in motion to impinge upon another ball at rest.  I know very well, as a matter of fact, that the ball in motion will communicate some of its motion to the ball at rest, and that the motion of the two balls after collision is precisely correlated with the masses of both balls and the amount of motion of the first.  But how does this come about?  In what manner can we conceive that the vis viva of the first ball passes into the second?  I confess I can no more form any conception of what happens in this case, than I can of what takes place when the motion of particles of my nervous matter, caused by the impact of a similar ball, gives rise to the state of consciousness I call pain.  In ultimate analysis everything is incomprehensible, and the whole object of science is simply to reduce the fundamental incomprehensibilities to the smallest possible number.

But to return to the Quarterly Reviewer.  He admits that animals have “mental images of sensible objects, combined in all degrees of complexity, as governed by the laws of association.”  Presumably, by this confused and imperfect statement the Reviewer means to admit more than the words imply.  For mental images of sensible objects, even though “combined in all degrees of complexity,” are, and can be, nothing more than mental images of sensible objects.  But judgments, emotions, and volitions cannot by any possibility be included under the head of “mental images of sensible objects.”

If the greyhound had no better mental endowment than the Reviewer allows him, he might have the “mental image” of the “sensible object”—­the hare—­and that might be combined with the mental images of other sensible objects, to any degree of complexity, but he would have no power of judging it to be at a certain distance from him; no power of perceiving its similarity to his memory of a hare; and no desire to get at it.  Consequently he would stand stock still, and the noble art of coursing would have no existence.  On the other hand, as that art is largely practised, it follows that greyhounds alone possess a number of mental powers, the existence of which, in any animal, is absolutely denied by the Quarterly Reviewer.

Finally, what are the mental powers which he reserves as the especial prerogative of man?  They are two.  First, the recognition of “ourselves by ourselves as affected and perceiving.—­Self-consciousness.”

Secondly.  “The reflection upon our sensations and perceptions, and asking what they are and why they are.—­Reason.”

To the faculty defined in the last sentence, the Reviewer, without assigning the least ground for thus departing from both common usage and technical propriety, applies the name of reason.  But if man is not to be considered a reasoning being, unless he asks what his sensations and perceptions are, and why they are, what is a Hottentot, or an Australian black fellow; or what the “swinked hedger” of an ordinary agricultural district?  Nay, what becomes of an average country squire or parson?  How many of these worthy persons who, as their wont is, read the Quarterly Review, would do other than stand agape, if you asked them whether they had ever reflected what their sensations and perceptions are, and why they are?