92 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



instance of that "intellectual thimble-rigging" which 

 all men of the sensist school, from Hume downwards, 

 must perform in order to make the innocent on- 

 looker think he has found the pea of " intellect " under 

 the thimble of " sense." We dwell on it the more be- 

 cause the sincerity and honesty which are conspicuous 

 amongst the other merits of Mr. Romanes, show how he 

 himself has been deceived and is all unconscious of the 

 ways of some of his masters. It is none the less true 

 that he is completely justified in affirming,* with Sir W. 

 Hamilton, that signs of some kind are needed " to give 

 stability to our intellectual progress," that "words 

 are fortresses of thought," and that "thought and 

 language act and react upon one another.f Not, 

 however, that we can for a moment admit that any 

 change in mere verbal expressions, which are not the 

 result of a modification of thought, can improve the 

 latter. It is thought alone which can really improve 

 language, though verbal modifications acting with it and 

 produced by it may greatly aid it and hasten intel- 

 lectual progress. 



Mr. Romanes begins the real substance of his fourth 

 chapter as follows : \ " From what I have already said, 

 it may be gathered that the simplest concepts are 

 merely the names of recepts." This we altogether deny. 

 In the very simplest concepts, the ideas, " existence," 

 "kind" or "nature," " reality," " possibility " and "impossi- 



* p. 73. 



t Here we may ask at once, by anticipation, " If thought is 

 thus admitted to be able to improve language, why should it be 

 thought unable to originate it ? " 



X p- n- 



