172 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

about looking in all directions and even up into trees ; and

he considered that these actions clearly showed that the

dog entertained " a general idea that some animal was to

be discovered and hunted." Now, of course, such sounds

uttered in an eager voice excited the dog's emotions and

awoke in its consentience reminiscences of before-experi-

enced groups of smells, sounds, colours, and motions and

relations of various kinds, between them previously connected

with pleasurable activities and feelings of cravings satisfied,

etc., etc. But such groups of feelings, vivid and faint, are,

as we have seen before, something very different from " a

general idea."

Wolves have both a fear of man and a suspicious feeling

with respect to traps and snares, on which account they have

been credited with possessing an "abstract idea of danger."

But the lower human unconscious activities we have passed

in review are amply sufficient to account for such pheno-

mena, especially as the smell of man may often lead a wolf

not to touch a bait which a man has set for him.

In order to correctly appreciate the limits of the emotional

language of animals, we must understand how much they

can do by mere consentience, and that actions on their part, at

which most ignorant wonder is often expressed, do not imply

either self-consciousness or the possession of any abstract

ideas. All the actions of the most intelligent animal can

we think be fully understood as results of powers similar

to our own lower faculties described in the last chapter.

For such actions on the part of animals, it is necessary,

indeed, that they should sensibly cognize things, but not

that they should perceive them intellectually ; that they

should feel themselves as existing, but not recognize their

own existence ; that they should feel relations between

objects, but not perceive them as relations ; that they should

remember, but not seek to recollect or know that what

about looking in all directions and even up into trees ; and

he considered that these actions clearly showed that the

dog entertained " a general idea that some animal was to

be discovered and hunted." Now, of course, such sounds

uttered in an eager voice excited the dog's emotions and

awoke in its consentience reminiscences of before-experi-

enced groups of smells, sounds, colours, and motions and

relations of various kinds, between them previously connected

with pleasurable activities and feelings of cravings satisfied,

etc., etc. But such groups of feelings, vivid and faint, are,

as we have seen before, something very different from " a

general idea."

Wolves have both a fear of man and a suspicious feeling

with respect to traps and snares, on which account they have

been credited with possessing an "abstract idea of danger."

But the lower human unconscious activities we have passed

in review are amply sufficient to account for such pheno-

mena, especially as the smell of man may often lead a wolf

not to touch a bait which a man has set for him.

In order to correctly appreciate the limits of the emotional

language of animals, we must understand how much they

can do by mere consentience, and that actions on their part, at

which most ignorant wonder is often expressed, do not imply

either self-consciousness or the possession of any abstract

ideas. All the actions of the most intelligent animal can

we think be fully understood as results of powers similar

to our own lower faculties described in the last chapter.

For such actions on the part of animals, it is necessary,

indeed, that they should sensibly cognize things, but not

that they should perceive them intellectually ; that they

should feel themselves as existing, but not recognize their

own existence ; that they should feel relations between

objects, but not perceive them as relations ; that they should

remember, but not seek to recollect or know that what