I 9 4 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



water, like pure vapours in the sky. There is, 

 in reality, only one true philosophy, and that 

 is engraven in eternal hieroglyphics on my own 

 tail' (i i). 



This attitude of the lordly saurian toward the 

 human race is a stinging burlesque on the anthro- 

 pocentric conceit which perverts all of man's views 

 of the other orders of life. 



It is not contended that non-human beings are 

 psychically identical with human beings. The 

 races of men are not psychically identical with 

 each other. The difference between the intel- 

 lectual splendours of a Spencer evolving volumes 

 of the profoundest philosophy and the mind of an 

 Australian who cannot count six, or between the 

 understanding of an Edison, the wizard of the 

 electrical world, and that of the South Sea 

 islanders, who, when Captain Cook gave them 

 some English nails, planted them in the hope of 

 raising a new crop, is almost infinite. The lowest 

 races of men have neither superstition nor the 

 power of abstract thought as have the higher 

 races. They have a word for black stone, white 

 stone, and brown stone, but no word for stone; 

 for elm-tree, oak-tree, and the like, but no word 

 for tree. As Kingsley says, ' It is difficult to 

 believe that a dog does not form as clear an 

 abstract idea of a tree as these people do.' There 

 are human beings living in the forests of Asia, 

 Africa, and Australasia that wander about from 

 place to place in herds without chief, law, weapons, 

 or fixed habitations. They go naked, mate by 



