198 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



move through the higher and more tenuous medium 

 of introspective thought." We object to the above 

 expression, "standing as signs of outward objects." 

 We admit the existence in animals of groups and groups 

 of groups of imaginations, and that they have a material 

 relation to the objects which produced them and may 

 result in exciting various results ; but we deny that any 

 animal ever recognizes any objects in the same sense 

 as children do, therefore we would keep clear of the 

 suspicious word, " sign " — particularly suspicious as used 

 by Mr. Romanes, who has never defined the meaning 

 he gives to that term. 



He next proceeds to observe* that "the founda- 

 tions of self-consciousness are largely laid in the fact 

 that an organism is one connected whole. . . . Hence 

 a brute, like a young child, has learnt to distinguish 

 its own members, and likewise its whole body from 

 all other objects." Here we must explain : It has, 

 of course, feelings of activity and passivity, self and 

 not-self,t but need not on that account have a scintilla 

 of consciousness. Similarly it may, by a loose analogy, 

 be said to " know how to avoid sources of pain " and 

 to " seek those of pleasure." But Mr. Romanes himself 

 says, " Such knowledge and such experience all belong 

 to the receptual order," and this order, as we have 

 several times pointed out, is no case of true knowledge. 

 He continues,t " But this does not hinder that they play 

 a most important part in laying the foundations of a 

 consciousness of individuality." Of course not! All 

 sensation " plays a most important part in laying the 

 * p. 197. t See " On Truth,^' p. 190. % p. 197. 



