32 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



vital functions. A beast possessing these faculties 

 is plainly not a machine, but still it does not enjoy 

 intellectual life. 



It may be boldly stated that much confusion as 

 to the meaning of the expression intellectual life has 

 been caused by Biichner and Brehm and other 

 leaders of popular psychology. All our sense per 

 ceptions taken collectively are regarded as con 

 stituting intellectual life, although they do nothing 

 of the kind. In the sense in which the expression 

 occurs in ancient philosophy, intellectual life is only 

 that form of activity which we describe as higher, 

 viz. the exercise of human thought and human will. 

 What characterises human thought is the fact that 

 man possesses the power to form concepts, and to 

 deduce from them general conclusions, and to raise 

 himself by the aid of his reason above all particular 

 phenomena. On this power depend all the art, 

 science, and religion of mankind, which are not found 

 among beasts, although there are some trifling 

 resemblances to them, which have been exaggerated 

 until they amount to real equality. If we wish to 

 be consistent, we shall require to have a special 

 principle underlying this intellectual activity, which 

 distinguishes man above all the rest of nature, and 

 this principle must be a simple, intellectual being. 

 This soul is not, however, shut up in the human body 

 as in a prison, but with the human body it forms one 

 complete being and substance ; hence, in addition to 

 the higher intellectual faculties, it possesses others 



