792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE DERIVATIVE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND.* 



Bt G. J. ROMANES, F. E. S. 



IF it is true that "the proper study of mankind is man," as- 

 suredly the study of nature has never before reached a terri- 

 tory of thought so important in all its aspects as that which in 

 our own generation it is for the first time approaching. After 

 centuries of intellectual conquest in all regions of the phenomenal 

 universe, man has at last begun to find that he may apply in a 

 new and most unexpected manner the adage of antiquity — Know 

 thyself. For he has begun to perceive a strong probability, if not 

 an actual certainty, that his own living nature is identical in kind 

 with the nature of all other life, and that even the most amazing 

 side of this his own nature — nay, the most amazing of all things 

 within the reach of his knowledge — the human mind itself, is but 

 the topmost inflorescence of one mighty growth, whose roots and 

 stem and many branches are sunk in the abyss of planetary time. 

 Therefore, with Prof. Huxley we may say : " The importance of 

 such an inquiry is indeed intuitively manifest. Brought face to 

 face with these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of 

 men is conscious of a certain shock, due perhaps not so much to 

 disgust at the aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as 

 to the awaking of a sudden and profound mistrust of time-honored 

 theories and strongly rooted prejudices regarding his own position 

 in nature, and his relations to the wider world of life ; while that 

 which remains a dim suspicion for the unthinking, becomes a vast 

 argument, fraught with the deepest consequences, for all who are 

 acquainted with the recent progress of anatomical and physio- 

 logical sciences." f 



The problem, then, which in this generation has for the first 

 time been presented to human thought, is the problem of how this 

 thought itself has come to be. A question of the deepest impor- 

 tance to every system of philosophy has been raised by the study 

 of biology ; and it is the question whether the mind of man is 

 essentially the same as the mind of the lower animals, or, having 

 had, either wholly or in part, some other mode of origin, is essen- 

 tially distinct — differing not only in degree but in kind from all 

 other types of psychical being. And forasmuch as upon this great 

 and deeply interesting question opinions are still much divided — 

 even among those most eminent in the walks of science who agree 

 in accepting the principles of evolution as applied to explain the 

 mental constitution of the lower animals — it is evident that the 



* From " Mental Evolution in Man." By George John Romanes, LL. D., F. R. S. New 

 York : D. Appleton & Co., 1 8S9. 



f " Man's Place in Nature," p. 59. 



