220 MAN, — THE ANIMAL 



It is exceedingly difficult to measure accurately 

 a qualitative feature in a mental process but 

 some means must be devised and when it is done 

 this is the field in which great progress will be 

 made. For it is really in this qualitative differ- 

 ence that man stands out supreme over all other 

 living things. The quality of muscular response 

 enables one man to out-race all competitors and 

 we are unable to describe as yet just what this 

 difference is. Those who assume that man 

 possesses qualities entirely unlike those existing in 

 the higher animals, do not have anything to ex- 

 plain; while those who seek for the genesis of 

 these qualities believe if it had been possible to 

 have studied primitive man that they would have 

 been found to be similar to those in the animals. 



In their attempt to work out a scientific ex- 

 planation, scholars have started with such uni- 

 versal features as self-protection, the securing of 

 food and reproduction. Just at present it is popu- 

 lar to ridicule the Freudian school of psychologists 

 who make the reproductive reflexes the center of 

 their genetic scheme in explaining the mind of 

 man. This theory like many others suffers from 

 its too enthusiastic supporters but in a few years 

 it will take a more conservative form and be recog- 

 nized as an important step in solving one of the 

 most difficult biological problems. One of its 

 chief weaknesses is that it makes one of the funda- 



