REASON AND LANGUAGE. 153 



they would employ simple words to express simple ideas. 

 I do not say, nor do I think, that they would form pro- 

 positions ; but it seems to me little less than certain 

 that they would use articulate sounds, as they now use 

 tones or gestures. . . . For instance, it would involve the 

 exercise of no higher psychical faculty to say the word 

 * Come,' than it does to pull at a dress or a coat . . , 

 or to utter the word * Open,' instead of mewing before 

 a closed door ; or, yet again, to utter the word * Bone,' 

 than to select and carry a card with the word written 

 upon it." 



With a protest against the employment here of the 

 term "idea," we can express our entire and cordial 

 agreement* with this passage. Words so used need 

 have no meanings beyond those expressed by the various 

 movements which animals do make. 



Mr. Romanes next proceeds to relate certain anec- 

 dotes about articulating birds, and make certain reflec- 

 tions there anent. We have already seen f how easy is 

 Mr. Romanes's credulity on this subject ; and we should 

 bear this credulity in mind, in every attempt to estimate 

 justly the value of his deductions. 



* See "On Truth," p. 352, where we have already pointed out 

 these considerations. 



t See above, p. 136. At p. 130 he also tells us, in a note : " I 

 have received numerous letters detailing facts from which I gather 

 that parrots often use comical phrases when they desire to excite 

 laughter, pitiable phrases when they desire to excite compassion, 

 and so on ; although it does not follow from this that the birds 

 understand the meanings of those phrases, further than that they 

 are as a whole appropriate to excite the feelings which it is desired 

 to excite." Such phenomena he also believes himself to have 

 observed. 



