40 The Descent of Man 



specially-selected instances, there is not a tittle of evidence 

 tending, however slightly, to show that any brute possesses 

 the representative reflective faculties. But if, as we assert, 

 brute animals are destitute of such higher faculties, it may 

 well be that those lower faculties which they have (and 

 which we more or less share with them) are highly developed, 

 and their senses possess a degree of keenness and quickness 

 inconceivable to us. Their minds ^ being entirely occupied 

 with such lower faculties, and having, so to speak, nothing 

 else to occupy them, their sensible impressions may become 

 interwoven and connected to a far greater extent than in us. 

 Indeed, in the absence of free will, the laws of this association 

 of ideas obtain supreme command over the minds of brutes : 

 the brute being entirely immersed, as it were, in his presenta- 

 tive faculties. 



There yet remain two matters for consideration, which 

 tend to prove the fundamental diiference which exists be- 

 tween the mental powers of man and brutes : — 1. The mental 

 equality between animals of very different grades of struc- 

 ture, and their non-progressiveness ; 2. The question of 

 articulate speech. 



Considering the vast antiquity of the great animal 

 groups,^ it is, indeed, remarkable how little advance in mental 

 capacity has been achieved even by the highest brutes. 

 This is made especially evident by Mr. Darwin's own asser- 

 tions as to the capacities of lowly animals. Thus he tells us 

 that : — 



* Mr. Gardner, whilst watching a shore-crab (Gelasimus) making 

 its burrow, threw some shells towards the hole. One rolled in, and 



1 The words ' mind,' ' mental,' ' intelligence, ' etc., are here made use of in 

 reference to the psychical faculties of brutes, in conformity to popular usage, 

 and not as strictly appropriate. 



^ Mr. Darwin (vol. i. p. 360) refers to Dr. Scudder's discovery of *a 

 fossil insect in the Devonian formation of New Brunswick, furnished with 

 the well-known tympanum or stridulating apparatus of the male Locustidse. ' 



