C?iiap. III. Mental Powers. 65 



CIIAPTEE III. 



Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and'thb 



Lower Animals. 



rhe difference in mental power between the highest ape and the lowest 

 savage, immense — Certain instincts in common — The emotions — > 

 Curiosity — Imitation — Attention — Memory — Imagination — Reason — 

 Progressive improvement — Tools and weapons used by animals — 

 Abstraction, self-consciousness — Language — Sense of beauty — Belief in 

 God, spiritual agencies, superstitions. 



We have seen in the last two chapters that man bears in his 

 bodily structure clear traces of his descent from some lower 

 form ; but it may be urged that, as man differs so greatly in 

 his mental power from all other animals, there must be some 

 error in this conclusion. No doubt the difference in this 

 respect is enormous, even if we compare the mind of one of the 

 lowest savages, who has no words to express any number higher 

 than four, and who uses hardly any abstract terms for common 

 objects or for the affections, 1 with that of the most highly 

 organised ape. The difference would, no doubt, still remain 

 immense, even if one of the higher apes had been improved or 

 civilised as much as a dog has been in comparison with its 

 parent-form, the wolf or jackal. The Euegians rank amongst 

 the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with 

 surprise how closely the three natives on board H.M.S. " Beagle," 

 who had lived some years in England, and could talk a little 

 English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental 

 faculties. If no organic being excepting man had possessed any 

 mental power, or if his powers had been of a wholly different 

 nature from those of the lower animals, then we should never 

 have been able to convince ourselves that our high faculties 

 had been gradually developed. But it can be shewn that there 

 is no fundamental difference, of this kind. We must also admit 

 that there is a much wider interval in- mental power between 

 one of the lowest fishes, as a lamprey or lancelet, and one of the 

 higher apes, than between an ape and man ; yet this interval 

 is filled up by numberless gradations. 



Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a 

 barbarian, such as the man- described by the old navigator 



1 See the evidence on those points, as given by Lubbock, ' Prehistoric 

 Times,' p. 354, &c. 



