COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 25 
displeasure. When a child arrives at such a stage of 
feeling, most persons would not be inclined to deny it 
amoral nature and a very good one, too. We might 
almost speak of a dog having a religion, with man 
as his deity. But as a whole host of qualities— 
some of them difficult to classify—go to make up 
the character of the human individual so developed 
and balanced as to deserve the epithet “gentleman,” 
so there are many qualities in the best specimens 
of the canine race that we can practically appreciate 
better than define. 
In all such discussions it must be borne in mind that 
if we adopt the theory of organic evolution, we are 
almost bound, of necessity, to a belief in the origin 
and gradual development of mind from the faintest 
glimmerings of consciousness, in the simplest proto- 
plasmic creatures; and that system will be most 
philosophical and complete which can fill up the 
gaps between the lowest manifestation of any quality 
and the highest. Hence, many are inclined to believe 
that the great distinction between man’s faculties and 
those of animals lower in the scale is difference in 
degree and not in kind, certainly in so far as_ they 
run parallel. Such a view does not prevent our 
conceiving of additional forms of psychic activity not 
represented in man as the possession of the brutes. 
That such seems probable will appear when we discuss 
some of the problems stiil demanding solution. Nor 
does such a view imply that there may not be avenues 
of knowledge of a special kind open to man which are 
closed to those lower in the scale, such as a special 
revelation from a higher source. So far as we see, 
indeed, there are no theological difficulties any more 
than with evolution as ordinarily applied to animal and 
plant forms. 
Man’s present superiority over the lower animals is 
