REASON. 325 



being consciously recognized as an act of mind separate or 

 distinct from the perception. The difference consists in sub- 

 sequent reflection being able to show that the act of inference 

 was distinct from the act of perception, and must hare been, 

 separated from it by a short interval of time ; the inference 

 did not, as in the previous cases, constitute an integral part 

 of the perception. 



The next stage which we are able to distinguish in the 

 faculty of inference is, I think, that of the conscious com- 

 parison of objects, qualities, or relations. Here we arrive at 

 ratiocination strictly so called ; but still not necessarily at 

 self-conscious thought. At this stage we make what Mr. 

 Mivart calls "practical inferences ;" that is to say, we com- 

 pare one group of ratios with another, but without thinking 

 of them as ratios. Thus, for instance, if I meet a cut-throat 

 looking man upon a lonely road in Ireland, I may begin con- 

 sciously to determine the probabilities whether he is one of a 

 " brotherhood," and if so whether he is waiting for me ; but 

 I cast the matter over in my mind while we are approaching 

 one another, without waiting to think about my thoughts. If 

 I do wait to think about them, I know that I have been 

 carrying on a process of reasoning ; but I have equally carried 

 on that process whether or not I ever think about it after- 

 wards as a process. 



The last or highest stage of reasoning is attained when 

 the process admits of being consciously recognized as a pro- 

 cess, or itself becomes an object of knowledge. This is the 

 Stage at which it first becomes possible intentionally to 

 abstract qualities or relations for the purposes of inference. 

 Here, therefore, it first becomes possible to use symbols of 

 ideas instead of the actual ideas themselves, and so it is here 

 that the " Logic of Signs " first emerges from the " Logic of 

 Feelings." In my next work 1 shall have a great deal to say 

 touching this final stage; but as it only occurs in Man, I have 

 in thing more to say about it at present. 



Turning now to animals, it is evident that they must 



■ lit the first, or, as we may call it, the perceptive stage of 

 inference ; for otherwise their whole mechanism of perception 

 would need to be supposed different from our own, But there 

 is only one respect in which this mechanism can be shown 

 to be different, and this consists in the fact already mentioned 

 in former chapters — viz., that newly-hatched birds and 



