129
Human imperfection necessitates

language and ratiocination, 243

instincts, 20, 25

intellect, its spontaneity, 272

mind and natural genesis, 215

nature proved distinct by ethics,

273

progress, 18

speech and intellect generally

parallel, 230
Humanity, its semiotic code, 138
Hume, 40, 92
Hunting of imaginary pigs after

prayers, 78

314

INDEX.

Huxley, Prof., on our knowledge of

others' feelings, 22
Ilymenoptera, 17
Hypotheses, mechanical ones, useful.

Hypothesis, Darwin's, as to speech
origin, 283, 288

, mechanical, regarded as abso-
lute truth, 30

, Mr. Romanes's, as to speech

origin, 286

of German philologists as to

speech origin, 283

of Noire, 102, 107, 240, 291

I

" I " as signified in various languages,
246

as this one, 245

, importance of the term exagger-
ated, 205
" Idea " as a term used in abroad and

narrow sense, 41
Idea of an object not an amalgam, 45
—— of being, 70, 145, 176, 249, 271
- — - of being and deaf-mutes, 145
< of being and substantive verb,

249

-« of ''being" latent in every con-
cept, 271

' of cause and muscular effort,

211

of equality, 96

of number, what it implies, 81

of self not composed of ideas of

other people, 211

• of self not so exceptionally gifted

as supposed, 205

of the Bible by ignorant deaf-
mute, 165

Ideal existence real, 178

language monosyllabic, 207

Idealism, 37, 194, 195

Ideas, 38, 41

, abstract, of ripeness, appear-
ance, detection, direction, and sur-
prise, 142

—— and feelings, differences between,

45. 46

and sensuous affections, rela-
tions between, 94

as classified by Mr. Romanes, 59

as classified by us, 59

called simple, particular, com-

jiound, complex, and mixed, 55,
56

Ideas, definition of, 41

, general, of plants, 49

of brutes, 41

of camel and triangle, illustra-
tion from, 43

of good-for-eating, suitable-for-

nutrition, etc., 48, 49

of object, conceptions implied

in them, 45

, power of objectifying them, 182

Ideation, conceptual, 205
Identification "of thought and lan-
guage, 102
Identity, meaning of, 105, 114
Idiotic children and Dr. Scott, 137
Ignorant deaf-mute's idea of the Bible,

165
Ignoratia elenchi, 283
" llda," a childish term, 217, 218
Illustration from a cat and a piano,

a marsupial maminal, 69

an accoucheur, 281

a sieve, 67

a thunder-clap, 63 .

a triangle, 43, 54, 128

a weather-cock, 158

bolting a door, 68

chcfzw^ dinner, 200

fox and farm-yard, 50

hour-hand of a clock, 12

ideas of camel and triangle,

43
Jove and Minerva's birth,

64

match and candle, 200

musical instruments, 21 1

printer's ink, 96

Socrates, 180

squirrel's cage, 268

steam-engine, 96

telegraph-post, 220

toast, 5

wasp and honey, 128

Illustrations as to continuity, 12
Imaginary pigs hunted after prayers.

Imagination of anything unexperi-
enced, impossible, 26, 61

, scientific, 29

Imaginations, the easiest, tend to be
adopted, 30

Imitation, meaningless, instinctive
and intentional, 159

of sounds by parrots, 155

Imitational acts, 124, 127

Immaterial intelligence would not
need language or reasoning, 243

INDEX.

315

Immaterial principles and Mr. Wal-
lace, 27

Immortality, our, knowable without
revelation, 24

Imperfection of our nature necessitates
language and ratiocination, 243

Implication ofexistence in propositions
and concepts, 177, 179

of notions of truth, etc., 45

Implicit judgments, 175, 217, 242,

243

< sign-making, 127

Importance of term " I " exaggerated,

205
Impossibility of ethical judgments in

a brute nature, 273

of imagining origins, 299

of objective contradictions, 215

Impulsional acts, 122, 127

l7t poteniia ad actum et ad esse, 215

Inadequacy of speech produces

metaphor, 233
Inanimate objects and savages, 211
Inarticulate clicks, 247, 287

irrational sounds, 12c;

Inclinations to exaggerate, 130, 149
Incredibly absurd tale of a codcatoo,

136
Indians and deaf-mutes, 138
and gesture-language, 138

of different tribes, gesture con-
versation between, 139

Indians' pleasure at meeting deaf-

rautes, 138, 139
Indicative gestures of an infant, 220

7 signs, 173

Individual percepts, 59
Individuation, principle of, 73
Infant and primitive man, 264, 265
Infant's indicative gestures, 220
Infants and animals, asserted parallels

between, 16

• and reason, 214, 222

and savages, their nature judged

by analogy, 8
Inference but a department of reason,

71

, organic and true distinguished,

63

Inflectional language, 231
Inheritance of structure related to

language, 141, 171
Inherited organization and deaf-mutes,

141, 171
Innate faculty of external expression

of concepts, 232

intellectualhy of the deaf and

dumb, 143

Innate tendency to articulate, 172
Inner nature shown by outer acts, 49
Inorganic intelligence need not speak

or reason, 243
Insectivorous plants, 22, 49
Insects, metamorphoses of, 263
Instantaneous actions in nature, 12
Instinct, 60, 61, 211, 250

of language, 161, 163, 232

Instinctive cries, 283
Instincts, human, 20, 25
Instruments, musical, illustration

from, 211
, silent, do not sound when col-
lected, 211
Intellect and expression simultaneous
in origin, 236

and speech generally parallel,

23a

apprehends beyond sense, 233

as present potentially, 214, 222

, human, its spontaneity, 272

, its relation to reUgion, 26

sacrificed to sense, 299

, sensitivity, vitality, chemistry^

and physics, 199

smuggled in, 291

Intellectual action, foundation for,.

