CAUSES OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 275

effect, namely, "sense -perception," the apprehension of

spatial relations, and a conviction that the objects we see

and feel really exist independently of any imaginable feelings.

We have said above that had we no other intuition

save that of things extended, that intuition might plausibly

be attributed to the action of " Natural Selection." But

it certainly would only be. a plausible attribution, and

not a truly reasonable one. For, as we have seen, " Natural

Selection " can give rise to nothing ; all it can do is to

favour the existence and development of that which has

already arisen.

But between a mere sense-perception such as we suppose

animals to possess exclusively, and an intellectual intuition,

there is a profound difference of kind, and such a difference

can never arise by spontaneous development. For the origin

of a new kind of perception a new power and faculty

some adequate cause must intervene, as we have lately urged

when considering the law of causation.*

Between a power which can reflect upon its experiences

and recognize relations as relations, gifted with self-

consciousness and the power of ratiocination, and another

power which possesses none of these things, it would surely

be difficult to exaggerate the difference.

And yet this difference is by no means all the divergence

which exists between the mind of man and the highest

o

psychical power commonly attributed exclusively to animals.

There is, further, the power of apprehending a distinction

between right and wrong, and conceiving of moral responsi-

bility, and also the power of forming abstract ideas and

apprehending absolute, necessary, and universal truths as

such. Surely the difference between a nature possessing

all these powers and one which has them not, must, indeed,

be a difference of kind.

* See ante, p. 258.

effect, namely, "sense -perception," the apprehension of

spatial relations, and a conviction that the objects we see

and feel really exist independently of any imaginable feelings.

We have said above that had we no other intuition

save that of things extended, that intuition might plausibly

be attributed to the action of " Natural Selection." But

it certainly would only be. a plausible attribution, and

not a truly reasonable one. For, as we have seen, " Natural

Selection " can give rise to nothing ; all it can do is to

favour the existence and development of that which has

already arisen.

But between a mere sense-perception such as we suppose

animals to possess exclusively, and an intellectual intuition,

there is a profound difference of kind, and such a difference

can never arise by spontaneous development. For the origin

of a new kind of perception a new power and faculty

some adequate cause must intervene, as we have lately urged

when considering the law of causation.*

Between a power which can reflect upon its experiences

and recognize relations as relations, gifted with self-

consciousness and the power of ratiocination, and another

power which possesses none of these things, it would surely

be difficult to exaggerate the difference.

And yet this difference is by no means all the divergence

which exists between the mind of man and the highest

o

psychical power commonly attributed exclusively to animals.

There is, further, the power of apprehending a distinction

between right and wrong, and conceiving of moral responsi-

bility, and also the power of forming abstract ideas and

apprehending absolute, necessary, and universal truths as

such. Surely the difference between a nature possessing

all these powers and one which has them not, must, indeed,

be a difference of kind.

* See ante, p. 258.