MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 67 



over and treating incompletely a matter which is of the 

 very essence of Mr. Romanes's whole contention. 



As to his mode of procedure, he observes,* " First 

 of all I will show, by means of illustrations, the highest 

 levels of ideation that are attained within the domain 

 of recepts ; and, in order to do this, I will adduce my 

 evidence from animals alone, seeing that here there can 

 be no suspicion — as there might be in the case of in- 

 fants — that the logic of recepts is assisted by any 

 nascent growth of concepts." 



Before, however, applying himself to this task, he 

 discusses his own expression, " logic of recepts." 



He tells us,t in the first place, that " all mental pro- 

 cesses of an adaptive kind are, in their last resort, 

 processes of classification ; they consist in discriminating 

 between differences and resemblances." 



Now, in this sentence much confusion of thought is 

 indicated. In the first place, the word " discriminating " 

 is used ambiguously, as— neglecting the distinction we 

 have above indicated \ as No. (8) — it is applied to both 

 " formal " and " material " discrimination ; and yet these 

 acts are of a radically different kind. A mere sieve 

 materially " discriminates " between coal-dust and cinders 

 of a certain size ! It is also false to say that " all 

 mental processes of an adaptive kind " " consist " in 

 either a material or a formal discrimination ; although, 

 of course, like all other mental acts, they are accom- 

 panied by something of a discriminating nature. To 

 know that any object {y) possesses any quality {x\ 

 implies that x is discriminated from the group of 

 * p. 46. t p. 46. % See above, p. 64. 



