402 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



judgment on all things, and especially on the ordinary affairs of life 

 and our relations with our fellows, it follows that this quality is 

 only a certain stage acquired in the rectitude of judgments ; and seeing 

 that environment, habit, temperament, etc., involve a great diversity 

 in the exercise of our understanding, that is to say, in our way of 

 thinking, investigating, and judging, it follows that there are real 

 differences between the judgments that are formed. 



Thus reason is not an individual object or entity that we may or 

 may not possess, but it is a condition of the organ of understanding, 

 from which results a greater or smaller degree of rectitude in the in- 

 dividual's judgments ; so that every being who possesses an organ of 

 understanding, who has ideas and performs judgments, must possess a 

 certain degree of reason corresponding to his species, age, habit, and 

 the various circumstances which combine to retard or advance or 

 to keep stationary the progress made in rectitude of judgments. 



Seeing that it is only by paying attention to the objects producing 

 sensations in us, that these sensations can give rise to ideas, it is clear 

 that the more we use this faculty of attention, and the deeper and more 

 sustained it is, the clearer become our ideas, the more accurately are 

 they defined, and the more correct are the judgments that we form 

 from them. 



Hence it follows that the highest stage of reason is that which comes 

 from extreme clearness in the ideas, and from an almost invariable 

 soundness of judgments. 



Man, who is much more capable than any other inteUigent being 

 of this profound and continuous attention, and can fix it on a great 

 many different objects, is the only one who can have an almost infinite 

 variety of clear ideas and whose judgments consequently possess the 

 highest rectitude ; but for this purpose he has to exercise his intellect 

 vigorously and perpetually, and his circumstances have to be favourable 

 for it. 



It follows from the above, that since reason is only a stage in the 

 rectitude of judgments, and since every intelhgent being can carry 

 out judgments, they must all possess a certain degree of reason. 



Indeed, if we compare the ideas and judgments of an intelhgent 

 animal, which is still young and inexperienced, with the ideas and 

 judgments of the same animal when it has reached the age of acquired 

 experience, we shall find that the difference between these ideas and 

 judgments is quite as discernible in the animal as it is in man. A 

 gradual improvement in the judgments, and an increasing clearness 

 of the ideas, fill up in both cases the interval between the time of their 

 childhood and that of their maturity. The age of completed experience 

 and development is clearly distinguished from that of inexperience 



