844 Dynamic Theory. 



system. Reason, in the ordinary sense, is merely one aspect of this 

 nervous action, as instinct is another aspect. In the wider sense, all 

 the cerebral processes above mere sensory impressions and reflex ac- 

 tions, are reasoning processes. There is no physiological dividing line 

 between perception, ideation, instinct, invention, prediction, &c. , but 

 these may all be included under the head of reason. All the processes 

 which lead to volitions, and which excite the emotions, are essentially 

 reasoning processes. All those in which new incoming stimulations are 

 automatically shunted upon the tracks traversed by similar stimulations 

 which assailed the brain in former times, are reasoning processes. This 

 particular aspect of them is called perception, and it involves the auto- 

 matic comparison, in some particular, of the new stimulus with one or 

 more old ones. It needs no proof that perception is automatic. If a 

 savage is brought into the city, and for the first time hears the sound of 

 a bell, he does not know what it is. Let him see the swinging of the 

 bell, and hear its peal at the same time, and the association of the two 

 as objective realities, will cause in his brain a differentiation of two cells 

 or organs sustaining to each other a relationship corresponding to the 

 sight and sound of the bell. If he hears the bell again to-morrow, 

 there is an automatic comparison of the sound with that heard before, 

 and the perception is completed that it is the sound of the bell. Now 

 this, although automatic and unavoidable, is as true reasoning as the 

 most complicated examples we could name. Our brain having become 

 differentiated to the various sounds of bells, musical instruments, steam 

 whistles, voices, and cries of men or beasts, the click of telegraphs, 

 and the ticking of clocks, by this process of reasoning we are able to 

 identify any one of them. We instantly say, "There goes the bell," 

 "I hear Smith's voice," "I hear the clock strike," &c. The perception 

 involved in the expression " I hear the clock strike," includes the asso- 

 ciation of a new sensation with a revived memory, hence a comparison 

 followed by identification, and a sense of the relation of cause and ef- 

 fect. We have, therefore, in this simple perception the elements of sev- 

 eral departments of reason, some of them the highest, and yet such 

 reason is exercised hourly by every robin and every mouse. 



All reasoning includes a perception of the relationships of things. 

 Perception is usually a comparison of a memory more or less old, with 

 one arising from a sensation just now experienced ; although sometimes 

 the term is used to express a new comparison of memories both of which 

 are old. In any case perception is based upon memory, and therefore 

 reasoning is based upon memory. No animal can possess reasoning 

 powers, if it be destitute of internal sense organs, or memory organs. 

 And, on the other hand, it is equall}' certain that any animal possessed 

 of memory is endowed with reasoning faculties. The possession of one 



