112 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



But where is the limit to man's mental or moral 

 powers? Every upward step in knowledge, wisdom, 

 and righteousness only opens our eyes to greater 

 heights, before unperceived and still to be attained. 

 These capacities, even to our dim vision, are evidently 

 capable of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, development. 

 What, as yet only partially developed, faculty remains 

 to supersede them? As being capable of an endless 

 development and without a rival, may we not, must we 

 not, consider them as ends in themselves ? They are 

 evidently what we are here for. Everything points to 

 a spiritual end in animal evolution. The line of de- 

 velopment is from the predominantly material to the 

 predominance of the non-material. Not that the ma- 

 terial is to be crowded out. It is to reach its highest 

 development in the service of the mind. The body 

 must be sustained and perfected, but it is not the end. 

 The goal is mind, the body is of subordinate impor- 

 tance. 



But if this is true, we must study carefully the de- 

 velopment of mind in the animal. The question 

 presses upon us ; if there is a sequence of physical 

 functions in animal development, is there not perhaps 

 also a sequence in the development of the mental 

 faculties ? What is the crowning faculty of the human 

 mind and how is its fuller development to be at- 

 tained ? Let us pass therefore to the question of mind 

 in the animal kingdom. 



