2i6 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



susceptible of another interpretation. We hope to do 

 more than this. 



Mr. Romanes begins his task by reiterating what no 

 one dreams of denying, namely, that we share with 

 animals our lower mental powers, and that differences 

 between various conditions of the human intellect are 

 but dififerences of degree. "The only question, then, 

 that obtains is," he tells us, " as to the relation between 

 the highest recept of a brute and the lowest concept 

 of a man." 



He then proceeds to recall to his reader's recollec- 

 tion his preceding exaggeration about the counting 

 crow and the ape which discovered the " mechanical 

 principle " of the screw,* statements which we have 

 already criticized. f These "intelligent" animals he 

 compares with the picture his imagination draws of 

 palaeolithic man, who, he tells us, % for " untold thou- 



* Mr. Romanes says (p. 214), "Even here there is nothing to 

 show that the monkey ever thought about the principle as a 

 principle ; indeed, we may rest well assured that he cannot 

 possibly have done so, seeing that he was not in possession of the 

 intellectual instruments — and, therefore, of the antecedent con- 

 ditions — requisite for the purpose. All that the monkey did was 

 to perceive receptually certain analogies : but he did not conceive 

 them, or constitute them objects of thought as analogies. He was, 

 therefore, unable \.o predicate the discovery he had made, or to set 

 before his own mind as knowledge the knowledge which he had 

 gained." We quote this passage in our desire to do full justice to 

 Mr. Romanes ; but when we recollect that he denies conceptual 

 power to any being which cannot speak of itself in the first person, 

 his admission as to the limited powers of the monkey becomes 

 valueless. Moreover, at p. 60, he has said (referring to this very 

 same ape) that the " logic of recepts " is " able to reach generic 

 ideas o{ principles^ as well as of objects, qualities, and actions.'* 



t See above, pp. 79, 86. % p. 214. 



