92 Chapter V. 



is the primary and peculiar object of the sense of sight, 

 whereas extension is only one of its secondary objects, 

 for the perfect perception of which it needs the assist- 

 ance of another sense, namely, that of touch. 1 This 

 is also the reason, why in one and the same act of 

 the imagination the element of color can be clearly 

 reproduced, whilst that of extension is expressed in an 

 indistinct and obscure manner. 



Therefore, we may state that a sensitive power of 

 abstraction does not exist; for there are no "general" 

 but only "individual and concrete sense images',' in, which 

 individual features come out more or less distinctly, 

 and, consequently, produce a greater or less individual 

 similarity. In accordance with the laws of sensitive 

 associations, this similarity arouses in the huntsman, 

 when the hare rises, that exciting pleasure he takes in 

 his sport, the first source of which, even in man, is the 

 sensile and not the spiritual appetite. On the analogy 

 which exists between this sensitive element in the 

 psychic activities of man and of animals, we must base 

 our judgment of their psychic life. Whatever tran- 

 scends this sensitive element is found only in man, and 

 not in the animal. 



And what is it that transcends this sensitive ele- 

 ment? It is the general concepts and conclusions of 

 the intellect. The activity of the intellect is not merely 

 confined to sense perceptions and sensile phantasms; it 

 does not merely connect them one with the other ac- 

 cording to the laws of instinctive association of repre- 

 sentations, it goes much further: it compares the dif- 



1 ) For this reason scholastic philosophy called color a sensibile 

 proprium, and extension a sensibile commune, 



