MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 45 



and argue about the movements of animal or 

 vegetable life. 



So much for the difficulties in limine, which are 

 not indeed formally discussed by Mr. Romanes, 

 but of which, of course, he is fully conscious. He 

 starts by telling us that he assumes the general 

 truth of evolution, and its applicability to the 

 whole animal kingdom, both with respect to 

 physical and psychical development, with the one 

 (provisional) exception of the human mind, and 

 he argues for the a priori probability of the con- 

 clusion that this will prove to be no exception 

 after all. 



We are not quite sure whom Mr. Romanes 

 imagines himself to be opposing. He constantly 

 speaks as if the cause of comparative psychology 

 must stand or fall with him, and he were heroically 

 defending it against a strong body cf opponents. 

 Who are they ? Not evolutionists generally, for 

 whatever they may think of Mr. Romanes' attempt, 

 they are prejudiced in favour of his main conten- 

 tion ; not anti-evolutionists, for if so the volume is 

 an elaborate ignoratio elenchi, since an anti-evo- 

 lutionist would not admit the assumptions with 

 which the inquiry starts. Mr. Romanes wishes to 

 prove that human and animal psychology differ 

 not in kind but in degree. Here every one is 

 against Mr. Romanes, including himself, unless he 

 is prepared to say that evolution has abolished 



