CHAP. XI.] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CAT. 381 



an animal or plant beyond the sensible qualities of its material com- 

 ponent parts. But neither is the function of an organ to be de- 

 tected save in and by the actions of such organ, and yet we do not 

 deny it its function or consider that function to be a mere blending 

 and mixture of the properties of the tissues which compose it. 

 Similarly it would seem to be unreasonable to deny the existence of 

 a living principle of individuation because we can neither see nor 

 feel it, but only infer it. This power or polar force, which is im- 

 manent in each living body, or rather which is that body living, is 

 of course unimaginable by us, since we cannot by imagination 

 transcend experience, and since we have no experience of this force, 

 save as a body living and acting in definite ways. 



§ 13. It may be objected that its existence cannot be verified. 

 But what is verification ? We often hear of " verification by sensa- 

 tion," and yet even in such verification the ultimate appeal is not 

 really to the senses, but to the intellect, whicli may doubt and which 

 criticises and judges the actions and suggestions of the senses and 

 imagination. Though no knowledge is possible for us which is not 

 genetically traceable to sensation, yet the ground of all our de- 

 veloped knowledge is not sensational, but intellectual, and its final 

 justification depends, and must depend, not on "feelings," but on 

 *' thoughts." " Certainty " does not exist at all in feelings any more 

 than doubt. Both belong to thought only. " Feelings " are but the 

 materials of certainty, and though we can be perfectly certain about 

 our feehngs, that certainty belongs to thought and to thought only. 

 " Thought," therefore, is our absolute criterion. It is by self- 

 conscious thought only that we know we have any feelings at all. 

 Without thought, indeed, we might feel, but we could not know 

 that we felt or know ourselves as feeling. If then we have rational 

 grounds for recognizing the existence of 'this " soul" — and its exist- 

 ence is made known to us by its acts, and is verified by our reason — 

 then, the poverty of our powers of imagination should be no bar to 

 its recognition. We are continually employing terms and con- 

 ceptions — such, e.g., as "being," " substance," " cause," &c. — which 

 are intelligible to the intellect (since they can be discussed), though 

 they transcend the powers of the imagination to picture. 



On all sides things made known to us by sense (sensibles), serve to 

 elicit conceptions of things which can be apprehended by the intellect 

 (intelligibles), but can never be themselves directly perceived by the 

 senses. As they cannot be so perceived, they can never be imagined, 

 but can only be symbolically expressed by words or other signs. 

 Such signs must always be inadequate to express what they are 

 intended to symbolise, because we can use no signs which are not 

 transcripts of sense, while what they are intended to symbolise, 

 is, as we have seen, beyond sense. Such symbols, therefore, are 

 necessarily open to the cavils of any one who professes not to have 

 the ideas they serve to express, and who asks for sense-impressions 

 absolutely equivalent to such ideas ; since none such can there be. 

 But no objection can hence be drawn against the conception of the 



