44 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



concepts, a distinct operation of active comparison is involved," 

 I should have been assuming that there is only a difference 

 of degree between a recept and a concept : designating both 

 by the same term, and therefore implying that they differ only 

 in their level of abstraction, I should have assumed that what 

 he calls the " passive process of assimilation," whereby an 

 infant or an animal recognizes an individual man as belonging 

 to a class, is really the same kind of psychological process as 

 that which is involved " in the case of more abstract concepts," 

 where the individual man is designated by a proper name, while 

 the class to which he belongs is designated by a common name. 

 Similarly, if I had said, with Thomas Brown, that in the process 

 of generalization there is, " in the first place, the perception 

 of two or more objects [percept] ; in the second place, the 

 feeling of their resemblance [recept] ; and, lastly, the expres- 

 sion of this common relative feeling by a name, afterwards 

 used as a general name [concept] ; " — if I had spoken thus, 

 I should have virtually begged the question as to the universal 

 continuity of ideation, both in brutes and men. Of course 

 this is the conclusion towards which I am w^orking ; but my 

 endeavour in doing so is to proceed in the proof step by step, 

 without anywhere prejudging my case. These passages, 

 therefore, I have quoted merely because they recognize more 

 clearly than others which I have happened to meet with what 

 I conceive to be the true psychological classification of ideas ; 

 and although, with the exception of that quoted from Mill, 

 no one of the passages shows that its writer had before his 

 mind the case of animal intelligence — or perceived the 

 immense importance of his statements in relation to the 

 question which we have to consider, — this only renders of more 

 value their independent testimony to the soundness of my 

 classification.* 



* Steinthal and Lazarus, however, in dealing with the problem touching the 

 origin of speech, present in an adumbrated fashion this doctrine of receptual 

 ideation with special reference to animals. For instance, Lazarus says, " Es gibt 

 in der gewohnlichen Erfahrung kein so einfaches Ding von einfacher Beschafifen- 

 heit, dass wir es durch eine Sinnesempfindung wahrnehmen konnten ; erst aus 

 der Sammlung seiner Eigenschaften, d. h. erst aus der Verbindung der mehreren 



