The Scottish Naturalist. 285 



and of indefinite rise in the scale of mind is denied them, unless 

 it be that they are not free, independent, self-developing beings 

 at all? 



Also, there must be attended to in this connection, the fact 

 that animals have certain powers of action and of work far 

 superior to the human. Dr. Lindsay says, " In certain respects 

 they are infinitely our superiors. In respect of morals," — he 

 goes that length, " of disposition, and character, many of them 

 are," he reiterates, " infinitely our superiors." No one will 

 deny the fact of superiority — though we might not describe it 

 exact as superiority in morals and character. Animals can 

 accomplish works to which man is altogether unequal. But 

 what does the fact indicate? It points to a conclusion the 

 opposite of Dr. Lindsay's. It is one of the things that utterly 

 discountenance the idea of our mind and theirs being alike. 

 It makes them co-ordinate with inanimate nature. Inanimate 

 nature is as superior to us as they are, and doubtless in the 

 same way and for the same reason. Nature and they are one. 

 Des Cartes, in a passage that Huxley, who makes so much use 

 of him, does not use, says, " The circumstance that animals do 

 better than we does not prove that they are endowed with 

 mind, for it would thence follow that they possessed greater 

 reason than any of us, and could surpass us in all things ; 

 whereas, on the contrary, it rather proves that they are destitute 

 of reason, and that it is nature which acts in them according to 

 the disposition of their organs ; thus it is that a clock, composed 

 only of wheels and weights, can number the hours and measure 

 time more exactly than we with all our skill." (Method, &d, 

 by Veitch, p. 99.) 



As to moral superiority we may go further, and say that 

 animals are altogether sinless. But it is because they are not 

 capable of either perceiving or doing either right or wrong. 

 Neither morality nor immorality can be predicated of them, 

 except in science gone mad. 



It is interesting to notice, in connection with the likeness 

 to animal action exhibited by man in dreaming or somnam- 

 bulism, that in these abnormal states men are capable of doing 

 what, as waking and voluntary agents, they are wholly incap- 

 able of. If that transient and unconscious and involuntary 

 power could be brought under control, made the servant of 

 will, and utilised freely, it would revolutionize our system. 

 Animal superiority is like that. If it could become the free. 



