200 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. VII. 



and the same terms as applied to man. It lias become ne 

 cessary to return to the old, safe via media of an older school, 

 and maintain with them that though no term can be used in 

 precisely the same sense of man and of God, yet that none 

 the less there is a certain relation of analogy between these 

 two uses of the same term. 



An exactly parallel but opposite error has taken place in 

 biological science. Descartes, that fruitful author of philo 

 sophic error, deserted the old moderate view which affirmed 

 that between the highest psychical powers of man and brutes 

 there is a certain natural likeness and analogy, and gave rise 

 to* the notion that animals are nothing but wonderfully 

 complex machines an error naturally resulting in the oppo 

 site one now so prevalent the error, namely, that there is a 

 substantial identity between the brute soul and the soul of 

 man Biological Anthropomorphism. 



Statements and misrepresentations of the kind follow natu 

 rally from that tendency which exists on the part of so many 

 to be interested in and attracted by anecdotes in praise of 

 the mental powers of brutes. We see this tendency in the 

 many fables about animals fables of all ages and of all 

 clirnes such as now serve to amuse our childhood or to call 

 out the skill of artists such as Kaulbach. 



It is this biological, or inverted, anthropomorphism, which 

 has led to that exaggerated interpretation of animal activities, 

 of which Mr. Darwin, in his Descent of Man, has given us, 

 as we shall shortly see, such an ever-memorable example. 

 As an example of the hasty attribution of human qualities to 

 brutes, on account of certain superficial resemblances, we may 

 take a sitting bird. It is, no doubt, true that the parent 

 birds have keen parental emotions, yet a particular conspi 

 cuous act has had very undue weight assigned to it as a proof 

 of such tenderness. What praises of the patient fidelity of 



* We say &quot;gave rise to,&quot; because Descartts did not really himself maintain 

 that animals were pure machines. He allowed feeling to the animal, and t-aid : 

 &quot; Je ue lui repose pas menus le sentiment, en taut qu il depend des 01 gants 

 du corps; ainsi mon opinion n e&t pas si oruelle aux animaux.&quot; 



