INT ROD UCTOR V. 23 



he goes on to observe that animals are capable of no 

 small degree of ratwdnatwn, "if we use the term 

 Reason in its true, as distinguished from its tradi- 

 tional sense." Here by the word "traditional" Mr. 

 Romanes refers only to views which are not traditional, 

 but modern, and which would limit the use of the term 



pronounces " feeble," and adds, "It seems sufficient to ask, in the 

 first place, whether language is not action ; and, in the next, 

 whether, as expressive of sufferings articulate speech is regarded 

 by us as more ' eloquent ' than inarticulate cries and gestures ? " 

 Cries and gestures may, and ordinarily do, denote suffering ; but 

 they may occur without it — as during operations under an anaes- 

 thetic. However eloquent they may be, they may be ambiguous 

 in a way which conscious verbal declarations cannot be. More- 

 over, the question did not refer to " suffering " only, but to feelings 

 generally ; and it is simply nonsense to say that the feelings we 

 make known by speech, we make known by actions, because all 

 articulations are actions. Breathing and deglutition are made up 

 of action as much as speech, but they are respectively actions of 

 diverse and definite kinds, and it is absurd to Confound them with 

 emotional and intellectual gestures, and articulate and inarticulate 

 sounds, under the one indefinite name, " actions." We know quite 

 certainly that men and animals feel, but we are enabled to attain, 

 by conversation, to a knowledge about the feelings of our fellow-men 

 which we can never attain to concerning those of animals or even 

 of infants. It is common enough to hear expressions of regret that 

 a child is too young to be able to describe its feelings, and so 

 guide the judgment and action of a medical man. But Professor 

 Huxley is an ardent admirer of Descartes ; we may then cite, as 

 an argumentum ad hotninem, the following contradiction of the 

 Professor's assertion by Descartes himself : " II n'y a aucune de 

 nos actions extdrieures qui puisse assurer ceux qui les examinent 

 que notre corps n'est pas seulement une machine qui a remu^, de 

 soi meme, mais qu'il y a aussi en lui une ame qui a des pens^es, 

 except^ les paroles, ou autres signes faits k propos de sujets, qui 

 se prdsentent, sans se rapporter k aucune passion " (" (Euvres de 

 Descartes," par Victor Cousin, vol. ix. p. 724 ; cited by Professor 

 Max Miiller in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889, P- 4oSj 

 note 5). 



