370 THE STORY OP TEE EARTH AND MAN. 



stincts of the ape, or how such better braiu coulrl 

 be acquired. But evolutionists are not necessarily 

 absolute materialists, and Darwin himself labours to 

 show that the reasoning self-conscious mind, and even 

 the moral sentiments of man, might be evolved from 

 rudiments of such powers, perceptible in the lower 

 animals. Here, however, he leaves the court of 

 natural science, properly so called, and summons us to 

 appear before the judgment-seat of philosophy ; and as 

 naturalists are often bad mental philosophers, and phi- 

 losophers have often small knowledge of nature, some 

 advantage results, in the first instance, to the doubtful 

 cause of evolution. Since, however, mental science 

 makos much more of the distinctions between the 

 mind of man and the instinct of animals than natu- 

 ralists, accustomed to deal merely with the external 

 organism, can be expected to do, the derivationist, 

 when his plea is fairly understood, is quite as certain 

 to lose his cause as when tried by geology and 

 zoology. He might indeed be left to be dealt 

 with by mental science on its own ground; and as 

 our province is to look at the matter from the stand- 

 point of natural history, we might here close our 

 inquiry. It may, however, be proper to give some 

 slight notion of the width of the gulf to be passed 

 when we suppose the mechanical, unconscious, repeti- 

 tive nature of the animal to pass over into the con- 

 dition of an intellectual and moral being. 



If we take, as the most favourable case for the 

 evolutionist, the most sagacious of the lower animals 



