REASON AND THE INFANT, 217 



sands of years made no advance upon the chipping of 

 flints." We would by no means be understood as 

 denying- the truth of this assertion,* but we regard it as 

 one made somewhat too hastily. We have not yet met 

 with evidence sufficiently decisive as to so prolonged a 

 residence of palaeolithic man in one region, nor do we 

 see why palaeolithic and neolithic man may not have 

 existed simultaneously in different regions, just as 

 " bronze " men and " iron " men, or even " bronze " men 

 and "gunpowder" men did, ages afterwards. 



After some pleasantry concerning our supposed 

 " slovenly error " (elsewhere called " inexcusable ") about 

 " the simplest element of thought," f and after recapitu- 

 lating assertions about animal language, Mr. Romanes 

 proceeds to address himself to what he declares is, in his 

 apprehension, " the central core of the question," and to 

 give additional instances of what he calls " receptual 

 and preconceptual ideation " on the part of infants. 

 He tells us { a daughter of his, aged eighteen months, 

 gave the proper baby names to sheep, cows, pigs, etc., 

 whether seen in unfamiliar picture-books, or on wall- 

 papers or chair-covers in strange houses. In doing this 

 we consider her to have made deliberate conscious 

 affirmations concerning things whereof she had formed 

 true concepts. Somewhat later, having called first her 

 brother and then other children " Ilda," " whenever she 



* See above, p. ^2)- 



t The assertion that " an explicit judgment " was " the simplest 

 element of thought " would have been much worse than " slovenly," 

 had it ever been made. We have already explained ourselves 

 upon this point. See above, p. 175, and below, p. 242. 



X p. 218. See also above, p. 206. 



