32 The Descent of Man 



Secondly, it must be remembered that it is a law in all 

 reasoning that where known causes are sufficient to account 

 for any phenomena we shall not gratuitously call in additional 

 causes. If, as we believe to be the case, there is no need 

 whatever to call in the re'presentative faculty as an explana- 

 tion of brute mental action ; — if the phenomena brutes ex- 

 hibit can be accounted for by the fresentative faculty — that 

 is, by the presence of sensible perceptions and emotions, 

 together with the reflex and co-ordinating powers of the 

 nervous system ; — then to ascribe to them the possession of 

 reason is thoroughly gratuitous. 



Thirdly, in addition to the argument that brutes have not 

 intellect because their actions can be accounted for without 

 the exercise of that faculty, we have other and positive argu- 

 ments in opposition to Mr. Darwin's view of their mental 

 powers. These arguments are based upon the absence in 

 brutes of articulate and rational speech, of true concerted 

 action and of educability, in the human sense of the word. 

 We have besides, what may be called an experimental proof 

 in the same direction. For if the germs of a rational nature 

 existed in brutes, such germs Avould certainly ere this have so 

 developed as to have produced unmistakably rational pheno- 

 mena, considering the prodigious lapse of time passed since 

 the entombment of the earliest kno^vn fossils. To this 

 question we will return later. 



We shall perhaps be met by the assertion that many men 

 may also be taken to be irrational animals, so httle do the 

 phenomena they exhibit exceed in dignity and importance 

 the phenomena presented by certain brutes. But, in reply, 

 it is to be remarked that we can only consider men who are 

 truly men — not idiots, and that all 7)ien, however degraded 

 their social condition, have self-consciousness properly so- 

 called, possess the gift of articulate and rational speech, are 

 capable of true concerted action, and have a perception of 



