THE MIND OF FISHES. 47 



Not so, should one of the captives return to his 

 companions. By some means he makes his experiences 

 known, and the others, without any positive knowledge 

 of their own, realise the importance of his abstract infor- 

 mation, and disappear from the scene. We require for 

 the communication of oju' ideas a grammatical language ; 

 the fish communicates intelligence without the aid of 

 language. Clearly the phenomenon indicates some process 

 which, for want of more accurate knowledge, we may 

 provisionally say is included in the domain of mind, but 

 which appears to lie outside our powers. 



It is difficult, if not impossible, to define that which is 

 simply different from anything which we have experienced. 

 We are also predisposed to estimate all powers by our 

 own powers, and to deny the possibility of anything 

 which does not appear to be mentally comprehensible by 

 us. But philosophers are now earnestly inculcating the 

 doctrine that we must assume that much which appears 

 irrational, is not necessarily opposed to reason, but merely 

 transcends the axioms which at present constitute our 

 reason. We are actually conscious of ideas which seem 

 to represent undeniable realities, and which yet involve 

 an impossible contradiction, and are in fact unthinkable. 

 Our mental organization cannot realise space as having 

 an end, because we immediately ask what is beyond 

 the end .'' On the other hand we cannot realise the 

 notion of space without an end ; we talk about it, but 

 it has no real meaning to us. The mathematicians find 

 that they have to deal with what they are obliged to call 

 " imaginaries." Commenting on the apparently contra- 



