So ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



called percepts ; the general or abstract ideas are 

 called concepts ; but there is no co-ordinate name 

 for the middle class. Here Mr. Romanes is in the 

 difficulty which Professor Clifford was in when he 

 boldly borrowed the word 'eject' as a tertium quid 

 between subject and object. Mr. Romanes follows 

 his lead, and invents the term Recept : 



" In addition to the terms ' Percept ' and ' Concept,' I coin 

 the word Recept. This is a term which seems exactly to 

 meet the requirements of the case. For as perception means 

 a taking wholly, and conception a taking together, reception 

 means a taking again. Consequently, a recept is that which 

 is taken again, or a re-cognition of things previously cog- 

 nized? 



Of this classification Mr. Romanes, in his sum- 

 mary, says 



" It is a classification over which no dispute is likely to 

 arise, seeing that it merely sets in some kind of systematic 

 order a body of observable facts with regard to which 

 writers of every school are nowadays in substantial agree- 

 ment." 



Now, a scientific man, as long as he keeps to the 

 firm ground of experience, is worthy of all honour. 

 No one doubts the truth of experience. But when 

 he offers us a rationale of experience which makes 

 all experience impossible, and from the logical 

 results of which he is only saved by his strong 

 common sense, we may be allowed to express our 

 dissent. Mr. Romanes can only make all psycho- 

 logists agree with him by adopting what Locke 

 calls "the short cut to infallibility," and saying 



