Darwin s Ethical Theory. 1 79 



barren seas of speculation, with all their shoals 

 and quicksands, &quot; where armies whole have stink.&quot; 

 This departure, in the case of morals, from the 

 scientific method of the &quot; Origin of Species &quot; is 

 certainly very remarkable, though no one, so far 

 as I know, has ever called attention to it. Had 

 Darwin, I repeat, treated conscience as he treated 

 the mental faculties, there would have been no 

 ground of complaint. His mental philosophy may 

 be summed up in the statement that the various 

 grades of intelligence shade into one another so 

 imperceptibly that it is not possible to distinguish 

 them absolutely, even at the point where the ani 

 mal differentiates into the human mind an inter 

 val which, moreover, is not greater than that 

 between the intelligence of the fish and the intel 

 ligence of the elephant. This may or may not be 

 a tenable contention ; but it is at least supported 

 by facts, and so amenable to refutation. It seems 

 to me false from omissions rather than in the po 

 sitions it specifies. For, supposing the difference 

 between the canine or simian mind and the mind of 

 a savage to be no greater than the theory requires, 

 there is, nevertheless, a pertinent distinction too 

 significant to be passed over in silence the one is 

 capable of appropriating the accumulated knowl 

 edge, culture, and civilization of the most ad- 



