io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



FOUR-HANDED SINNERS: A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY. 



By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 



EDMOND ABOUT used to tell a good story of a Spanish prel- 

 ate who studied anatomy for the special purpose of describ- 

 ing the fragments of a miraculous skeleton, but who was so 

 astounded by the discovery of a rudimentary tail-bone that he 

 relinquished his study in dismay, and declined to specify the 

 results of his investigation. 



In a similar way the comparative study of human and animal 

 psychology would often surj^rise a close observer. There was a 

 time when the mere suggestion of such studies would have been 

 overruled by the prevalent tenet which denied the affinity of our 

 mental apparatus to any part of the animal organism, the attri- 

 bute of " reason " being reserved for the primate of the animal 

 kingdom, while the actions of his humble fellow-creatures were 

 supposed to be prompted by a blind and semi-automatic agency, 

 called " instinct." Intelligence, we were told, might be compared 

 to a " keyed instrument, from which any music it is capable of 

 producing may be called forth at the will of the performer," while 

 the modus opeTa7idi of instinct was supposed to resemble that of 

 a " barrel-organ, which plays with the greatest exactness a certain 

 number of tunes that are set upon it, but can do nothing else." 

 The mechanism of that living barrel-organ was, moreover, be- 

 lieved to act chiefly in the interest of the species, while reason 

 subserved the interests and momentary caprices of individuals. 



The subjective motives of that view were, however, clearly 

 identical with the prejudice which long denied the analogies be- 

 tween the physical organism of men and brutes. Every step in 

 the progress of comparative anatomy has more plainly demon- 

 strated the fact that the alleged contrasts in the construction and 

 the functional characteristics of human and animal bodies are 

 mere differences of degree, and a similar conclusion must force 

 itself upon the unprejudiced observer of animal soul-functions. 

 Even our domestic birds often manifest symptoms of passions, 

 whims, and moral aberrations, clearly analogous to those of their 

 biped proprietors ; and in the higher animals those manifestations 

 become so unmistakable that a student of moral zoology is often 

 tempted to indorse the view of that school-girl who defined a 

 monkey as " a very small boy with a tail." 



According to Arthur Schopenhauer's theory of moral evolu- 

 tion, the conscious prestige of our species first reveals itself in the 

 emotions of headstrong volition that make a little baby stamp its 

 feet and strike down its ^sts, " commanding violently before it 



