LOGIC OF RECEPTS. 67 



by railway. The engine, with its hissing sound and smoke, 

 and the great noise of the train, struck his attention, and the 

 first word he learned to pronounce was Fcfer (chcmin de fer). 

 Then afterwards, a steam-boat, a coffee-pot with spirit lamp— 

 everything that hissed or smoked was a Fefer.* 



Now, I have quoted such familiar instances from this 

 author because he adduces them as proof of the statement 

 that "here there appears a delicacy of impression which is 

 special to man." Without waiting to inquire whether this 

 statement is justified by the evidence adduced, or even 

 whether the infant has personally distinguished his father 

 from among other men at the time when he first calls all men 

 by the same name ; it is enough for my present purposes to 

 observe the single fact, that when a child is first able to show 

 us the nature of its ideation by means of speech, it furnishes 

 us with ample evidence that this ideation is what I have 

 termed generic. The dress, the beard, and the voice go to 

 form a recept to which all men are perceived to correspond : 

 the most striking peculiarities of a locomotive are vividly 

 impressed upon the memory, so that when anything resembling 

 them is met with elsewhere, it is receptually classified as be- 

 longing to an object of analogous character. Only much later, 

 when the analytic powers of perception have greatly developed, 

 does the child begin to draw its distinctions with sufficient 

 "refinement" to perceive that this classification is too crude — 

 that the resemblances which most struck its infant imagina- 

 tion were but accidental, and that they have to be disregarded 

 in favour of less striking resemblances which were originally 

 altogether unnoticed. But although the process of classifi- 

 cation is thus perpetually undergoing improvement with 

 advancing intelligence, from the very first it has been classi- 

 fication — although, of course, thus far only within the region of 

 sensuous perception. And similarly with regard to animals, 

 it is sufficiently evident from such facts as those already 

 instanced, that the imagery on which their adaptive action 

 depends is in large measure generic. 



• Taine, On Intelligence., pp. 16, 17, 



