A STUDY OF LOWER LIFE. 59 



that of the man also must accordingly depend to a certain 

 extent upon influences for which neither are in any way re- 

 sponsible, and over which, in the first instance, neither can 

 have any control. That automatic acts, derived from and 

 moulded upon preceding acts of like character, make up the 

 chief part of human existence in a savage state, is a state- 

 ment of readily proved kind. Man in his primitive condition 

 can hardly be supposed to speculate much concerning him- 

 self, but has his acts directed and controlled to a greater or 

 less extent by outward circumstances, and by the exigencies 

 which his physical surroundings induce. But, as in the 

 highest phases of man's physical development, so in his 

 mental nature, new features appear ; and explain it how we 

 may, we are forced to recognise that out of the mere instinct 

 and pure automatism of his earlier state, has been developed 

 the fuller knowledge and command of Self, which brings 

 with it the moral sense and all the noble conceptions of his 

 race ; a progress of mental development this, imitated by 

 the mental advance of man as he emerges from the savage 

 to the civilized state ; and typified in a closer fashion still 

 by the growth and progress of the infant's mind, from the 

 indefinite mist of unconsciousness, to the clearer light of a 

 rational intelligence. The development of the child's in- 

 tellect in this view, presents us with a panoramic picture of 

 the stages through which we may conceive the mind of man 

 to have passed in its progress, from the condition of pure 

 or hydra-like automatism to the higher phase in which he 

 obtains a knowledge of himself. And it seems to me that 

 only through the ideas involved in some such theory of the 

 origin of man's mental powers, can we reasonably explain 

 the possession by lower animals of many qualities and traits 

 of character which we are too apt to regard as peculiar to 

 man. The community of instincts in man and lower 

 animals, affords a powerful argument in favour of the idea 

 that the higher intellect of humanity has originated through 

 the progressive development of lower instincts. 



Our survey of the relations and origin of nervous acts 



