152 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



structure, a sufficient supply of healthy, nutritious blood, 

 and life itself. But neither in life, nor healthy blood, 

 nor an unimpaired nervous system, nor sensitivity, and 

 consentient apprehension, is ''given" the "condition to 

 the attainment of conceptual ideation," unless an intel- 

 lectual nature is already present. Elephants, dogs, and 

 monkeys do not " demonstrably share with the human 

 infant" its powers of apprehension. For it is impos- 

 sible to " demonstrate " that the infant has not already 

 that intellectual nature, the presence of which soon 

 becomes undeniable. Neither can any one " demon- 

 strate " that the infant's merely receptual powers are not 

 modified by the latent presence of a truly intellectual 

 nature. Mr. Romanes tells us that the power of "under- 

 standing words " to the extent that dogs, elephants, and 

 apes understand them, " brings us to the very borders 

 of the faculty of using words with an intelligent appre- 

 ciation of their meaning." But this is quite a mistake. 

 Words, apart from their intellectual employment, are 

 merely bodily movements of parts accessory to respira- 

 tion, accompanied by sound. There is, then, no a priori 

 reason why a dog, were it physically capable of articu- 

 lation,* should not use words to denote its " feelings," 

 instead of wagging or stiffening its tail as the case 

 may be. Did it so articulate, the careless observer 

 would be very apt to interpret its words as declarations 

 of facts, instead of being (as on the hypothesis they 

 would be) nothing but signs of feelings. Mr. Romanes 

 himself says,t " If these animals were able to articulate, 



* And it is by no means absolutely certain it is not so capable, 

 t pp. 127, 128. 



