362 REPORT— 1879. 



It may, I believe, be affirmed that no animal but man bas yet been sbown to 

 exhibit true concerted action, or to express by external signs distinct intellectual 

 conceptions — processes of whicb all men are normally capable. But just as some 

 plants simulate the sense-perception, voluntary motions and instincts of animals, 

 without there being a real identity between the activities thus superficially similar, 

 so there may well be in animals actions simulating the intellectual apprehensions, 

 ratiocinations, and volitions of man without there being any necessary identity 

 between the activities so superficially alike. More than this, it is certain a p?-iori 

 that there must be such resemblance, since our organisation is similar to that of 

 animals, and since sensations are at least indispensable antecedents to the exercise 

 of our intellectual activity. 



I have no wish to ignore the marvellous powers of animals or the resemblance 

 of their actions to those of man. No one can reasonably deny that many of them 

 bave feelings, emotions and sense-perceptions similar to our own ; that they exercise 

 voluntary motion and perform actions grouped in complex ways for definite ends ; 

 that they to a certain extent learn by experience, and can combine perceptions and 

 reminiscences so as to draw practical inferences, directly apprehending objects 

 standing in different relations one to another, so that, in a sense, they may be said 

 to apprehend relations. They will show hesitation, ending apparently, after a con- 

 flict of desires, with what looks like choice or volition, and such animals as the dog 

 will not only exhibit the most marvellous fidelity and affection, but will also mani- 

 fest evident signs of shame, which may seem the outcome and indication of incipient 

 moral perceptions. It is no great wonder, then, that so many persons, little given 

 to patient and careful introspection, should fail to perceive any radical distinctions 

 between a nature thus gifted, and the intellectual nature of man. 



But, unless I am greatly mistaken, the question can never be answered by our 

 observations of animals, unless we bear in mind the distinctions between our own 

 higher and lower faculties. 



Now I cannot here even attempt to put before you what I believe to be the 

 true view of our own intellectual processes. Still I may, perhaps, be permitted to 

 make one or two passing observations. 



Everybody knows bis own vivid feelings (or sensations), and those faint revivals 

 of feelings, simple or complex, distinct or confused, whicb are imaginations and 

 emotions ; but the same cannot be said as to thought. Careful introspection 

 will, however, I think, convince anyone that a ' thought ' is a thing widely different 

 from an ' imagination ' — or revival of a cluster of faint feelings. The simplest element 

 of thought seems to me to be a ' judgment,' with an intuition of reality concerning 

 some 'fact,' regarded as a fact real or ideal. Moreover, this judgment is not 

 itself a modified imagination, because the imaginations whicb may give occasion 

 to it persist unmodified in the mind side by side with the judgment they have called 

 up. Let us take, as examples, the judgments ' That tbing is good to eat,' and 

 ' Nothing can be and not be at the same time and in the same sense.' As to th& 

 former, we vaguely imagine ' things good to eat,' but they exist beside the judgment, 

 not in it. They can be recalled, compared, and seen to co-exist. So with the other 

 judgment, the mind is occupied with certain abstract ideas though the imagination 

 has certain vague ' images ' answering respectively to ' a thing being ' and ' a thing 

 not being,' and to ' At the same time ' and ' in the same sense ; ' but the images 

 do not constitute the judgment itself any more than human ' swimming ' is made 

 up of ' limbs and fluid,' though without such necessary elements no such swimming 

 could take place. 



This distinction is also shown by the fact that one and the same idea may be 

 suggested to, and maintained in the mind by the help of the most incongruous 

 images, and very different ideas by the very same image. This we may see to be 

 the case with sucb ideas as ' number,' ' motion,' ' identity,' &c. 



effects wrought on them in the past. But to call such action as that by which a tree as 

 it grows preserves the traces of scars inflicted on it years before, 'memory, 'is a gross 

 abuse of language — a use of the word as unreasonable as would be the employment 

 of the word ' sculptor ' to denote a quarryman, or ' sculpture ' to indicate the 

 fractures made in rocks by the action of water and frost. 



