CHAP. VII.] THE BEUTE. 243 



What, tli en, is the conclusion at which we must arrive 

 with respect to brute animals even those the most 

 like us or the most seemingly intelligent ? What 

 is the lesson which nature seems to teach us in their regard ? 



We may, it is here contended, learn from it and the 

 evidence here adduced two lessons. The first is that in 

 accepting testimony respecting the psychical characters of 

 brutes, we should be especially on our guard against a certain 

 common form of credulity and tendency to exaggeration 

 Biological Anthropomorphism. The second lesson is, that 

 while we have abundant evidence of the sensitive and 

 imaginative powers of brutes, we have both negative and 

 positive evidence that the form, or force, which energizes in 

 the dog, the bee, the elephant, the ant, or the gorilla, is one 

 which is sentient but not rational that it feels both plea 

 sures and pains, but neither knows nor reflects upon the one 

 or the other. Finally, we may conclude that the instinctive 

 qualities of the brute may be more or less imperfectly under 

 stood by means of those lower powers of the human soul 

 hereinbefore enumerated, which may be performed without 

 deliberation and reflex self-consciousness, while all the efforts 

 of the best-informed naturalists who desire to confound the 

 nature of the brute with that of man but serve to bring out 

 more forcibly the profound gulf which separates psychically 

 man and the brute. 



R 2 



