i86 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON, 



defend Mr. Romanes's infant from its parent's unjust 

 depreciation. The child did not, of course, think of the 

 term " as a term," or set " the term before the mind as 

 an object of thought ; " that would be a highly complex 

 reflex act. But it distinctly perceived (by a direct 

 mental act) that there was a similarity of brightness, 

 and so formed at once its concept, " bright things," of 

 which concept. Star was the oral expression. It con- 

 sciously made this (though not with reflex consciousness), 

 and so its perception differed toto ccelo from the mere 

 senception and materially felt likeness which caused 

 the parrot to give forth, as the result of its plexus of 

 similar feelings, the dog's name again. To say, with 

 Mr. Romanes, that the parrot's utterance takes place 

 because " another thing is seen " to resemble a preceding 

 one, is ambiguous. That it is seen with the parrot's 

 corporeal eyes, and impresses its consentience, is, of 

 course, true ; but we have no reason to suppose that 

 because it is seen and felt, it is also perceived. There- 

 fore, instead of " precisely resembling " the act of the 

 child, the act of the parrot is something fundamentally 

 different from it. 



He continues, " Connotation, then, begins in the 

 purely receptual sphere of ideation." 



Now, by "connotation," as we have seen, Mr. Romanes 

 means,* attributing " qualities to objects by means of 

 a name," and this, he says, may be receptual or con- 

 ceptual. But the parrot cannot be said to "attribute 



lights, etc. Here there was plainly a perception of likeness or 

 analogy." 

 * p. 162. 



