What, then, are we to say about the faculty of judgment in relation to these three stages of ideation—namely, the receptual, pre-conceptual, and conceptual? We can only institute the parallel and consequent distinction between judgment as receptual, pre-conceptual, and conceptual.[109] As now so often stated, the distinguishing features of a judgment as fully displayed in any act of formal predication, are the bringing together in self-conscious thought of two concepts, and the distinguishing of some relation between them as such. Therefore we do not say that a brute judges when, without any self-conscious thought, it brings together certain reminiscences of its past experience in the form of recepts, and translates for us the results of its ideation by the performance of what Mr. Mivart calls “practical inferences.” Therefore, also, if a brute which is able to name each of two recepts separately (as is done by a talking bird), were to name the two recepts simultaneously when thus combined in an act of “practical inference,” although there would then be the outward semblance of a proposition, we should not be strictly right in calling it a proposition. It would, indeed, be the statement of a truth _perceived_; but not the statement of a truth perceived _as true_.[110]
Now, if all this be admitted in the case of a brute—as it must be by any one who takes his stand on the faculty of true or conceptual judgment,—obviously it must also be admitted in the case of the growing child. In other words, if it can be proved that a child is able to state a truth before it can state a truth as true, it is thereby proved that in the psychological history of every human being there is first the incompleted kind of judgment required for dealing with receptual knowledge, and so for stating truths perceived, and next the completed judgment, which deals with conceptual knowledge, and so is enabled to state truths perceived as true. Of course the condition to the raising of this lower kind of judgment (if for convenience we agree so to term it) into the higher, is given by the advent of self-consciousness; and therefore the place where _statement_ of truth passes into _predication_ of truth must be determined by the place at which this kind of consciousness first supervenes. Where it does first supervene we shall presently have to consider. Meanwhile I am but endeavouring to make clear the fact that, unless my opponents abandon their position altogether, they must allow that there is _some_ difference to be recognized between the connotative powers of a parrot and the connotative powers of a man. But if they do allow this, they must further allow that between the place where the connotative powers of a child first surpass those of a parrot, and the place where those powers first become truly conceptual, there is a large tract of ideation which it is impossible to ignore. In order, therefore, not to prejudice the question before us, I have thus far confined myself to a mere designation of these great and obvious distinctions. But seeing that even this preliminary step has necessitated a great deal of explanation, I feel it may conduce to clearness if I end the present chapter with a tabular statement of the sundry distinctions in question.