188 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



parrot would be different in kind from that of another parrot ; 

 and the child's intelligence at one age would differ in kind 

 from the intelligence of that same child when a week or two 

 older — both of which statements would be manifestly absurd. 

 The truth can only be that up to the point where the intelli- 

 gence of the child surpasses that of the bird they are both in 

 the receptual stage of sign-making ; and that the only reason 

 why the child does surpass the bird is not, in the first 

 instance, because the child there suddenly attains the power 

 of conceptual ideation, but because it gradually attains a 

 higher level of receptual ideation. This admits of direct 

 proof from the fact that animals more intelligent than parrots 

 are unquestionably able to recognize sculptured and even 

 pictorial representations : hence there can be no doubt that 

 if talking birds had attained a similar level of intelligence — 

 or if the other and more intelligent animals had been able, 

 like the talking birds, to use denotative signs, — the child 

 would not have parted company with the brute at quite so 

 early a stage of receptual nomenclature.* 



• Touching the power of recognizing pictorial representations among animals, 

 this unquestionably occurs in dogs (see Animal Intelligence, pp. 455, 456), and there 

 is some evidence to show that it is likewise displayed by monkeys. For Isidore 

 Geoffroy St. Hilaire relates of a species of Midas {Coriniis) that it distinguished 

 between different objects depicted on an engraving ; and Audouin "showed it the 

 portraits of a cat and a wasp, at which it became much terrified : whereas, at 

 the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or a beetle, it precipitated itself on the 

 picture, as if to seize the objects there represented" (Bates, Nat. on Amaz., p. 60). 

 The age at which a young child first learns to recognize pictorial resemblances no 

 doubt varies in individual cases. I have not met with any evidence on this 

 subject in the writings of other observers of infant psychology. The earliest age at 

 which I observed any display of this faculty in my own children was at eight months, 

 when my son stared long and fixedly at my own portrait in a manner which left no 

 doubt on my mind that he recognized it as resembling the face of a man. More- 

 over, always after that day when asked in that room, "Where's papa ? " he used at 

 once to look up and point at the portrait. Another child of my own, which had not 

 seen this portrait till she was sixteen months old, immediately recognized it at first 

 sight, as was proved by her pointing to it and calling it "Papa." Two months 

 later I observed that she also recognized pictorial resemblances of animals, and 

 for many months afterwards her chief amusement consisted in looking through 

 picture-books for the purpose of pointing out the animals or persons depicted — ■ 

 calling "Ba-a-a" to the sheep, "Moo" to the cows, grunting for the pigs, &c., 

 these sundry sounds having been taught her as names by the nurse. She never 



