247 



dendrites or branches under persistent stimuli of a given character 

 may lead to a condition of unconscious cerebration, having all 

 the appearance of conscious intent. We may all admire and 

 appreciate the mechanical skill of these rodents, and the ethical 

 effects of some of the customs of these insects, and of this species 

 of the genus homo, but it is another matter, and a probably 

 unwarranted assumption, to attribute the same power of intel- 

 lectual appreciation ^o these beavers, honey-bees, or aborigines, 

 either now or in the remote past, that we ourselves possess. That 

 these three types of animals should have responded to stimuli in 

 an apparently intelligent manner may be considered as evidence 

 of the high quality of their primary nervous structure, but not 

 necessarily as evidence of conscious volition of adapting means to 

 an end. Personal contact with an aboriginal by no means shows 

 him to be a stupid fellow, but it would be asking too much to 

 expect him to appreciate the restraints of civilization. As an 

 illustration of how savage man acts in common with many 

 animals and birds in a way which more civilised peoples have 

 lost may be mentioned the power of travelling to and reaching 

 distant places without any apparent guidance. Darwin, in his 

 posthumous " Essay on Instinct," which appears in extenso as an 

 appendix to Mr. Romanes' work on " Mental Evolution in 

 Animals," says we should be very cautious in attributing to 

 migratory animals any capacity in this respect which we do not 

 ourselves possess. And he quotes from the navigator Wrangel 

 on the " unerring instinct" of the natives of N. Siberia, and from 

 Sir George Grey's "Expedition to Australia" of the powers of 

 the aborigines here, in the same direction. If any act has the 

 appearance of conscious intent, it might be assumed that this 

 power of unerringly travelling to a given place would be one. 

 And yet there is no more ground for supposing that it is the case 

 with savage man than with other members of the animal world. 



An analogy may also be sought in the evolution of language, 

 that results which appear volitional have not in reality so arisen. 

 As Prof. Max Miiller says in his " Chips," man in his primitive 

 state was endowed, not only like the brute with the power of 

 expressing his sensations by interjections and imitations, he 

 possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expres- 

 sion to the rational conceptions of his mind. That faculty was 

 not of his own making. It was an instinct, and so far as 

 language belongs to that instinct, it belongs to the realm of 

 nature. And it is also seen that different anthropological centres 

 responded to this instinct in different ways, but always in the 

 same way as regards general construction for any particular 

 centre. It thus may be assumed that languages, with their 

 vocabularies and grammatical construction, were unconsciously 



