MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 97 



relatively concrete and sensuous expression, "fingers- 

 parallel," be unable also to denote the abstract idea 

 " equality " ? 



Mr. Romanes admits * that a concept may cease to 

 bear any easily perceptible likeness to what he calls 

 " its parentage," " owing to the elaboration it subse- 

 quently undergoes in the region of Symbolism." f 



After reiterating statements of his view (already 

 criticised by us) as to the relations of concepts to 

 recepts, and as to \vhat he deems the necessity of an 

 intentional mental act in order to form a concept, he 

 makes X the somewhat startling assertion : " So far as 

 my analysis has hitherto gone, I do not anticipate 

 criticism or dissent from any psychologist, to what- 

 ever school he may belong " ! What is above all re- 

 tnarkable in this sentence is the demonstration it 

 gives that Mr. Romanes, in spite of the pains he has 

 taken to read and reply to what his opponents have 

 written, has so utterly failed to apprehend the most 

 essential point of their whole contention. If we were 

 Nominalists ; if we were disciples of Locke ; if we did 

 not, in unison with the whole Aristotelian school, give 

 to the word " idea " a fundamentally different meaning 

 from what Mr. Romanes gives it ; if we did not assert 

 an essential difference of kind between recepts and con- 

 cepts ; and if we did not affirm that reasoning consists 

 in drawing inferences, not in the detection of ratios — 



* p. 77- 



t " The region of Symbolism " is an odd name for the active 

 intellect of man ! 

 t p. 80 



H 



