REASON AND THE INFANT. 227 



constitute it such. It is also true that what we have 

 learned with many an effort, may come afterwards to 

 be done automatically, and it is lucky indeed for us 

 that such is the case.* Were it not so, our time and 

 labour would be incessantly occupied with the lowest 

 stages of mental growth. Fortunately for us, after 

 acquiring habitual images of objects, we acquire habitual 

 recognitions of past mental acts, and so on, and thus the 

 intellect is left free for higher activity, as we become 

 able to do automatically, that which at first could only 

 be done with much effort and great attention. 



Here Mr. Romanes's psychological examination 

 " comes to an end." f We think he has conspicuously 

 failed to show that intellectual action (conceptual, 

 pre-conceptual, or higher receptual) is "but a higher 

 development" of the language of brutes. A fortiori^ 

 then, has he failed to show that such a development is, 

 as he has said, % " inevitable." But he has also failed to 

 put before us any rational system of psychology, be- 

 cause he does not address himself to the real problem, 

 having mistaken the true indication of self-conscious- 

 ness. He has also failed because he does not distinguish 

 between direct and reflex consciousness ; because he 

 attributes to brutes " ideas," and deems that perceptions 

 generate recepts [!] (sensuous universals) — instead of 

 being themselves intellectual acts of an intelligence 

 which, with the aid of sense-impressions, perceives the 

 actual presence of objects conceptually apprehended. 

 He fails also, finally, because he ever greatly exagge- 

 rates the psychical faculties of brutes. 



* See " On Truth," pp. 363, 364. t p. 237. % p. 213. 



