A Limit to Evolution . 305 



whatever sort of idea it may happen to be. Moreover, the 

 very intensity of the action of sensation (as with a very 

 dazzhng Hght or deafening sound) may make sense-^Qv- 

 ception impossible ; but no amount of intensity of action of 

 perception, no amount of vividness in ideas will mar in- 

 tellectul perception. 



No efforts of imagination can ever exceed sensuous 

 experience, but it is quite otherwise with ideas. We can not 

 only conceive, but we know perfectly well, both our power 

 and our act of sight. Yet that act itself was never seen and 

 cannot be imagined. 



Feelings become associated according to their order of 

 experience or contiguity. But ideas may become associated 

 together according to the rational relations — the logical 

 dependence of one upon another. 



Diiferent objects affect our feelings in different ways, so 

 that we have groups of feelings corresponding with different 

 classes of objects. But we have no feelings of kinds or 

 classes, as such. On the other hand, ideas of kinds or 

 classes, as such, are amongst our elementary intellectual acts 



The significance of our idea of ' being ' has already been 

 pointed out, but ideas have also essential relations to ' unity ' 

 and ' truth ' ; while it is almost unnecessary to say no such 

 relations exist as regards feelings. 



As to unity, it is evident that in our typical judgment 

 ' that is an oak,' our idea ' oak ' refers to one kind o 

 existence. A number of pieces of wood, iron, and canvas, 

 looking like an oak, but not a unity, would not respond to 

 our idea. As to truth, if what we take to be an oak were but 

 an optical illusion produced by cleverly arranged glasses, 

 that would not respond to our idea, nor would our judgment 

 be what we thus evidently imply it to be — namely, true. 



Such, then, is the fundamental difference of kind between 

 feelings and ideas — between our lower and our higher facul- 



VOL. II. U 



