General Sense Images and the Power of Abstraction. 87 



that the first cause of the world and of its harmony must 

 be intelligent. Otherwise the adaptability of these laws 

 and their constant direction to a certain end could not 

 be sufficiently accounted for. 1 Yet, nobody will con- 

 clude, that atoms, crystals, and plants possess intelli- 

 gence. Nor is it in any way different with the material 

 conclusions (material reasoning) of sensitive cognition 

 in animals. They only furnish a proof of the intelli- 

 gence of a Supreme Being who has suitably created the 

 sensitive nature of animals, and a proof of the intelli- 

 gence of man who is able to resolve these material into 

 formal conclusions, and thereby to make out and de- 

 cipher, as it were, the Creator's ideas which He has 

 embodied in His creatures. They are no proof whatso- 

 ever of the intelligence of animals. 



This discussion will have made it plain that an 

 essential and profound difference decidedly exists be- 

 tween material and formal conclusions, a difference 

 which modern animal psychology tries in vain to narrow 

 down or to cover up. The faculty of formal reasoning 

 in man is the foundation of his whole mental activity; 

 it soars beyond the mean level of sensitive cognition in 

 animals; upon it rests the gift of speech, the mental 

 evolution of individuals, the cultural development of 

 nations, the possibility of science. Such a difference 

 cannot rightly be styled unessential and merely exterior. 



There still remains the third point of Emery's ob- 

 jection: the so-called general sense images and general 

 concepts of animal and human cognition. They are 



*) See the beautiful passages of S. Thorn., 1, 2, q. 13, a. 2 ad 3; 

 q. 40, a. 3; "Summa c. Gentiles," 1, 3, c. 24 (quodlibet opus naturae 

 est opws substantiae intelligentis). 



