MENTAL POWERS, 73 



CHAPTER III. 



COMPARISOiH OF THE MEXTAL POWERS OF MAN" AJ^D THE 

 LOWER ANIMALS. 



The difference in mental power between the highest ape and the 

 lowest savage, immense Certain instincts in common The 

 emotions Curiosity Imitation Attention Memory Imagi- 

 nation Reason Progressive improvement Tools and weapons 

 used by animals Abstraction, self -consciousness Language 

 Sense of beauty Belief in God, spiritual agencies, superstitions. 



We have seen in the last two chapters that man bears 

 in his bodily structure clear traces of his descent from 

 some lower form; but it maybe urged that, as man differs 

 so greatly in his mental power from all other animals, 

 there must be some error in this conclusion. Xo doubt the 

 difference in this respect is enormous, even if we compare 

 the mind of one of the lowest savages, who has no words 

 .to express any number higher than four, and who uses 

 hardly any abstract terms for common objects or for the 

 affections,* with that of the most highly organized ape. 

 The difference would, no doubt, still remain immense, even 

 if one of the higher apes had been improved or civilized as 

 much as a dog has been in comparison with its parent-form, 

 the wolf or jackal. The Fuegians rank among the lowest 

 barbarians ; but I was continually struck with surj)rise how 

 closely the three natives on board H.M.S. *' Beagle," who 

 had lived some years in England, and could talk a little 

 English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our 

 mental faculties. If no organic being excepting man had 

 possessed any mental power, or if his powers had been of a 

 wholly different nature from those of the lower animals, 

 then we should never have been able to convince ourselves 

 that our high faculties had been gradually developed. But 



* Seethe evidence on those points, as given by Lubbock, " Prehis- 

 toric Times," p. 354, etc. 



