THE DAWN OF MIND. 135 



remains to consider the vast distance — in the case of 

 the emotions almost the whole distance — where they 

 run parallel with one another. Comparative psy- 

 chology is not so advanced a science as comparative 

 embryology ; yet no one who has felt the force of the 

 recapitulation argument for the evolution of bodily 

 function, even making all allowances for the differ- 

 ences of the things compared, will deny the weight of 

 the corresponding argument for the evolution of Mind. 

 Why should the Mind thus recapitulate in its devel- 

 opment the psychic life of animals unless some vital 

 link connected them ? 



A singular complement to this argument has been 

 suggested recently — though as yet only in the form 

 of the vaguest hint — from the side of Mental Pathol- 

 ogy- When the Mind is affected by certain diseases, 

 its progress downward can often be followed step by 

 step. It does not tumble down in a moment into 

 chaos like a house of cards, but in a definite order, 

 stone by stone, or story by story. Now the striking 

 thing about that order is, that it is the probable order 

 in which the building has gone up. The order of 

 descent, in short, is the inverse of the order of ascent. 

 The first faculty to go, in many cases of insanity, is 

 the last faculty which arrived ; the next faculty is 

 affected next ; the whole spring uncoiling as it were 

 in the order and direction in which, presumably, it 

 had been wound up. Sometimes even in the phe- 

 nomenon of old age the cycle may be clearly traced. 

 " Just as consciousness is slowly evolved out of vege- 

 tative life, so is it, through the infirmities of old age, 

 the gradual approach of death, and in advanced men- 

 tal disease, again resolved into it. The highest, most 



