Chap. V.] INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 155 



and experience. Apes are much given to imitation, as are 

 the lowest savages ; and the simple fact, previously re- 

 ferred to, that after a time no animal can be caught in the 

 same place by the same sort of trap, shows that animals 

 learn by experience, and imitate each other's caution. 

 Now, if some one man in a tribe, more sagacious than the 

 others, invented a new snare or weapon, or other means 

 of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, without the 

 assistance of much reasoning power, would prompt the 

 other members to imitate him ; and all would thus profit. 

 The habitual practice of each new art must likewise in 

 some slight degree strengthen the intellect. If the new 

 invention were an important one, the tribe would increase 

 in number, spread, and supplant other tribes. In a tribe 

 thus rendered more numerous there would always be a 

 rather better chance of the birth of other superior and in- 

 ventive members. If such men left children to inherit 

 their mental superiority, the chance of the birth of still 

 more ingenious members would be somewhat better, and 

 in a very small tribe decidedly better. Even if they left 

 no children, the tribe would still include their blood- 

 relations ; and it has been ascertained by agriculturists 4 

 that by preserving and breeding from the family of an 

 animal, which when slaughtered was found to be valuable, 

 the desired character has been obtained. 



Turning now to the social and moral faculties. In 

 order that primeval men, or the ape-like progenitors of 

 man, should have become social, they must have acquired 

 the same instinctive feelings which impel other animals to 

 live in a body; and they no doubt exhibited the same 

 general disposition. They would have felt uneasy when 

 separated from their comrades, for whom they would have 



* I have given instances in my ' Variation of Animals under Domesti- 

 cation,' vol. ii. p. 196. 



