MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 39 



But we make our appeal to the reason and common 

 sense of our readers alone, and deliberately put aside all 

 authorities of whatsoever kind.* We decline not only 



* Mr. Romanes rather strangely asserts (p. 22) that " Realism 

 was gradually vanquished by Nominalism." The fact is that 

 during the period of their struggles, Nominalism twice raised its 

 head and was twice defeated, and at the time when, with the 

 Renaissance, all scholastic disputes went out of fashion, moderate 

 Realism had conquered all along the line. All the followers of 

 Thomas Aquinas, and all the followers of his critic Scotus, were 

 opposed to Nominahsm, and they prevailed. In fact, Nominalism 

 never got the upper hand, never had any standing, in the schools. 

 Of course, with the neglect of Philosophy which accompanied the 

 rise of Cartesianism, Nominalism (with almost every other 

 exploded error) once more raised its head. This was not wonder- 

 ful, seeing that its founder, Descartes, never understood, never 

 even studied, the Aristotelian system, which, having gone out of 

 fashion, was soon simply thrust aside and neglected by the 

 Cartesians and by their contemporaries and followers here and 

 on the continent, from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, etc., to Hegel, 

 Spencer, and Cousin. Nominalism was argued down, and argued 

 off the field. It never argued its way back, but simply reappeared, 

 as a noxious weed may reappear in a field left uncultivated, or 

 cultivated according to mistaken methods. Some of the arguments 

 used against Nominalism were as follows : (i) Had not the 

 intellect universal ideas, common nouns would be meaningless, 

 whereas consciousness tells us we have a meaning in using them 

 beyond denoting an individual or a collection of individuals, and 

 more than a mere material sound ; for a common noun in an 

 unknown foreign language has no meaning for us. (2) There is 

 no sign which does not signify something ; pruts est esse qiiam 

 significari; and unless we had in the mind something distinct from 

 the individual, the collection, and the material sound, no such sign 

 would ever have existed. We have no signs for the absolutely 

 unknown — e.g.^ for classes of animals in the planet Mars — and 

 mental perception must precede the use of signs, which would also 

 be useless unless their connection with what they signify was 

 understood. (3) The most ultra-Nominalists must admit that they 

 possess . the faculty of perceiving the general nature of certain 

 entities — namely, of certain words. Were the human mind incap- 

 able of perceiving the universal, this would be impossible. But 



