126 THE DAWN OF MIND. 



tion. And believing, as I do, that conception is be- 

 yond the power of my favorite and clever dog, I am 

 forced to believe that his mind differs generically from 

 my own." 1 



Should any one feel it necessary either to his view 

 of Man or of the Universe to hold that a great gulf lies 

 here, it is open to him to cling to his belief. The pres- 

 ent thesis is simply that Man has ascended. After all, 

 little depends on whether the slope is abrupt or gentle, 

 whether Man reaches the top by a uniform flight or 

 has here and there by invisible hands to be carried 

 across a bridgeless space. In any event it is Nature's 

 staircase. To say that self-consciousness has arisen 

 from sensation, and sensation from the function of nu- 

 trition, let us say, in the Mimosa pudica or Sensitive 

 Plant, may be right or wrong ; but the error can only 

 be serious when it is held that that accounts either for 

 self-consciousness or for the transition. Mimosa can 

 be defined in terms of Man; but Man cannot be de- 

 fined in terms of Mimosa. The first is possible because 

 there is the least fraction in that which is least in Man 

 of that which is greatest in Mimosa ; the last is impos- 

 sible because there is nothing in Mimosa of that which 

 is greatest in Man. What the two possess in common, 

 or seem to possess, may be a basis for comparison, for 

 what it is worth ; but to include in the comparison the 

 ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent, of what is over 

 and above that common fraction is by no sort of rea- 

 soning lawful. Man, in the last resort, has self-con- 

 sciousness, Mimosa sensation ; and the difference is 

 qualitative as well as quantitative. 



If, however, it is a fallacy to ignore the qualitative 

 1 C. Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 350. 



