CHAP. VII.] THE BKUTE. 231 



faculties tend to increase in an inverse ratio, it becomes 

 unquestionable that the difference between them is one of 

 kind. 



On the other hand, no power may be assumed as latent 

 unless its existence is subsequently made known in the same 

 individual, or in others of the same species. We may fairly 

 assume rational powers to have been latent in an infant that 

 died a week old, because such powers exist plainly in all men 

 normally constituted ; but we have no right to assume that 

 rationality is latent in brutes, because no brute has been 

 known ever to perform one single action for which the pre 

 sence in it of faculties like our own indeliberate faculties will 

 not amply account. 



Professor Huxley has lately * made public a thesis which, 

 as to part of it, sorely needs amplification and ex- Human au . 

 planation. By reference to a series of interesting tomat181 

 experiments on mutilated frogs, he supported a view as to 

 the psychical faculties of brutes which is identical with that 

 here maintained the view, namely, that animals are sentient 

 automata. But he added the expression : 



&quot; Undoubtedly, I do hold that the view I have taken of the relations 

 between the physical and mental faculties of brutes applies in its 

 fulness and entirety to man.&quot; Op. cit. p. 366. 



Now, by this expression, Professor Huxley may mean, 

 either (1), simply that men have all the faculties of brutes, 

 or (2), that they have no more than the faculties of brutes. 

 But he can hardly mean the first, for it is the merest truism 

 which no one thinks of denying. Of course, we are conscious 

 automata, as, equally of course, we have the same vital 

 powers as cabbages have; nay more, we agree even with 

 pieces of rock and lumps of clay, in that we are coherent 

 masses of matter, and not mere loose aggregations, like heaps 

 of sand. But because we possess the properties of clay or 

 cabbages, it by no means follows we have not other proper- 



* At the meeting of the British Association at Belfast. See Nature for 

 September 3rd, 1874, pp. 362-366. 



