III. 

 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 1 



THIS is an essay, almost a first essay, in com- 

 parative psychology that is to say, it is an attempt 

 to apply to the mental and moral nature of man 

 the method which has been so fruitful of results 

 when applied to physiology and morphology. It 

 is not an attempt to merge psychology in physiology, 

 but to compare the psychological facts of which 

 man is immediately conscious with facts supposed 

 to be similar in other living things. 



The first difficulty here is one with which Mr. 

 Romanes does not directly concern himself, though 

 for Auguste Comte it seemed to make all psycho- 

 logy impossible the difficulty, namely, of collect- 

 ing the facts which are to be dealt with. " It 

 requires art and pains," says John Locke, " to set 

 the mind at a distance from itself, and make it its 

 own object." Comte says in effect, the thing is 

 impossible. No "art and pains" can help us. 

 For, ex hypothesi, the observer and the observed are 



1 Mental Evolution in Man. By George J. Romanes, M.A., 

 LL.D., F.R.S. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 