laid by sensation, 199

acts not necessarily reflex, 125

and sensuouts elements exist sido

by side in concepts, 271

and unconscious cognition, 65,

intuition, 70

language, 121

signs, 126, 127

thimble-rigging, 92

Intellectuality, innate, of the deaf ami

dumb, 143
Intelligence, nascent, first apprehends

general characters, 156

of a higher order than ours

might dispense with language and
reasoning, 243

of primitive man, 235

Intelligent conversation between
Indians and deaf-mutes, 139

gestures made by speechless

children, 138, 204

Intended expressions must be thought.

Intention involved in propositions,

179
Intentional putting together not

needed for mental conception, 68,

70

signs, 122, 126

, what is really such, 122

3i6

INDEX.

Interruptions in nature, lo, I2
Introspection, and thought not

identical, 182
Intuitions of first men possibly the

clearest, 231
Invalid cockatoo, absurd tale about,

136

Invention higher than association,
160

of arbitrary signs by children,

161

Inverted man and tree, 275

Iron, bronze, and gunpowder men,

217
Irrational actions of animals, 124
gestures, 121

sounds articulate and inarticu-
late, 120

"Is, "is a term v^^hich can be well
understood without being expressed,
180, 249

, the concept, 250, 259

Isolated children originating lan-
guages, 231

Jackdaws, parrots, etc., 150
John Stuart Mill, 180, 191
Johnson, Captain, and shot monkey,

134

Jove and Minerva, 64

Judgment, simplest element of thought,

175, 217, 242, 254
Judgments about a negro, 176

always imply existence, 179

• explicit and implicit, 175, 217,

242

, monosyllabic ones, 206

of children and adults, 192

K

Kama, Hebrew term, 251

Kant, 40, 100, 239

Kawi language, 246

Khap, 287

Kind, difference of, between recepts

and concepts, 66
Kinds, different, of language, 121
Kleutgen's " Philosophic Scholas-

tique," 57
Knocking at a door seen by cat, 84
*' Know," ambiguity of that term,

154, 198
" Knowing and Being," work of Prof.
Veitch, 196

Knowing psychical processes does not
alter their nature, 125

Knowledge, conditions of, 183

, known as such, 192

, needs direct but not reflex con-
sciousness, 183

of necessary truths, 29

, our, of others' feelings, 22

, receptual, not true knowledge,

198

, subjective, its supposed ejective

origin, 210

without advertence, 66

Koum, Hebrew term, 251

Kurd of the Zara tribe, 275

Labourer of Sussex and intellect, 238
Lacey (a cowherd), his conversation,

238
Lampong language, 246
Language and Bunsen, 251

and Garnett, 252, 253, 280

and Geiger, 99, 253, 278

and Herder, 281

and Latham, 275

and Max Miiller, 235, 245,

246, 248

and primitive man, 33

and Prof. Whitney, 285

and ratiocination due to our

imperfection, 243

and reason, 120

and Schelling, 242

and Sweet, 235, 254

and Waitz, 242

, Aryan, 246

, beginning of, 241, 243

, categories of, 121

, contrary opinions as to survivals,

262

, Coptic, 253

, Dayak, 257

, different groups of, 231

, emotional and intellectual, 121

, explicit and implicit, 127

faculty of, and inherited organi-
zation, 141, 142

, Feejee, 257

, Grebo, 247

, Greek, 253

, Hebrew, 251

, ideal, monosyllablic, 207

, its simplest element, 243

, Lampong, 246

, Malay, 246

INDEX.

3^7

Language, metaphorical, 233, 234
of children, 206, 221, 222, 245,

263

of Chinese and children, 245

of gesture, and Colonel Mallery,

138

of gesture, and Mr. Tylor, 139

— — of gesture, expressing abstract

ideas, 145

of gesture, its innate intellec-
tuality, 143

of gesture, its syntax, 142

of gesture would be invented

by dumb, rational animals, 163

of signs, 232

, or sign-making, schemes of,

126, 127

, originated by isolated children,

231

, pictorial and written, 121

, Polynesian, 258, 259

, rubicon of mind, 262

, Sanskrit, 232, 233, 236, 251

, South African (Bushman and

Hottentot), 247

, spoken, its effect on gesture,

140

, the minimum of it, when ex-
pressive, the best, 243

Languages, Romance, and term " is,"
249

Lankester, Prof., and Darwinism, 4

Larnay (Poitiers), convent at, 166

Latent idea of being in every con-
cept, 271

presence of the copula, 145

universals, 271

Latham, Dr., 275

Laughter, 19, 153

Laura Bridgman, 166

Lausanne, an afflicted child at, 166

Laying foundation of intellectual ac-
tion by sensation, 198, 199

Le Museon, 33

Leap of progress supposed in mental
development, 209

Leibnitz, 99, 112

Lemurs, 22

Leroy and counting crow, 79

and wolves, 76

*'Les Animaux Perfectibles," 149

Letters of and to Prof. Max Miiller,
99-116

Lewes, and exaggeration m anecdotes
of animals, 149

Lightning-like rapidity of thought,

Limit to evolution, 301

Line of least resistance followed, 30 '

