178 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

liarity of this case, the association in the ape's imagination

and consentience of the words one, two, three, four, five,

or ten, with the picking up, holding, and handing over a

corresponding number of straws. This fact of association

is, so far as we know, exceptional, and it is, therefore, very

interesting. But it does not prove that the animal has any

idea of these numbers not of course as numbers but as

so many separate things.

The idea of number implies comparison with a simul-

taneous recognition of both distinctness and similarity;

although, of course, it is not necessary that the fact of

our having such apprehensions should be adverted to.

No two things could be known to be two without an

apprehension that while they are numerically distinct they

can in some way be thought of as belonging to one class

of objects. We could not reasonably say that four tons

of coals and four o'clock are " eight," or that Hamlet's

idea of a future life and the Atlantic cable are " two,"

unless we mean to speak of them as two of our thoughts ;

in which case they would be two species of the genus "our

ideas."

Sally was but one of many animals that had come to

associate very complex bodily movements with articulate

sounds. The marvel of the matter is, in fact, due to a

trick our own imagination plays us. The keeper's words of

command expressed and implied the highly abstract idea

of number, and as that idea and our sensuous impression

of such utterances have become closely connected, so we

are apt to picture to ourselves a like connexion as existing

in the cognitive faculty of the ape. But its presence there

is by no means necessary to explain the action, while if

such a highly abstract idea was present there, the animal

would not allow us to long remain doubtful about such

a fact.

liarity of this case, the association in the ape's imagination

and consentience of the words one, two, three, four, five,

or ten, with the picking up, holding, and handing over a

corresponding number of straws. This fact of association

is, so far as we know, exceptional, and it is, therefore, very

interesting. But it does not prove that the animal has any

idea of these numbers not of course as numbers but as

so many separate things.

The idea of number implies comparison with a simul-

taneous recognition of both distinctness and similarity;

although, of course, it is not necessary that the fact of

our having such apprehensions should be adverted to.

No two things could be known to be two without an

apprehension that while they are numerically distinct they

can in some way be thought of as belonging to one class

of objects. We could not reasonably say that four tons

of coals and four o'clock are " eight," or that Hamlet's

idea of a future life and the Atlantic cable are " two,"

unless we mean to speak of them as two of our thoughts ;

in which case they would be two species of the genus "our

ideas."

Sally was but one of many animals that had come to

associate very complex bodily movements with articulate

sounds. The marvel of the matter is, in fact, due to a

trick our own imagination plays us. The keeper's words of

command expressed and implied the highly abstract idea

of number, and as that idea and our sensuous impression

of such utterances have become closely connected, so we

are apt to picture to ourselves a like connexion as existing

in the cognitive faculty of the ape. But its presence there

is by no means necessary to explain the action, while if

such a highly abstract idea was present there, the animal

would not allow us to long remain doubtful about such

a fact.