REASON AND THE INFANT. 221 



ance, but as regards their real nature they may be 

 fundamentally contrasted. 



Mr. Romanes goes on * to consider that stage in the 

 life of a child which he regards as anterior to the forma- 

 tion of true mental concepts, though a stage superior 

 to the highest of those which mere animals can attain 

 to. " Let us," he says, " consider the case of a child 

 about two years old, who is able to frame such a proposi- 

 tion as Dit ki (Sister is crying)." This he affirms to be 

 no truly intellectual act, but merely the bringing " into 

 apposition'" of two recepts (perceptions of its senses) 

 which it has experienced simultaneously. 



"The apposition in consciousness of these two 

 recepts," he tells us, " is effected for the child by what 

 may be termed the logic of events : it is not effected 

 by the child in the way of any intentional or self- 

 conscious grouping of its ideas." 



Now, of course, Mr. Romanes does not here mean 

 to deny that the child reflects on its mental act. Even 

 adults very rarely do that. Such a denial, then, would 

 be too absurdly superfluous. All he can mean to deny 

 of the child, then, must be that direct, ordinary con- 

 sciousness which attends all our everyday actions. 

 Such a denial is, however, quite unwarranted. In 

 saying Dit ki, the child gives expression (as we before 

 said) to a true judgment. It is a judgment composed 

 of two named concepts and an implied copula affirming 

 through one concept, " ki," the existence of an action 

 performed by an object, to which the other concept, 

 *' Dit," relates. 



* p. 227. 