, straight, not made up of crooked

lines, 211

Lingua Jranca, 232

Local presence and existence, 251

Locke, 36, 38, 39, 97

Logic of concepts, 38, 90

of events, 221

of feelings, 71, 165

of recepts, 38, 60, 65, 91, 200,

201

of signs, 71

Logos, the, 95, 100, 105, 118

Lord's Prayer, as expressed by deaf-
mutes, 145

Love of the marvellous, and savages,
274

Lower concepts, 96

mental powers (our) shared by

animals, 216

recepts and concepts, 189, 192

Lubbock, Sir John, and ants, 132

, , and his dogs, 133

Ludicrous, the emotion of, 19

M

Machine, Babbage's calculating, 175

, its making and using, 267

Making and using machines, 267

Malaise^ feeling of, 22

Malay language, 246

Mallery, Colonel, and language of

gesture, 138, 145
*' Mama pleased to Dodo," 208
Man, abnormal, may be lower than

brutes, 8
, Alfred Wallace's views con-
cerning him, 3, 27

and Aristotle, 31, 32

, Darwin's views concerning

him, 3
evolved from brute, representa-
tion of, 288

, primitive, 33

, , and his concepts, 234

, , his intelligence, 235

, Prof. Lankester's views con-
cerning him, 4

, what he is, 226

Man's asserted bestiality, 4

decay and retrogression, 2'^o

development and time, 237

distinction lies in mental not

verbal affirmation, 180

nature proved essentially dis-
tinct by ethics, 273

INDEX.

Man's origin cannot be imagined, 288

progressiveness, 18

rationality, consequences of

maintaining it, 32

Mantel-shelf and ants, 131
Manual language, its innate intel-
lectuality, 143
signs, 261

intellectual, but not

pictures, ill

Marsupial mammal, illustration from,

69
Marsupials, 22
Martha Obrecht, 166
Material and formal classifying, etc.,

-^ and formal discrimination, 67

meanings of words not their

•only meanings, 234

of gesture-expression, tap

Materialism, 37, 195

• of eighteenth century, 31

Materially intentional acts, 122
Mathematical and musical faculties,

origin of, 27
Max Miiller and Nominalism, loi

and Sanskrit roots, 232,

233

and speech, 235, 245, 246,

248, 268

■■ , article of, m Nineteetith

Century., 117

, letters from, 99, 108

■ , letters to, 104, 113, 21 1

Meaning, how put into signs ? 284
must precede intentional expres-
sion, 254

^ of propositions, 178

' , the important thing, 175, 206,

222, 252
Meaningless articulation, I46

imitation, 159

Meanings, double, to primitive terms,

of words modified by position,

248

Meant expressions must be thought,

254
Mechanical hypotheses regarded as

absolute truth, 30

useful, 29

Mechanism and sensitivity, ii
Melons, tale about told in gesture,

139

Memories of percepts, 59
Men, pithecoid, and Prof. Witney, 285
' , stone, bronze, iron, aiad gun-
powder, 217

Men, the first, possibly had clearest

intuitions, 231
Mennier's " Les Animaux Perfec-

tibles," 149
Mental acts need not be reflex to be

intellectual, 125

development, supposed leap of

progress in, 209

image of a printing-press in the

sky, 165

powers, lower, shared by ani-
mals, 2l5

• states and processes, 35

Mentally visualized things, 28
Metamorphoses of insects, 263
Metaphor, 233^ 234, 271-273, 277
Metaphorical language, 234, 272,

277
Metazoa, 22
Meystre, defective child at Lausanne^

166
Mill, John Stuart, 180, i^l
Mind and brain, 219

language rubicon of, 262, 301

Minerva, 64, 268

Minimum of expressive language the

best, 243, 244
Misreading actions, 85
Misrepresentation of acts of animals^

130
Mistake as to children and concep--

tual power, 190

as to what self-consciousness

consists of, 197

Mixed ideas, 56, 59
Monkey and principle of the screw,
86

, shot, and shooters, 133-135

Monkeys, chattering of, 286

, gesture-signs of, 133-135

, opening oysters, 292

Monosyllabic judgments, 206

language, ideal language, 207,

277

— speech, examples of, 245

Monosyllables can express proposi-
tions, 206, 207, 243-245

Monseigneur de Harlez, 33

Moon, terms for, 287

Mother utterance, voiceless, what may
be so called, 138

Motion and vitality, 211

of small balls, 30

Mr. Romanes and deaf-mute, 223

and his child, 217, 218, 224,

260

and tale about a cockatoo,

136

INDEX.

