22 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 
It is to be remembered, however, that each marked 
advance in progress has been made by the few great 
intellects that have appeared, and only accepted, not 
originated, by the many; that but for permanent 
records in language, much of man’s civilisation would 
have been lost as rapidly as acquired; that man’s 
civilisation is the growth of thousands of years, 
beginning with a condition of things scarcely if at all 
higher than that now known to some tribes of animals ; 
that what any child becomes is really largely depen- 
dent upon the training it receives; the child of the 
savage, and that of the civilised man, can not be com- 
pared any more than the latter and the inferior animals. 
Now, the reverse of all this holds for the lower animals. 
So far as any systematic training from man is concerned, 
they are very much as they were thousands of years 
ago. Before it were possible absolutely to compare the 
highest man and the highest animal, it would be 
necessary that for ages the effect of culture should be 
tried on the lower animals. The astonishing results 
achieved in the lifetime of a single animal, and the 
results attained by the creation of hereditary specialists 
as among dogs, put the whole matter in a light that 
shows our usual comparisons to be somewhat unfair. 
If the highest among dogs, apes, and elephants be 
compared with the lowest among savage tribes, the 
balance, whether mental or moral, will not be very 
largely in man’s favour—indeed, in many cases, the 
reverse. 
We are not contending for the equality of man and 
the rest of the animal kingdom; even assuming that 
the child and the dog have equal advantages, the child 
will still be in many respects superior to the dog; but 
we are desirous of pointing out how much has been 
overlooked in all these comparisons between man and 
the lower animals. It will be noticed, that all those 
