16 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



that profit by experience, without attributing them to conscious 

 intelligence, and it is even harder to speak or write of them, with- 

 out using words which imply that they are altogether such as 

 human actions would be under like conditions, for our words are 

 adapted to human needs ; but, hard as it is, we must, so far as 

 possible, distinguish what we actually observe from what we infer 

 from our knowledge of ourselves. 



He who considers the relation between mind and matter should 

 try to determine clearly what he knows and does not know about 

 the distribution of mind. Is not the view of the matter to which all 

 should agree, about as follows ? I know my mental state and the 

 things I see and feel by the best of all evidence. While I have not 

 this sort of evidence for anything else, doubt that my fellow-men 

 are rational would be regarded as insane ; for he who acts as if his 

 fellow-men have no feelings, is justly abhorred by all, unless, indeed, 

 he is held in honor as a military hero. " A close study of the dog," 

 says Agassiz, "might satisfy every one of the similarity of his 

 impulses with those of man, and those impulses are regulated in a 

 manner which discloses psychical faculties in every respect of the 

 same kind as those of man; moreover, he expresses by his voice 

 his emotions and his feelings, with a precision which may be as 

 intelligible to man as the articulate speech of his fellow-men. His 

 memory is so retentive that it frequently baffles that of man. And 

 though all these faculties do not make a philosopher of him, they 

 certainly place him, in that respect, upon a level with a consider- 

 able proportion of poor humanity." 



" When animals fight with one another, when they associate for 

 a common purpose, when they warn one another in danger, when 

 they come to the rescue of one another, when they display pain 

 or joy, they manifest impulses of the same kind as those which are 

 considered among the moral attributes of man. The range of their 

 passions is even as extensive as that of the human mind, and 

 I am at a loss to distinguish a difference in kind between them, 

 however much they may differ in degree and in the manner in 

 which they are expressed." 



" I confess," says Agassiz, " I could not say in what the 

 mental faculties of a child differ from those of a young chim- 

 panzee." 