319

Mr. Romanes's hypothesis as to

speech origin, 286

terj-a incognita, 57

Mr. Tylor and born mutes, 146
and language of gesture,

139, 146
Miiller, Friedrich, 99

, the physiologist, 83

Muscular effort and idea of cause,

211
Museon, le, 33
Musical instruments, illustration from,

211
silent instruments do not sound

when collected, 211
Mutes, deaf, and idea of being, 145
> , and Indians can converse

by gesture, 139
, , and inherited structure,

141
" My work," expression meaning dif-
ferent things, 248

N

Named recepts, 220

Names applied to dogs by parrots,

157, 184, 278
, different, of animals may mo-
dify their recepts, 94, 124

do not precede thoughts, 272

more than words, 46, 53

not necessary to conception, 219,

220

of children for objects, 217

, onomatopoetic ones, 161, 162

Naming of dogs by children, 188
Narrowness of speech produces me-
taphor, 233
Nascent intelligence first apprehends

general characters, 156
Natural differences of talent, 224
genesis and human mind, 215

imperfection of our being ne-
cessitates language and ratiocina-
tion, 243

selections and adumbration of

higher natures, 21

sign-making, 126, 127

Nature and analysis of the verb, 252

, dynamic breaks in, 13

■ , foreshadowings in, 22

• , inner, revealed by its acts, 49

, its ultimate analysis shows vo-
lition, 235

not universally continuous, 10

■ of a sign, 7

Nature of abstraction, 64

of brutes and Catholicism, 32

of infants and savages judged

by analogy, 8

— - of man proved essentially dis-
tinct by ethics, 273

of psychical processes not altered

by becoming known, 125
Nature's instantaneous actions, 12

phenomena and will, 235

Natures and origins, parallelism of,
231

essentially different must differ

in origin, 5

, higher, superposed on lower,

21

may differ more than their

origins, 225

Necessary conditions and effects of

self^consciousness, 196

limit to evolution, 301

truths, our knowledge of, 29

Necessity of distinguishing between

direct and reflex cognition, 61, 62

of experience for imagination,

24, 61

of language and ratiocination,

due to our imperfection, 243

that direct should precede re*

flex thought, 183, 197, 203

that thought must precede ex*

pression, 254

Neglected children, 232

Negro and blackness, 226

, judgments about, 176

Neolithic man, 217

Nervous structure and faculty of Ian*
guage, 142

Nihil in intellcdu quod, etc., 280

volitum qtiin pracognitum, 107

Nineteenth Centiuy, article of Prof.
Max Miiller in, 117

No evidence against breaks in na-
ture, 300

experience of origins, 299

origin can be imagined, 299

true perception without con--

sciousness, 203

Noble, Dr., 2I9
Noire, M., 102, 107, 240, 291
Nominalism, 39, 97, 181, 183, 242,
256, 259, 277

and Max Miiller, loi

and realism, 39, 181, 183

, scholastic arguments against if,

. 39

Nominalist principles, 242, 256

Nominalists, 39, 97

;2o

INDEX,

Nominalists must admit they can
perceive general nature of words,

39
Non-necessity of enunciation of co-
pula, 222
Not-good-for-eating, idea of, 48
Not-suitable-for-nutrition, etc., ideas

of, 49
Nothing can be imagined which has
not been experienced, 27

can be said intelligently without

concepts, 205
Notions, 56, 59

, general, of plants, 49

implied in idea of an object, 45

Number, idea of, what it implies, 81,
91

Objectifying ideas, power of, 182

Objective concepts, 89

impossibility and rational brutes,

215

Objects, ideas of, not an amalgam, 45

, , what they imply, 45, 46

, inanimate, and savages, 211

named by children, 217

perceived, what the process is,

68
Obrecht, Martha, 166
Obstetric forceps, illustration from,

281
Obtaining help on the part of ani-
mals, 133
Occurrence once of an action makes

its recurrence probable, 27
Odium antitheologiciim^ 31
Officers' tales of monkeys, 134, 135
Offspring of gesture-language, 280
One-worded sentences, 207
Onomatopoeia, 161, 162, 239, 240, 277
Ontogeny and phylogeny, 263
Opening of oysters by monkeys, 292
Order of being inorganic and intellec-
tual might dispense with language
and reasoning, 243

of expression does not follow

thought, 256

of words in gesture-language, 143

Orderly world, 89

Organic and true inference distin-
guished, 63
■ Organization, inherited, and deaf-
mutes, 141
Origin, distinction as to, may be less
than as to nature, 225

Origin of consciousness inscrutable,
212

of intellect and expression

simultaneous, 236

of mathematical, musical, and

artistic faculties, 27

of speech, Darwin's hypothesis,

283, 288

, hypotheses of German

philologists, 283

, Mr. Romanes's hypo-
thesis, 286

of subjective knowledge, sup-
posed ejective, 21

Origins and natures, parallelism of,
231

cannot be imagined, 14, 26, 299

not experienced, 299

of things different in essential

nature may be different, 5

, unimaginable, 26

" Ot," as a proposition, 206, 263
Other people, idea of does not con-
stitute idea of self, 211

people's terms unreasonably

despised by us, 165

Our day, its besetting sin, 299

immortality knowable indepen-
dently of revelation, 24

imperfection necessitates lan-
guage and ratiocination, 243

knowledge of the feelings of

others, 22

— — lower mental power shared by
animals, 216

position, 5, 202, 242

Outward self-consciousness, 202, 203
Oysters ©ijened by monkeys, 292

Palseolithic man, 216, 217, 292
Pantomime as in ballets, 218, 260
Parable of the prodigal son, 144
Parallelism asserted between animals
and infants, 16

between speech and intellect,

230

of origins and natures, 231

Parrot and sight of coachman, bottle,
etc., 155, 161

calling dogs, 157, 159, 184, 278

up to its knees in dough, 133

Parrot's actions explained, 154, 161
Parrots imitating sounds, 155

said to extend meaning of

articulate signs, 157, 185

INDEX.

