52 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON 



reflection, and this again "on Language, or on the power 

 of affixing names to abstract and general ideas." 



To this we reply, (i) that abstraction does not 

 depend on reflection, but takes place in us spontaneously 

 without it, and (2) that abstraction does not depend on 

 language, but also takes place without it. 



As to our first reply, we would point out that 

 animals have a sensitive faculty which, when stimulated 

 by the presence of external objects, can associate 

 together in groups and groups of groups, the sensations 

 such external objects excite, and can combine them 

 with revived past feelings of similar kinds, thus forming 

 "sensuous perceptions."* On the occurrence of similar 

 but slightly varied experiences, this faculty can give rise 

 to those compound impressions which we have termed 

 "sensuous universals," f and which Mr. Romanes (as we 

 shall see) calls " Recepts, or generic ideas." 



All these affections we men (inasmuch as we are 

 animals, though rational ones) also possess ; but we 

 have a further faculty which brutes, we are convinced, 

 have not. Upon the occurrence in us of such sensuous 

 perceptions as have just been referred to, we have the 

 faculty of generating — spontaneously and directly, 

 without reflection — true, intellectual, abstract, general 

 ideas. These ideas also may be elicited, continue to exist, 

 and be communicated, without words. For, as we shall 

 see abundantly, later on, they may exist in deaf-mutes, and 

 can be conveyed from mind to mind by manual signs. 

 Each man, however, consists of both an immaterial 

 energy (one form of which is intellect) and an animal 



* See " On Truth," p. 188. f See above, pp. 44, 45. 



