226 EVOLUTION AND M4N S PLACE IN NATURE 



our sensibility. The sensation in our consciousness 

 consequent on the sensory impression, does not cause 

 the conception of the thing. Nor is the conception a 

 faint reproduction of this sensation. Such revival of 

 sensory impression may well occur in the brain on 

 every occasion when we think of the object; but our 

 idea or conception of a thing is made up by ourselves, 

 by combination in a single representation of many 

 qualities, recognised by us as belonging to the object. 

 Often our idea is at fault, and it is rectified, as the 

 result of wider observation ; but the detection of each 

 fault, and its correction, belong altogether to more 

 careful observation and thinking. Thus the idea 

 cannot be a fainter repetition of sensory impression. 

 It presents an example, quite a simple one, of our 

 exercise of Intelligence in the processes of observa 

 tion, comparison, and constructive representation, the 

 result of which we are able to image or reproduce 

 at any time. 



Hence an idea is not a copy of any single object ; 

 conversely, what it is, is not represented by any single 

 object ; in order to be true to the variety in Nature, it 

 could not be so represented. Thus, the rational 

 power originates its own ideas, is strictly the cause 

 of their appearance, and nothing lower than rational 

 power, including within this, comparison and induction, 

 could give us the ideas which are the familial- 

 possessions of our consciousness. Two things clearly 

 follow : animal intelligence is of a lower type than 

 human ; and evolution of the higher from the lower is 

 not supported by any evidence at command. When 

 the functions of the two orders are placed in contrast, 

 the result is adverse to the claims of the theory of 