321

Particular ideas, 55, 59

images, some, analogous to uni-

versals, 44
Peeping ants, 131
Perceiving an object, what it is, 68
Perception involves consciousness,

203
Percepts and perception, 57, 59, 62,

68, 119, 186, 192
Person, third, use of, 246, 294
Petitio principii, 291
Phantasmata, 75, 90, 176, 224, 280

of a dog, 75, 90

Phenomena of nature and will, 235

pulverized no explanation, 285

Philology, comparative, 228

, witness of, 241

*' Philosophic Scholastique " of F.

Kleutgen, 57
Philosophy of a rustic, 239
Photographs, Galton ones, 44
Phraseology, Greek, Dayak, Chinese,

and Polynesian, 259
Phylogeny and ontogeny, 263
Physical energy lays foundation of

vital activity, 199
Physics, sensitivity, vitality, and

intellect, 199
Piano and cat, illustration from, 151
Picking up straws by chimpanzee, 81
Pictorial and written language, 121
Pig, the celebrated "Toby," 133
Pigs, imaginary, hunted after prayers,

78

Pithecoid men and Prof. Whitney,
285

Plants, Darwin's pleasure in exalting
them, 149
■, general ideas of, 49

, insectivorous ones, 22, 49

Platting variously expressed, 246

Pleasure of Indians at meeting deaf-
mutes, 138, 139

Pocket-book, 248

Poems of Richepin, 299

Pointing and speaking, 260

by apes, 82, 135

of dogs, 132

Poisoning the wells, 31

Polynesian languages, 258, 259

Polyonymy, no, 116

Polysynthesis, 262

Popular science, 30

Position of author, statement of, 5,
202, 242

of words may modify their value,

248

Possible existence real, 178

Possibly clearest intuitions of first

men, 231
Potential presence of intellect, 214,
222

rationality, 214, 222

Potentiality forms the most important

of biological distinctions, 222
Poverty of language occasions meta-
phor, 233, 234
Power, conceptual, and children,
mistake about, 190

of abstraction not in brutes, 42

of forming habits, 60

of objectifying ideas, 182

Powers of thinking and introspection

not identical, 182
, unimaginable, may be pos-
sessed by animals, 61
Preconcepts, 190
Preconceptual ideation, 217, 226

judgments, 192

Predication, virtual, 177
Predicative sign-making, 126, 127,

174

Prehistoric man, 33

Prehuman animals might have articu-
lated, 33

Prejudice, a, of Dr. Weismann, 10

Prejudices, 129, 130, 149, 253, 263,
298, 300

Preposterous tale about a cockatoo,

Presence of intellect potentially, 214,

222
Preyer, Prof., 204, 218
Priam and body-begging, 134
Primitive articulation, 147

man, 33

-= and his concepts, 234

and reason, 282

and the infant, 264, 265,

270

man's intelligence, 235

speech, 243, 276

terms with double meanings,

234

word-sentences, 242, 243

Principle of individuation, 73

of the screw and a monkey, 86

Principles, dynamical, 28

, immaterial, and Mr, Wallace, 27

Printer's ink, etc., illustration from,

96
Printing-press in the sky as a mental

image, 165
Prius est esse quant significari, 39
Probability of discontinuity and ter-
minal phase of evolution, 14
Y

322

INDEX.

^

Processes and states, mental, 35
Prodigal son, parable of, 144
Prof. Lankester and Darwinism, 4

Tyndall and things "mentally

visualized," 28

Veitch, 196

Whitney and language, 285

Profound dififerences may underlie

acts externally similar, 219
Progeny of Adam, 33
Progress from childhood to maturity,

223
, leap of, supposed to occur in

mental development, 209
Progressiveness of man, 18
Pronouns and adverbs, 245
Propositions all imply existence, 179
as implying existence, 177

expressed by monosyllables,

206, 207, 242, 243-245

, their meaning, 178

Protozoa, 22

Psychical principle, 73, 225

■ processes not altered by becom-
ing known, 125

Psychogenesis, 240

Psychological status of uneducated
deaf-mutes, 164

Pulverizing phenomena to explain
them, 285

Purposive, spontaneous manual lan-
guage, 143

** Quack-quack " as a term, 161, 239

Quatrefages, M., 201

Queen-bee laying eggs, 129

Question begged, 21

" Questiones Philosophicse " of F.

Maurus, S.J., 57
Questions answered by a cockatoo,

Quickest signs are articulate ones,

244
Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur, 14

R

kace transition, 282
*' Rain," as a sentence, 255
Rapidity of thought, 255
Ratiocination, 23

