io8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



perience abundantly refutes the notion that speech, 

 whether as uttered or understood, is thus antecedently 



intellectual language could have existed without reason 'is absurd. 

 Reason, then, must, for however short a period, have preceded 

 language. 



" In conclusion, I desire to point out a certain misrepresentation 

 with respect to natural selection. The Professor says, ' In the 

 evolution of the mind, as well as in that of Nature, natural selec- 

 tion is rational selection ; or, in reality, the triumph of reason, the 

 triumph of what is reasonable and right ; or, as people now say, 

 of what is fittest.' But we may ask in passing, if reason has no 

 existence, how can it ' triumph .'' ' The misrepresentation of 

 natural selection, however, lies in his use of the word ' fittest.' 

 When biologists say that the ' fittest ' survives, they do not mean 

 to say that that survives which is the most ' reasonable and right,' 

 but that that survives which is able to survive. What there is less 

 * reasonable and right' in a Rhytina than in a Dugong, or in a 

 Dinornis than an Apteryx, would, I think, puzzle most of our 

 zoologists to determine ; nor is it easy to see a triumph of reason 

 in the extermination of the unique flora of St. Helena by the intro- 

 duction of goats and rabbits. 



"St. George Mivart." 



{^Nature, March i, 1888.] 

 Language = Reason. 

 "Prof. St. George Mivart has read my letter on 'Lan- 

 guage = Reason ' in Nature of February 2 (p. 393) with very great 

 care, and I feel grateful to him for several suggestive remarks. 

 But has he read the heavy volume to which that letter refers — my 

 ' Science of Thought ' ? I doubt it, and have of course no right to 

 expect it, for I know but too well myself how difficult it is for a 

 man who writes books to read any but the most necessary books. 

 I only mention it as an excuse for what might otherwise seem con- 

 ceited — namely, my answering most of his questions and criticisms 

 by references to my own book. 



" Prof. Mivart begins by asking why I should have explained 

 reasoning by reckoning. 



*' Now, first of all, from an historical point of view — and this to 

 a man who considers evolution far more firmly established in 

 language than in any other realm of Nature is always the most 

 important — the Latin ratio^ from which came raison and our own 



