REASON AND THE INFANT, 215 



it could only be developed into active manifestation in 

 the remote descendants of any existing brute — descend- 

 ants which should be submitted to a series of influences 

 and conditions more or less similar to those which 

 evolved it in the earliest intellectual ancestors of man. 

 This would be the old scholastic distinction between in 

 potentia ad actum and in potentia ad esse. Our position 

 is that intellect is really in esse in the infant, though 

 it is but in potentia ad actum, while in the brute we 

 deny that there are grounds for asserting it to be poten- 

 tially present in either sense of the term " in potential 

 We would not venture dogmatically to affirm that God 

 cannot have given to brutes a truly intellectual nature ; 

 but there is no evidence that they do possess it — even 

 the highest of them in their adult condition. All evi- 

 dence, as far as it goes, is also against the possibility 

 of such a thing having been brought about even by 

 Omnipotence, since it would seem to involve an ob- 

 jective contradiction.* 



Mr. Romanes's view is a very different one. He 

 says at the outset f of this chapter, " Is it conceivable 

 that the human mind can have arisen by way of a 

 natural genesis from the minds of the higher quad- 

 rumana ? I maintain that the material now before us 

 is sufficient to show, not only that this is conceivable, 

 but inevitable." 



It would be enough, then, to refute Mr. Romanes, 

 to show, not that his conclusions are false, but merely 

 that they are not necessary ones-^that the facts are 



* See " On Truth," pp. 385, 468. 

 t p. 213. 