and language due to our imper-
fection, 243
not a comparison of ratios, 70

Rational and sensitive souls, 73

brutes and objective impossi-
bility, 215

cockatoo, as asserted, 136

dumb animals would invent a

gesture-language, 163

gestures, 121

Rationality of man, consequences of

maintaining it, 32
Realism and nominalism in conflict,

39

j fogs of, 104

Reality in ideal existence, 178
Really intentional acts, what they

are, 122
Reason and consciousness, 193

and divers tongues, 228

and language, 120

and primitive man, 282

and the infant, 214, 222

and the survival of the fittest,

112, 118

, not authority, appealed to, 39,

161, 294

not ratiocination, 70, 71

, true and traditional sense of the

word, 23, 24
Reasoning and language are necessary

to an inferior order of intellect

such as ours, 243

and reckoning, 109, 1 14

not in brutes, 42

Recepts, 52, 58, 59, 62, 66, 73, 88,

9i-93» 96, 97, "7, 124, 184, 199,

220, 227
are not degraded concepts, 117

distinguished as higher and

lower, 189

— , logic of, 38, 60, 88, 91-93,

200 j 20 1

named, 220

of water-fowl, 93

Receptual ideation, 217, 226

knowledge not true knowledge,

198

naming, 192,

self-consciousness, 203

Reckoning and reason, 109, 1 14

Recognition, 69

Recognitions of past perceptions, 163,

176, 182, 184, 227, 271
Reduction of terms, 272
Reflection in a deaf-mute, 223
Reflex action, 146

acts, not the only intellectual

ones, 125

and direct cognitions must be

distinguished, 61, 62

INDEX.

323

Reflex consciousness, 202
not indispensable for know-
ledge, 183, 197

influence of speech on gesture,

140

mental action, 197

thought must follow direct, 183,

197, 203

Relation between ideas and sensuous
affections, 94

, historical, of word and sen-
tence, 242

of intellect to religion, 26

of tone and gesture to words,

162

Religion and intellect, their relations,

26
Remarks, concluding ones, 295
Renaissance and nominalism, 39
Representation of evolution of man

from brute, 288
Requirements, as to body, of a

rational animal, 83
Retrogression in mankind, 230
Revelation not needed to teach us

our immortality, 24
Rev. S. Smith, and ignorant deaf-
mute, 164
Rhytina, 108, 1 13
Richepin, 299

Ripeness, abstract idea of, 142
Risu cognoscere matreni^ 138
Rites, funereal, of bees, 134
Romance languages and " is," 249
Romanes, Mr., and deaf-mute, 223

, , and his child, 217, 218,

224, 260
, , and tale about a cockatoo,

136 .

, , his hypothesis as to speech

origin, 286

, , his terra incognita^ 57

Roots of Sanskrit, 232, 233, 236
Rubicon of mind, 262, 301
Rude condition of early man, 33
Rustic, philosophy of, 239

St. Helena, flora of, 108, 113

Thomas Aquinas, 39. 57

Sally, the chimpanzee at the Zoological

Gardens, 80, 284
Salutation, material acts of, differ

formally, 219
Sandwith, Dr., 275
Sanskrit roots, 232, 233, 236

Sanskrit term '* As-mi," 251

Saturn, 266

Savages and figurative language, 234

and Herbert Spencer, 231

and inanimate objects, 211

and infants, their natures judged

by analogy, 8

and primitive man, 33

as sowing gunpowder and nails,

.85

, degraded, condition of, 231

, tales about untrustworthy, 274

Sayce, Prof., 246-248

Schelling, 242

Schemes of language and sign-mak-
ing, 126, 127

Scholastic arguments against nomi-
nalism, 39

Scholastics, 37, 57

Science as popular, 30

, denominational, 31

par excellence^ 29

shows us our immortality, 24

-, what it is, 28

Scientific imagination, 29

Scott, Dr., and idiotic children, 137

Scotus and nominalism, 39

Screw, principle of, discovered by a
monkey, 86

Secret desire to exalt animals, 149

Self, idea of, not made up of ideas of
other people, 211

, , not so gifted as supposed,

205

Self-consciousness, 37, 193, 194, 196,

197

, outward, 202, 203

, states of, 202

Self-evident truths and science, 29
Semiotic code of common humanity,

138

value said to be acquired, 283

Senception, 62, 88, 186, 192
Sencepts, 59, 62, 119, 192
Sensationalism, 299
Sense, traditional, of the

" reason," 23
Sense-perception, 96, 232
Sensitive and rational souls, 73
Sensitivity and mechanism, 1 1
. and non-sensitivity,

between, 10

and thought, 204

in exercise is not thought, 203

, intellect, chemistry, and physics,

199

must precede thought, 203

of plants, 1 1

wor<l

break

324

INDEX.

Sensori-motor action, 146
Sensuous affections and ideas, re-
lations between, 93

and intellectual elements exist

side by side in concepts, 271

attention, 209

cognitions, 192

craving, 279

universals, 44, 59, 227, 270

Sentence, conjunctive, expressed by
an alternative, 144

Sentence-words, 242, 244, 245, 258,
260, 261, 267, 268, 270, 277, 280,
287

Sentimental sign-making, 127

Sheep dread wolves generally, 158

Sheffield, meeting of British Associa-
tion at, 22

Shot monkeys, tales about, 133, 135

Sicard, Abbe, and deaf-mutes, 143

Sieve, illustration from, 67

Significance of attribute of existence,
177

Sign-making, accidental, 122, 127
, acquisitional, 123, 127

, associational, 127

' , connotative, 126, 174, 185,

186, 192
, conventional, 122, 126, 127

, denominative, 126, 174, 187

■ , denotative, 126, 174, 185, 192

, emotional, 126, 127

, explicit, 127

, imitational, 127

, implicit, 128

, impulsional, 127

, indicative, 173

, intellectual, 126, 127

, intentional, 126

, natural, 126, 127

or language, schemes of, 126,

127

, predicative, 126, 127, 174, 185

, sentimental, 127

, unintentional, 126

, without understanding, 122,

126
Signs, acquisitional ones, 123, 127
, arbitrary ones, invented by

children, 161
, articulate, are the quickest and

easiest ones, 244
— — , , said to be extended by

parrots, 157, 185

, emotional, 126, 127

. , gesture ones, of monkeys,

1337I35

• , indicative ones, 1 73

Signs, logic of, 71

, manual ones, 261

, their warp and woof, 273

, what they must be, 7, 65, 122

, written, 121

Simple ideas, 55

Simplest element of language, 243

of thought a judgment,

175, 2i>, 242, 254
Simultaneous existence and con-
tinuity, 12
Sin, besetting one of our day, 299
Sir John Lubbock and ants, 132

