242 JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY 
dreads the fire’’; and we see the same instinct in Prof. 
Mobius’s pike. It is impossible to doubt that the instinct 
is fundamentally the same in all,—fishes, dogs, children, 
and men. 
But this, in animals and young children, is only what Mill 
calls reasoning from particulars to particulars. Indeed, this 
pike, although he happened to be right as to fact, was almost 
ludicrously narrow in its generalization, when he ventured 
to eat those individuals among his companions which were 
not associated in his memory with a blow on the head. A 
dog ora child would probably have generalized more widely 
and more rapidly. But although in such a case as this 
there is reasoning, and a first step in generalization, it is all 
done without self-consciousness. There is consciousness of 
the objects of perception, perhaps we may say of the objects 
of thought, but not of thought itself; and the “ universal 
major premise” of the uniformity of nature guides action 
without itself coming into consciousness. Reasoning, self- 
consciousness, and language arise with the power of con- 
sciously forming general propositions; and these powers 
appear to be the characteristically human ones. This is Mill’s 
account of the origin of the reasoning faculty, and, as a 
mere description of fact, it seems perfectly sound. It occurs 
in his Logic, and logic requires only a description of the 
reasoning process ; but the Science of Thought should at least 
attempt to give an account of its genesis. But Prof. Max 
Miiller does not attempt this; indeed, by dismissing all 
questions of animal psychology almost as soon as he has begun 
his work, he has virtually refused to make any such attempt. 
He begins by distinguishing four stages in the evolution 
of thought,—namely, Sensations, Percepts, Concepts,* and 
Names; but he says that these four, though distinguishable 
in thought, are inseparable in fact. It must be observed 
that by sensations he means perceived or recognised sensa- 
tions only, though he admits the existence of what by some 
are called unperceived sensations, but by him only impres- 
sions.t But even with this limitation, it surely cannot 
be sustained that these four stages in thinking are inse- 
parable from each other. It is quite true that there can be 
no names without concepts, nor concepts without percepts, 
nor percepts without sensations. But there are sensations 
* Percepts and concepts are distinguished from perception and conception 
as the product of the process from the process ‘itself ; ¢. g., as thought from 
thinking. 
+ Science of Thought, p. 3. 
