50 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



of their mere apposition in consciousness. If I am crossing 

 a street and hear behind me a sudden shout, I do not require 

 to wait in order to predicate to myself that there is probably 

 a hansom cab just about to run me down : a cry of this kind, 

 and in those circumstances, is so intimately associated in my 

 mind with its purpose, that the idea which it arouses need 

 not rise above the level of a recept ; and the adaptive move- 

 ments on my part which that idea immediately prompts, are 

 performed without any intelligent reflection. Yet, on the 

 other hand, they are neither reflex actions nor instinctive 

 actions : they are what may be termed receptual actions, or 

 actions depending on recepts. 



This, of course, is an exceedingly simple illustration, and 

 I have used it in order to make the further remark that actions 

 depending on recepts, although they often thus lie near to 

 reflex actions, are by no means bound to do so. On the 

 contrary, as we shall immediately find, actions depending on 

 recepts are often so highly " intelligent," that in our own case 

 it is impossible to draw the line between them and actions 

 depending on concepts. That is to say, in our own case there 

 is a large border-land where introspection is unable to deter- 

 mine whether adjustive action is due to recepts or to concepts ; 

 and hence it is only in the case of animals that we can be 

 certain as to the limits of intelligent adjustment which are 

 possible under the operation of recepts alone. The question 

 therefore, now arises, — How far can this process of spontane- 

 ous or unintentional comparing, sifting, and combining go 

 without the intentional co-operation of the conscious agent ? 

 To what level of ideation can recepts attain without the aid of 

 concepts ? We have seen in the last chapter that animals 

 display generic or receptual ideas of Good-for-eating, Xot- 

 good-for-eating, &c. ; and we know that in our own case we 

 " instinctively " avoid placing our hands in a flame, without 

 requiring to formulate any proposition upon the properties of 

 flame. How far, then, can this kind of unnamed or non-con- 

 ceptional ideation extend ? Or, in other words, how far can 

 mind travel without the vehicle of LanGTuajje ? For the 



