PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 161

chapter.* But it has been very unreasonably contended,

since animals examine and reject some things for food

and yet eat other things with avidity, that they must have

such universal ideas as " good-for-eating " and "not-good-

for- eating." Now, the inner nature and faculties of an

organism can only be judged of by the outcome of its

powers, whatever these may be. If animals really had ideas

of the kind, and consciously performed voluntary acts of

examination in order to see which of two general ideas might

be applicable in any given case, then they would, most

surely, soon make us very fully aware of it by other less

equivocal manifestations of their possession of intellectual

faculties essentially like our own. Interpretations such as

the above might carry us very far. We might say, for

instance, that plants have abstract ideas of " suitable- for-

nutrition" and " not-suitable-for-nutrition," and of the still

more abstract ideas, " big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged

effort " and " not-big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged effort."

For Venus's looking-glass (Dioncea} will snap together the

blades of its singular leaf to catch an insect, but will

not do so to catch a non-digestible object. More than this,

if the blades of its leaf have closed on an insect of very

small size (not worth catching) they will (it is said) unclose

and let it go again ; while otherwise they will hold it till it is

killed and digested.

Animals, even very lowly ones, possess multitudes of

complex associations of feelings and movements. What,

then, is more to be expected than that when an animal

experiences a group of new sensations from a novel object, it

- should apply its senses and consentience to aid their reception

and instinctively make movements in response thereto?

Such movements need be no sign of the existence of ideas

when other evidence clearly points to their non-existence.

* See ante, pp. 10-13.

M

chapter.* But it has been very unreasonably contended,

since animals examine and reject some things for food

and yet eat other things with avidity, that they must have

such universal ideas as " good-for-eating " and "not-good-

for- eating." Now, the inner nature and faculties of an

organism can only be judged of by the outcome of its

powers, whatever these may be. If animals really had ideas

of the kind, and consciously performed voluntary acts of

examination in order to see which of two general ideas might

be applicable in any given case, then they would, most

surely, soon make us very fully aware of it by other less

equivocal manifestations of their possession of intellectual

faculties essentially like our own. Interpretations such as

the above might carry us very far. We might say, for

instance, that plants have abstract ideas of " suitable- for-

nutrition" and " not-suitable-for-nutrition," and of the still

more abstract ideas, " big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged

effort " and " not-big-enough-to-be-worth-a-prolonged effort."

For Venus's looking-glass (Dioncea} will snap together the

blades of its singular leaf to catch an insect, but will

not do so to catch a non-digestible object. More than this,

if the blades of its leaf have closed on an insect of very

small size (not worth catching) they will (it is said) unclose

and let it go again ; while otherwise they will hold it till it is

killed and digested.

Animals, even very lowly ones, possess multitudes of

complex associations of feelings and movements. What,

then, is more to be expected than that when an animal

experiences a group of new sensations from a novel object, it

- should apply its senses and consentience to aid their reception

and instinctively make movements in response thereto?

Such movements need be no sign of the existence of ideas

when other evidence clearly points to their non-existence.

* See ante, pp. 10-13.

M