PuEKELL. — The Animal and Human Mind compared. 75 



life and say, " This is the first kind of animal which appeared 

 upon the globe," because in the oldest geological formation in 

 which undisputed animal remains occur — viz., the Cambrian — 

 they are found in such profusion, and are the remains of ani- 

 mals of such high organization in their respective classes, as 

 to lead to the irresistible conclusion that they are the descend- 

 ants of loug lines of ancestors of presumably simpler organiza- 

 tion. Such, I believe, is the opinion of most if not all compe- 

 tent paloBontologists ; and, reviewing the facts concerning the 

 gradual development of animal life upon the earth with which 

 we are acquainted, and the reasonable inferences which may 

 be drawn from them, I think we are justified in concluding 

 that all animal life originated from an exceedingly simple 

 form, possibly even simpler than the amoeba. 



Ee verting, then, to this primordial form, I invite you to 

 regard its mind as being as primitive as its body, and destitute 

 of any impressions or notions of the outer world, but never- 

 theless capable of receiving and absorbing such impressions 

 through the medium of its body. "Whether mind is a separate 

 entity from the body, or whether, as the Monists contend, mind 

 and body are the same, but viewed in the one case from its 

 metaphysical in the other from its physical side, it is needless 

 for my purpose to discuss. The view which I propound is 

 that when a living creature first appeared upon the earth its 

 mind was, so to speak, a blank, but possessed the capacity of 

 receiving through the body with which it was associated 

 impressions from the outer world, and of storing and trans- 

 mitting such impressions to its descendants. In process of 

 time the primitive animal form developed in a vast vaiiety 

 of directions ; it acquired new organs, new powers, new 

 senses. The mind of the animal grew jxtri yassn with it. 

 Generation after generation the animal mind became charged 

 with fresh impressions until it grew in many instances into a 

 composite structure, formed from the impressions of the outer 

 world, which it derived through the medium of the gradually- 

 evolved organs of sense, combined with the hereditary predis- 

 position to certain habits which it acquired through successive 

 generations of the body pursuing more or less similar modes of 

 life. That the development of the mind of the animal must 

 necessarily coincide with the development of the body will be 

 perceived upon a little reflection. Consider, for example, 

 what a wonderful difference to the mind of an animal perfect 

 vision must make. An animal like the amoeba, destitute of 

 organs of vision, and which, if it perceives light at all, probably 

 is merely able to distinguish light from darkness, or the medusa, 

 whose organs of vision are of the simplest kind, must neces- 

 sarily receive impressions and form ideas of tlie external 

 world of a radically different nature from those formed by 



