ANIMAL AND RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 229 



pressure, where its results ? If we surrender external 

 pressure, do we then part with natural selection in 

 the sense in which we have hitherto used it ? If so, 

 does the action of thought observed by us, fail to 

 illustrate the law appearing in the co-action of environ 

 ment and structure ? To these questions there seems 

 but one answer the argument for continuity is unten 

 able. The law itself does not hold, and accumulation 

 of slight modifications is not visible within the 

 observations. 



This conclusion is confirmed when we pass over to 

 the higher mode of knowing, constantly referred to 

 in these discussions. Let us now take this distinct 

 standpoint, in order to consider what is to be under 

 stood by such phrases as these, gathered within the 

 limits of a half-page of Darwin s discussion, the frame 

 of mind, several distinct mental actions, mental 

 faculties in animals, and mental powers as these 

 appear in man. 1 Mental actions are classified as 

 distinct ; how are they distinguished ? Is it not by 

 absence of characteristics of organic action, and by 

 presence of characteristics not observed in the sphere 

 of organic activity ? How otherwise can we account 

 for classification of actions as muscular and as mental ? 

 To suggest that the distinction is verbal, not real, is 

 to run directly into self-contradiction a landing- 

 place towards which science must decline to travel. 

 Let us make good our classification, and Avhat are the 

 consequences? Negatively, mental actions are not 

 produced by structure in response to nutriment and 

 external excitation ; consequently these actions do not 

 come under the law of natural selection, under which 



1 Origin of Species, p. 191. 



