126 THE DA WN OF MIND. 



tion. And believing, as I do, that conception is be 

 yond the power of my favorite and clever dog, I am 

 forced to believe that his mind differs generically from 

 my own.&quot; 1 



Should any one feel it necessary either to his view 

 of Man or of the Universe to hold that a great gulf lies 

 here, it is open to him to cling to his belief. The pres 

 ent thesis is simply that Man has ascended. After all, 

 little depends on whether the slope is abrupt or gentle, 

 whether Man reaches the top by a uniform flight or 

 has here and there by invisible hands to be carried 

 across a bridgeless space. In any event it is Nature s 

 staircase. To say that self-consciousness has arisen 

 from sensation, and sensation from the function of nu 

 trition, let us say, in the Mimosa pudica or Sensitive 

 Plant, may be right or wrong ; but the error can only 

 be serious when it is held that that accounts either for 

 self-consciousness or for the transition. Mimosa can 

 be defined in terms of Man; but Man cannot be de 

 fined in terms of Mimosa. The first is possible because 

 there is the least fraction in that which is least in Man 

 of that which is greatest in Mimosa ; the last is impos 

 sible because there is nothing in Mimosa of that which 

 is greatest in Man. What the two possess in common, 

 or seem to possess, may be a basis for comparison, for 

 what it is worth ; but to include in the comparison the 

 ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent, of what is over 

 and above that common fraction is by no sort of rea 

 soning lawful. Man, in the last resort, has self-con 

 sciousness, Mimosa sensation ; and the difference is 

 qualitative as well as quantitative. 



If, however, it is a fallacy to ignore the qualitative 

 1 C. Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Inlelliyence, p. 350. 



