2 Wilde, Evolution of the Mental Faculties. 



rnents and distinction are to be found all over the world, 

 whose minds are permanent receptacles of the greatest 

 absurdities. 



Although Bacon and Locke have designated such idio- 

 syncrasies as a kind of insanity,* yet, in the light of modern 

 knowledge, they mark a well-defined stage of mental 

 development, and would be better expressed by the term 

 simianisms, as indicating their lowly origin, and to differ- 

 entiate them from dementia on the one hand, and the ratio- 

 cinations proper of Homo sapiens on the other. 



One of the greater evils arising out of this unequal 

 growth of the mental faculties, is the power of obstruction 

 and of regression exercised by the simianism of the race, 

 to arrest the growth of new knowledge when advanced in 

 opposition to dominant opinions. It has been well said 

 that truth has no greater power of propagating itself than 

 error, and it has been repeatedly suppressed for ages over 

 large geographical areas ; but as error is ever capricious, 

 while truth is unchangeable, some one of its appearances 

 may fall upon a time favourable to its reception and make 

 such progress as to withstand all subsequent attempts to 

 uproot it. 



A survey of the history of the great scientific dis- 

 coveries which have benefited humanity, but have been 

 established in opposition to prevailing opinions, will show 

 that the low standard of intellect that was incapable of 

 perceiving a new truth, when presented for acceptance, is 

 generally associated with a like standard of morals when 

 in active antagonism to such truth. These observations 

 find abundant application in connexion with certain 

 fundamental principles of motion which form the subject 

 of this discourse. 



* Novum organum. Book i. Aphorism lo. 



Locke, Human Understanding. Book 2. Chap, il, §13. 



