512 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



or action; it does not extend tlie sign to any other similar objects, 

 qualities, or actions of the same class ; and therefore by its use of 

 that sign does not really connote anything of the particular object, 

 quality, or action which it denotes. Next in order (c) follow con- 

 notative signs which involve the " classificatory attribution of 

 qualities to objects." This attribution of qualities may be effected 

 either by a receptual or a properly conceptual mode of ideation. 

 For example, a i^arrot had come to use a barking sound when a 

 particular dog appeared on the scene. This sign was afterward 

 extended to other dogs, showing that there was a certain recog- 

 nition of the common qualities or attributes of the dog. Simi- 

 larly when the writer's own child, among its first words, used the 

 term star for all brightly shining objects. Here again there was 

 perception of likeness, but no setting the term before its mind as 

 an object of thought. Lastly (d), we have the denominative sign 

 which means a connotative sign consciously bestowed as such 

 with a full conceptual appreciation of its office and purpose as 

 a name. 



In this scheme Dr. Romanes evidently recognizes the point 

 we are now dealing with, viz., the implication of a true thought- 

 process in the proper use of a name. He seems to be trying to 

 dispense with this as long as possible, with the view of securing a 

 number of intermediate stepping-stones. Can he be said to have 

 succeeded ? Does this hierarchy of signs with its parallel scale of 

 ideation carry us up to logical thought ? Is it even intelligible ? 

 Let us briefly examine it. 



To begin with, it staggers one not a little to find that long 

 before the " classificatory attribution of qualities " is possible, the 

 animal somehow manages to mark " particular qualities," what- 

 ever these may mean. How, one asks, can a sign be appended to 

 a quality without becoming a " connotative sign " — that is, attrib- 

 uting a quality to a thing ? But let us pass to the really im- 

 portant point, viz., the alleged power of the animal, e. g., the talk- 

 ing bird, to extend a sign to different members of a class, and so 

 to attribute common qualities or resemblances to these, while it is 

 unable to form a concept in the full sense. This extension, we 

 are told, takes place in the case of the sign-using bird by receptual 

 ideation. And here the critic may as well confess himself fairly 

 beaten. On the one hand, Dr. Romanes tells us that such a named 

 recept is a concept (lower concept), and, moreover, that the sign 

 employed is a connotative sign ; on the other hand, he hastens to 

 assure us that it is not a name, and therefore presumably not a 

 concept, in the rigorous or perfect sense, since the sign is not con- 

 sciously employed as a sign. Here we seem to have a stepping- 

 stone which it is impossible to define, a sort of tertium quid be- 

 tween the image and the concept which is at once neither and 



