60 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I 



From these few and imperfect remarks, I conclude that 

 the extremely complex and regular construction of many 

 barbarous languages is no proof that they owe their origin 

 to a special act of creation. 47 Nor, as we have seen, does 

 the faculty of articulate speech in itself offer any insuper- 

 able objection to the belief that man has been developed 

 from some lower form. 



Self -consciousness, Individuality, Abstraction, General 

 Ideas, etc. — It would be useless to attempt discussing these 

 high faculties, which, according to several recent writers, 

 make the sole and complete distinction between man and 

 the brutes, for hardly two authors agree in their defini- 

 tions. Such faculties could not have been fully developed 

 in man until his mental powers had advanced to a high 

 standard, and this implies the use of a perfect language. 

 No one supposes that one of the lower animals reflects 

 whence he comes or whither he goes — what is death, or 

 what is life, and so forth. But can we feel sure that an 

 old dog with an excellent memory, and some power of 

 imagination, as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his 

 past pleasures in the chase ? and this would be a form of 

 self-consciousness. On the other hand, as Biichner 48 has 

 remarked, how little can the hard-worked wife of a de- 

 graded Australian savage, who uses hardly any abstract 

 words, and cannot count above four, exert her self-con- 

 sciousness, or reflect on the nature of her own existence ! 



That animals retain their mental individuality is un- 

 questionable. When my voice awakened a train of old 

 associations in the mind of the above-mentioned dog, ho 

 must have retained his mental individuality, although 



47 See some good remarks on the simplification of languages, by Sir 

 J. Lubbock, 'Origin of Civilization,' 1870, p. 278. 



48 ' Conferences sur la Theorie Darwinienne,' French translat., 186?, p. 

 132. 



