An Introduction to a Biology 



upon the critical faculty. But be this as it may 

 — and I intend it as no more than a tentative sug- 

 gestion — there can be no doubt that the word 

 anthropomorphism affords a very good instance 

 of the baneful effect which a word may have upon 

 the course of thought. In its original restricted 

 signification, in which it meant the endowing of 

 God with the form and habits of man, it certainly 

 denoted a grave intellectual misdemeanour, and the 

 epithet anthropomorphic, which very accurately 

 described this process, was rightly regarded as a 

 stigma. But those who were responsible for the 

 extension of the meaning of the word at the 

 " endowed " end, for applying the word anthropo- 

 morphic to an entirely different thing — the grant- 

 ing of intelligence, purpose, design and human 

 attributes in general to non-human animals, in order 

 to stigmatise a concession to the " lower animals " 

 which was repugnant to them — were the uncon- 

 scious perpetrators of a successful fraud. One of 

 the easiest ways to convince an audience of the 

 untruth of an idea you wish to disprove is to apply 

 to that belief a word which has already been brought 

 into discredit and obloquy. If you can persuade 

 the audience that the word fits, the trick is done. 

 In the case of the word anthropomorphism the 

 audience needed no persuasion ; they hated the idea 

 that an animal had a soul, many of them hated the 

 idea that they themselves had a soul ; they liked to 

 think of the organism as a machine, they liked their 

 mechanical theory of evolution, and they liked a 

 long word. The belief that a non-human animal 

 has an intelligence at all comparable to their own 



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