REASON AND THE INFANT. 223 



ment as well as in it. If they did not so exist, i.e, if 

 the child did not consciously perceive both his sister 

 and her crying condition, the statement would be mere 

 meaningless babble. But, of course, the child does not 

 advert to such psychical facts, and recognize what it 

 says with reflex consciousness. 



Mr. Romanes then attempts * to prove that there is 

 no distinction of kind between what he calls precon- 

 ceptual acts and true mental conception. But this is, of 

 course, an utterly vain attempt, because every one who 

 understands the position of Mr. Romanes's opponents 

 knows that they affirm not only what he calls "precon- 

 ception," but also what he calls " higher reception," to 

 be truly conceptual. He distinguishes " ideation which 

 is capable " of itself becoming an object of thought, from 

 "ideation which is not" so capable — that which is denoted 

 by speech being supposed by him to be alone so capable. 

 But why cannot a statement made in gesture by a dumb 

 man be thought of by him as being a statement ? Mr. 

 Romanes has himself declared that a deaf-mute had told 

 him that he always thought by means of mental images 

 of hand and feature movements, and therefore that deaf 

 mutes must have thought of his statements as state- 

 ments, i.e. must have reflected about them. 



Finally, he deals with two supplementary considera- 

 tions : (A) the first concerns f the great progress which 

 can be made between childhood and maturity, and he 

 concludes I that "self-consciousness marks a com- 

 paratively low level in the evolution of the human 

 mind." To show this he cites the case of his little girl 

 * p. 230. t p- 232. X p. 233. 



