CHAPTER XIV 



THE CONCEPT 



i. IF the conclusions reached in the preceding chapters 

 are sound, the highest animals have as much capacity for 

 dealing with the practical exigencies of their surroundings 

 as can be attained by an intelligence limited in its scope to 

 the concrete and the practical. Intelligence as we conceive 

 it in this stage is capable of forming what we have called 

 Practical Judgments. Its Impulses are transformed into 

 Desires by consciousness of their objects, and are regu- 

 lated in action by the perceived relation of means to end. 

 Its experience is no longer of the dim, semi-conscious kind 

 which slowly remodels impulse by inhibiting one tendency 

 and augmenting another. It is an explicit experience of 

 concrete objects with their attributes, and of events in 

 their relations. There is no reason for denying it a certain 

 memory of the past, and there is strong ground for grant- 

 ing it anticipation of the future. In short, at this stage 

 intelligence grasps events in concrete series so far as they 

 are relevant to immediate practical interests. 



To understand the next stage of mental evolution, we 

 must inquire in what ascertainable way such an intelligence 

 falls short of ordinary human achievement. We may 

 suitably attack this problem by inquiring first, what pre- 

 cisely the use of language adds to the practical intelligence 

 which we have described. An intelligent dog or ape can, 

 if the evidence which we have quoted is sound, use ex- 

 perience intelligently, and even plan an adjustment of 

 means to ends with a certain measure of inventiveness. 



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