and his dogs, 133

W. Hamilton and signs, 92

W. Hoste and shot monkey, 134

Sleep-walkers, 63
Small balls in motion, 30
Smell of man dreaded by wolves, 76
Smith, Rev. S., and ignorant deaf-
mute, 164
Society islanders, 274, 275
wSocrates, illustration from, 180
Some particular images analogous to

universals, 44
Souls, sensitive and rational, 73
Sound of a clock, 238
Sounds imitated by parrots, 1555 ^^^
, irrational, articulate, and in-
articulate, 120
South Africa and children, 232
Spathic iron, dolomite, and crystals,

21
Speaking and pointing, 260
Speech and intellect generally
parallel, 230

and Max Mliller, 235

and primitive man, 33

, its effect on gesture, 140

, narrowness produces metaphor,

233

, primitive, 243

Speechless children may gesture in-
telligently, 138, 204

Spencer, Herbert, 39, 42, 70

Spider and house-fly, 87

Spiders, development of, 263

Spiritualization of walking, standing,
and eating, 251

Spoken and gesture-language, 280

language, its effect on gesture,

140

Spontaneity of the human intellect,

272
Spontaneous generation, 10

purposive manual expression,

143

Squirrel's cage, illustration from, 268

INDEX.

325

Stag doubling, 77
" Star" as a term, 185, 186, 269
State of early man, 33
Statement of author's position, 5
States and processes, mental, 35

of self-consciousness, 202

Stating a truth as true, 192
Status of uneducated deaf-mutes, 164
Steam-engine, illustration from, 96
Stretching to, is attention, 272
Structure, inherited, and deaf-mutes,

Subjective concepts, 89

knowledge, its supposed ejective

origin, 210
Substantive verb and idea of being,

249
Substantives and adjectives, 248
Sun, concept of, 69
Sun-dew, 49

Suffering, its manifestations, 23
Superiority of speech to gesture, 162
Superposition of higher natures on

lower, 21
Supposed leap of progress in mental

development, 209
origin of subjective knowledge,

ejective, 210
Supremely important distinction

consists in potentiality, 222
Surprise, abstract idea of, 142
Survival of the fittest, and reason,

108-112
Survivals in language, contradictory

opinions about, 262
Sweet's " Words, Logic, and Gram-
mar," 235, 254
Syllogism about an umbrella, 255
Synonyms, exuberance of, 274
Syntax of gesture-language, 142, 270
System, nervous, and faculty of

language, 142

Tail of dog and articulation, 152
"Tail," the term, 274
Taine, M., 53

Taking hats off, significance of, 219
Tale about a rational cockatoo, as
asserted, 136

told in gesture about apple-
tree, 140

told in gesture about melons,

139

Tales about savages, untrustworthy,

274 .

Tales about shot monkeys, 133-135
Talent, natural, differences in, 224
Talking birds, 154, 156, 160, 191,

278
Tasmanians, 275, 276
Telegraph-post, illustration from, 220
Tendency, innate, to articulate, 172
Terminal phase of evolution probably

discontinuous, 14
Terms "exist " and *' existence," 250,

251

for moon, 287

of others unreasonably despised,

165

■ , primitive, with double mean-
ings, 234

, their elevation and reduction,

272
Terra incognita of Mr. Romanes, 57
That is feeling, that is thought, 30
The imperfection of our nature
necessitates language and ratioci-
nation, 243
infant and reason, 214

quickest and easiest signs are

articulate ones, 244

scientific imagination, 29

" The shoe made the shoemaker," 144
The term "is" understood though

unexpressed, 180
" The-eating-of-me-the-rice," 258
Theory of M. Noire, 102, 107, 240

, Yeo-he-ho, 240

Thimble- rigging, intellectual, 92
Things mentally visualized, 28
Third person, use of, 246, 280, 294
Thirsty dogs running to hollows, 75
" This one " and "that one " as " I "

and "he," 245

as meaning " I," 21 1

Thomas Aquinas, 39, 57

Thought and flight, analogy between,

172
and sensitivity, 204

direct must precede reflex

thought, 183, 197, 203

, elements of, what they are not,

117

enthroned somewhere, as an

image of God, 166

, freedom of, 33

, its excess beyond speech leads.

to metaphor, 233

-, its rapidity, 255

, its simplest element, a judg-
ment, 175. 2I7» 242,254

must be preceded by sensilivity,

203

326

INDEX.

