THE RISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 



show that I am right in placing the limit of self- 

 consciousness at the boundary line which separates 

 man from other animals. They may say that tense 

 and nervous self-consciousness which makes us 

 feel pain and sorrow so acutely is rather the 

 peculiarity of civilized man, and that when we fol- 

 low the human scale down to savages and canni- 

 bals, we find creatures with very slight sensibility 

 to pain and apparently no knowledge of sorrow 

 as an abiding sentiment. Therefore, they hold, 

 there is no evidence to show that these very low 

 human beings are more self-conscious than the 

 higher animals of other classes. 



Now, this is a very difficult point to deal with, 

 because we cannot obtain direct evidence by ques- 

 tioning horses and dogs on the point; and in the 

 case of the savages, the more you interrogate them 

 the more you are impelled to regard them as mere 

 animals. When you come across a tribe of island- 

 ers who have half-a-dozen words to describe dif- 

 ferent methods of putting a captive to death, but 

 not a single word to express mercy, gratitude, or 

 any moral virtue, it is not easy to hold to the faith 

 that man alone is made in the likeness of God. 



In so many respects your faithful dog seems 

 superior to the debased human savage that you 

 are reluctant to erect between them a mental bar- 

 rier which shuts off the dog among the lower ani- 

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