CEUP. XI.] 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CAT. 



371 



12. A power of agglutinating and combining imaginations and 



sense -perceptions in clusters, and clusters of clusters, so forming 

 more and more complex imaginations sensuous association. 



13. A power of memory. 



14. A power of so reviving complex imaginations, upon the 



occurrence of sensations and images, as to draw practical 

 consequences organic inference. 



15. Powers leading to spontaneous impulsions in different direc- 



tions through internal or external stimuli appetites. 



16. Powers of pleasurable or painful excitement on the occurrence 



of sense-perceptions with imaginations emotions. 



17. A power of expressing feelings by sounds or gestures, which 



may affect other individuals emotional language. 



18. A power of spontaneous activity in response to sensations or 



emotions organic volition. 



3. In the possession of all these varied powers, we and the cat 

 are similar. But in spite of this resemblance, common sense and 

 reason assure us that there is a profound difference between the 

 mind of man and the highest psychical powers of the cat. This 

 difference is made plain and obvious to our senses by the fact that 

 we can talk, while neither the cat nor any other beast or bird has 

 the gift of SPEECH. 



It may, perhaps, be objected that it was just before declared that 

 the cat has language. Now, no mistake can well be greater than 

 that of confounding together two things essentially different on 

 account of some superficial resemblance which may exist between 

 them : to call bats, birds, or whales, fishes, would be error of this 

 kind. 



The cat has a language of sounds and gestures to express its feel- 

 ings and emotions. So have we. But we have further, what 

 neither the cat nor any other beast or bird has a language of 

 sounds and gestures to express our THOUGHTS ! I do not refer to 

 articulate sounds. Rational language can exist without oral speech, 

 and articulate sounds may be uttered (as by parrots and certain 

 idiots) though reason be absent. Articulate speech (or the oral 

 word) is but one mode (though much the most convenient mode) of 

 making known the far more important and significant thought (or 

 mental icord). It is the latter which generates the former, as we 

 sec again and again in each new branch of science or art, wherein 

 new conceptions having been evolved, new words are coined to give 

 expression to them. Men do not invent new articulate sounds first, 

 and attach meanings to them afterwards, but the very reverse.* 



* Dr. Bastian, in the work lately 

 referred to, has a short chapter entitled, 

 "From Brute to Human Intelligence," 

 in which he considers the question of 

 language, with the intention of showing 

 that there is only a difference of degree 

 between the mind of man and that of a 

 brute. But he not only quite fails to 



show how the human intellect could 

 have originated, but even gives up his 

 own contention by speaking (p. 415) of 

 human language as having been " started 

 by some hidden and unknown process of 

 natural development, or as a still more 

 occult God-sent gift to man." 



B B 2 



