VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 361 
more perfect than in others, have also greater means 
of varying and extending their intellectual faculties ; 
but it is always within limits circumscribed by their 
necessities and habits. 
‘* The power of habit which is found to be still so 
great in man, especially in one who has but slightly 
exercised the organ of his thought, is among animals 
almost insurmountable while their physical state re- 
mains the same. Nothing compels them to vary 
their powers, because they suffice for their wants 
and these require no change. Hence it is constantly 
the same objects which exercise their degree of in- 
telligence, and it results that these actions are always 
the same in each species. 
ibe sole acts of variation, 7.2... tieronly:acts 
which rise above the limits of habits, and which we 
see performed in animals whose organization allows 
them to, are acts of tmitation. I only speak of 
actions which they perform voluntarily or freely 
(actions qu'ils font de leur plein gré). 
‘““ Birds, very limited in this respect in the powers 
which their structure furnishes, can only perform 
acts of imitation with their vocal organ; this organ, 
by their habitual efforts to render the sounds, and 
to vary them, becomes in them very perfect. Thus 
we know that several birds (the parrot, starling, 
raven, jay, magpie, canary bird, etc.) imitate the 
sounds they hear. 
“* The monkeys, which are, next to man, the ani- 
mals by their structure having the best means to 
this end, are most excellent imitators, and there is 
no limit to the things they can mimic. 
““In man, infants which are still of the age when 
simple ideas are formed on various subjects, and 
who think but little, forming no complex ideas, are 
also very good imitators of everything which they 
see or hear: 
‘“ But if each order of things in animals is depend- 
