Chap. III.] MORAL SENSE. 101 



wants, the notion of expressing definite ideas by definite 

 sounds had never crossed their minds. They might insist 

 that they were ready to aid their fellow-apes of the same 

 troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to 

 take charge of their orphans ; but they would be forced to 

 acknowledge that disinterested love for all living creatures, 

 the most noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their 

 comprehension. 



Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and 

 the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree 

 and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intui- 

 tions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, 

 memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of 

 which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even 

 sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower ani- 

 mals. They are also capable of some inherited improve- 

 ment, as we see in the domestic dog compared with the 

 wolf or jackal. If it be maintained that certain powers, 

 such as self-consciousness, abstraction, etc., are peculiar to 

 man, it may well be that these are the incidental results 

 of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties ; and these 

 again are mainly the result of the continued use of a 

 highly-developed language. At what age does the new- 

 born infant possess the power of abstraction, or become 

 self-conscious and reflect on its own existence ? We can- 

 not answer ; nor can we answer in regard to the ascending 

 organic scale. The half-art and half-instinct of language 

 still bears the stamp of its gradual evolution. The en- 

 nobling belief in God is not universal with man ; and the 

 belief in active spiritual agencies naturally follows from 

 his other mental powers. The moral sense perhaps affords 

 the best and highest distinction between man and the 

 lower animals ; but I need not say any thing on this head, 

 as I have so lately endeavored to show that the social 

 instincts — the prime principle of man's moral consti- 



