2i8 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



exposures of the overland journey (10). This act 

 of the bivalve is probably the result of something 

 like a vague form of reason. It is an act adapted 

 to the accomplishment of a definite end, and the 

 adapting power is acquired from experience. It 

 is, moreover, reason which in its final analysis 

 does not differ from the reason displayed by the 

 wisest being that thinks. Judgment, forethought, 

 common-sense, inference, ingenuity, genius, reason, 

 and abstract thought, are all exercises of the 

 cognitive or perceptive power of mind, and consist, 

 all of them, in nothing more nor less than the dis- 

 cerning of relations among stimuli. The dog who 

 adopts a cut-off in order to intercept a fleeing hare 

 performs exactly the same kind of intellectual 

 process as the mechanic who erects a windmill in 

 order to divert the energies of the breeze, or the 

 politician who adopts a particular platform to 

 catch votes. ' A perception is always in its 

 essential nature what logicians term a conclusion, 

 whether it has reference to the simplest memory 

 of the past sensation or to the highest product of 

 abstract thought. For, when the highest product 

 of abstract thought is analysed, the ultimate 

 elements must always be found to consist in 

 material given directly by the senses; and every 

 stage in the symbolic construction of ideas, in 

 which the process of abstraction consists, depends 

 on acts of perception taking place in the lower 

 stages' (i). The difference among the perceptive 

 acts of different individuals consists, not in the 

 different kinds of intellectual exercise, but in 



