MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 85 



be the cause of the opening from the uniform deception 

 practised by its parent — or of the savage who plants 

 nails and gunpowder to make them grow ? " We say 

 it is something very different indeed, as is shown by the 

 other circumstances respectively attending the action of 

 the cat on the one hand and those of the child and the 

 savage * on the other. Some plants move about their 

 tendrils to find a suitable point of support, and a blind 

 man may move about his hands to find suitable support ; 

 but the two actions, though materially similar, are very 

 different formally. It is a recognized logical fallacy to 

 conclude because two things are alike in some accidental 

 circumstance, they are alike altogether or essentially. 

 Mr. Romanes further relates to usf some of his own 

 experience of a dog afraid of thunder, in connection 

 with apples shot down on the floor of an apple-room.. 

 ** My dog," he says, " became terror-stricken at the 

 sound ; but as soon as I brought him to the apple- 

 room and showed him the true cause of the noise, he 

 became again buoyant and cheerful as usual." 



This is a curious example of reading into an animal 

 what the observer expected to find. There is not the 

 slightest reason to suppose that the dog in this instance 

 even receptually} apprehended causation, or felt any 

 relationship between the noise which had previously 

 frightened him and his feelings in the apple-room when 

 taken there. What could there be to frighten him in 



♦ We confess to some incredulity as to the asserted planting of 

 nails and gunpowder by savages. 



t p. 60. 



X As to the mere feeling of causation, as distinguished from its 

 perception, see "On Truth," pp. 48, 195, 220. 



