THE COMPOSITION OF MIND 



ism only in size, so the objection which we are 

 now considering involves the hypothesis that the 

 earliest cognitions of an infant are like those of 

 an adult in point of definiteness, the only differ- 

 ence being in the quantity of them. The latter 

 hypothesis is as contrary as the former to the 

 Doctrine of Evolution, and it is quite as de- 

 cidedly negatived by the observation of facts. 

 For let us observe what is implied by the ac- 

 quiring of a definite cognition by an infant. If 

 the foregoing analysis be taken as correct, it is 

 obvious that when any object, as an orange, is 

 first presented to the mind of an infant, it can- 

 not be perceived or identified as an orange. Be- 

 fore this intellectual feat can be achieved, there 

 must go on for some time that complicated 

 grouping of visual, tactual, and gustatory sen- 

 sations above described. In accordance with the 

 established theory of vision, we must admit 

 that, when the orange is held before the child's 

 eye, the only sensation aroused is that of a red- 

 dish-yellow colour, which cannot even be per- 

 ceived to be round until after it has been asso- 

 ciated with sundry tactual sensations. But this 

 is not all. Not even the sensation of a reddish- 

 yellow colour can acquire definite shape in con- 

 sciousness, until sensations of blue, or red, or 

 green, or white colour have been aroused, with 

 which it can be contrasted, and until a subse- 

 quent like sensation of reddish-yellow colour 



VOL. Ill 177 



