144 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



acquired true views in regard to the nature and 

 meaning — the philosophy — of any structure in our 

 human anatomy, through human anatomy alone ? 

 How should we know that certain muscles, found 

 in a minority of men, were due to reversion, if we 

 did not know that these same muscles were nor- 

 mally present in apes or other animals ? ^ Exactly 

 the same principle applies to the study of psy- 

 chology, or what is called psychical research : and it 

 is impossible not to get exaggerated, and, as one 

 may say, misproud ideas of our mental attributes, 

 and consequently of ourselves, if we do not pay 

 proper attention to the equivalents, or representa- 

 tives, of these in our blood relations, the beasts. 



In fact, if we study man, either mentally or 

 physically, as one species amongst many, we have a 

 science. If we study him only, or inordinately, we 

 very soon have a religion. The Psychical Research 

 Society appears to me to be going this way. Its 

 leading members are becoming more and more im- 

 pressed by certain latent abnormal faculties in the 

 human subject, but they will not consider the nature 

 and origin of such faculties, in connection with many 

 equally mysterious ones scattered throughout the 

 animal kingdom, or pay proper attention to these. 

 The wonder of man, therefore, is unchecked by 

 the wonder of anything else : no monkey, bat, bird, 

 lizard, or insect pulls him up short : he sees himself, 

 only, and through Raphaels and Virgils and genius 

 and trances and ecstasies — soon sees himself God, or 

 approaching, at least, to that size. So an image is 

 put up in a temple, and joss-sticks lighted before 



1 " The Descent of Man," pp. 41, 42. 



