Chap. II.] MENTAL POWERS. 35 



have to give some additional facts under Sexual Selection, 

 showing that their mental powers are higher than might 

 have been expected. The variability of the faculties in 

 the individuals of the same species is an important point 

 for us, and some few illustrations will here be given. But 

 it would be superfluous to enter into many details on this 

 head, for I have found, on frequent inquiry, that it is the 

 unanimous opinion of all those who have long attended to 

 animals of many kinds, including birds, that the individuals 

 differ greatly in every mental characteristic. In what 

 manner the mental powers were first developed in the low- 

 est organisms, is as hopeless an inquiry as how life first 

 originated. These are problems for the distant future, if 

 they are ever to be solved by man. 



As man possesses the same senses with the lower ani- 

 mals, his fundamental intuitions must be the same. Man 

 has also some few instincts in- common, as that of self-pres- 

 ervation, sexual love, the love of the mother for her new- 

 born offspring, the power possessed by the latter of suck- 

 ing, and so forth. But man, perhaps, has somewhat fewer 

 instincts than those possessed by the animals which come 

 next to him in the series. The orano; in the Eastern isl- 

 ands, and the chimpanzee in Africa, build platforms, on 

 which they sleep ; and, as both species follow the same 

 habit, it might be argued that this was due to instinct, 

 but we cannot feel sure that it is not the result of both 

 animals having similar wants, and possessing similar pow- 

 ers of reasoning. These apes, as we may assume, avoid 

 the many poisonous fruits of the tropics, and man has no 

 such knowledge ; but as our domestic animals, when taken 

 to foreign lands, and when first turned out in the spring, 

 often eat poisonous herbs, which they afterward avoid, we 

 cannot feel sure that the apes do not learn from their own 

 experience, or from that of their parents, what fruits to 

 select. It is, however, certain, as we shall presently see, 