Thought must precede meant signs

and expressions, 254
, reflex, must follow direct

thought, 183, 197, 203
Thoughts not bound to follow the

order of expression, 256
Three-card trick, 147
Threlkeld, 274
Thunder, dog's fear of, 85
Thunder-clap, illustration from, 63
Tidal waves and dogs, 75
Time, expression by gesture of that

abstract idea, 145

, greatly drawn upon, 287

needed for man's development,

237
" To know," ambiguity of the term,

154
Toast, illustration from, 5
Toby the learned pig, 133
Tone and gesture, 137
Tongues, divers, and reason, 228
Traditional sense of the word

" reason," 23
Tramway, ants, and Mr. Belt, 76
Transition, asserted, in the race, 282

in the individual, 214

Traps and wolves, 76
*'Tree," the term, 276
Trellis- work in hives, 129
Triangle, illustration from, 43, 54, 128
Tribes, uncultured, and metaphor, 234
Tricks of the chimpanzee " Sally," 80
True and organic inference distin-
guished, 63
— — nature of abstraction, 64

sense of the word "reason," 23

universals, 44, 59

"Trumpeter," the term, 270
Truth, absolute, and mechanical
hypothesis, 30

stated as true, 192

Truths, absolute and necessary, 29
Tylor, Mr., and born mutes, 146
, , and language of gesture,

139
Tyndall, Prof., 28

U

Ultimate analysis of nature shows
volition, 235

Ultra-Nominalists and general nature
of words, 39

Umbrella, syllogism about, 255

Unconscious and intellectual cogni-
tion, 65

Uncultured tribes and metaphor, 234

*' Understand," ambiguous use of the
word, 151, 160

Understanding of deaf-mutes by
Indians, 139

of words by animals, 148

, signs made without, 65, 126

Uneducated deaf-mutes, their psy-
chological status, 164

Unimaginable nature of all origins, 26

Unintentional, accidental making
facts known, 192

sign-making, 126

Universal continuity in nature does
not exist, lo

truths, 29

Universalia sensiis, 57

Universals, 270, 271

, extent of, 271

, feelings analogous to, 57, 158

, sensuous, 44, 59, 227, 270

, and true ones, 44, 59

Unreasonable depreciation of terms
not ours, 165

Untrustworthiness of tales about
savages, 274

Urmenschen, 284

Use of first person not necessary for
consciousness, 204

of third person, 246

, traditional, of the term "rea-
son," 23

Using and making machines, 267

Utility of mechanical hypotheses, 29

of thought, 173

Utterance, voiceless, 138

V

Valid conclusion as to essential nature
of intellect, not to be drawn from
persons intellectually deficient, 164

Value of implication of existence, 177

of words modified by position,

248

, semiotic, said to be acquired,

283

Vase of flowers and ants, 131

Vegetative vitality and sensitivity,
199

Veitch, Prof., 196

Venus's looking-glass, 49

Verb-substantive, and Greek, Egyp-
tian, and Coptic, 253

, and idea of being, 249

, the, its nature and analysis,

252

INDEX.

327

Verbal expression not man's distinc-
tive character, 180

Verbs of action and rest, 254

Verbum mentale^ 98, 114, 163, 228,
241, 242

oris^ 1 14,

Very absurd tale about a cockatoo,

136

Views of Darwin as to man, 3

Virtual predication, 177

Vitality and motion, 21 1

, sensitivity, intellect, chemistry,

and physics, 199
Vocal gesticulation, 154, 156, 160, 184

tones, breaking of, 286

Voiceless mother-utterance, 138
Volition and phenomena of nature, 235
Volitions, actions, and primitive man,

234

W

Wagging of dog's tail and articulation,

152

Waitz, 242

Walking, spiritualization of, 251
Wallace and immaterial principles, 27
■ and sensitivity, 10

, Mr. A. R., and man, 3, 27

, the Professor, 195

Warp and woof of signs, 273

Wasp finding honey, illustration from,

128
Water-fowl, recepts of, 93
Watson's "Reasoning Power of

Animals," 148
Waves, marine currents, and dogs, 75
Weather-cock, illustration from, 1 58
Weismann, Dr. A., an avowed preju-
dice of, 10
What counting implies, 81, 91

man is, 226

really are signs, 7, 65, 122

the elements of thought are not,

117

they most desire to express is

first expressed by the deaf and
dumb, 143

Whitney, Prof., and pithecoid men,

285
Wide sense may be given to term

"idea," 41
Wilks, Dr., and associations of

feelings, 155
Will, and phenomena of nature, 235
Willingness expressed by belief, 258
Without understanding, signs so

made, 65, I26
Witness of philology, 241
Wolves dread man's smell, 76

in general dreaded by sheep, 158

Wonderfully foolish tale about a

cockatoo, 136
Word "understand," ambiguous use

of, 151
Words as sentences, 242, 243, 245, 280

expressive of actions, 233

for moon, 287

, how understood by animals,

148, 160
" Words, Logic, and Grammar " of

Sweet, 235
Words may become parts of speech by

position, 248

, monosyllabic, 207

, order of in gesture-language,

*43 . ,.
, their general nature nominalists

must admit they can perceive, 39
World, orderly, 89
Wright, Mr. Chauncey, 209
Written and pictorial language, 121

signs, 121

Wundt, 199, 203, 212

Yeo-he-ho theory, 240

Zara tribe of Kurds, 275

Zero level of intellect, 1 5

Zola, 279

Zoological Gardens, ape at, 80, 284

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