298 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



This position we believe to be at one and the same 

 time a dictate of the highest science and of the simplest 

 common sense. We know that our infants grow into 

 rational beings, but we have no reason to suppose that 

 they undergo, while under our care, a profound trans- 

 formation of nature. Common sense therefore concludes 

 that they are essentially " rational " from the first. On 

 the other hand, no race of men has anywhere been found 

 destitute of speech or incapable of plainly showing by 

 gestures that they have a meaning they desire to 

 convey, and that, by their gestures, they intentionally 

 seek to depict their ideas and to converse by signs. At 

 the same time, no race of animals has anywhere been 

 found possessed of speech or capable of plainly showing 

 by gesture that they have a meaning they desire to 

 convey, and that, by their gestures they intentionally seek 

 to depict their ideas and to converse by signs. Common 

 sense, therefore, concludes that man has, but that anima|s 

 have not, a nature capable of rational language, ex- 

 pressed orally or by gesture. 



No facts brought forward by Mr. Romanes con- 

 tradict these dicta of common sense, nor what we 

 believe to be the dicta of the most developed science. 

 Nevertheless, there is a widely diffused prejudice 

 amongst both leaders and followers of physical science, 

 which indisposes them to assert the existence of such 

 a fundamental difference of nature. We are per- 

 suaded that this prejudice is largely due to a merely 

 imaginary cause. Many men feel strongly the difficulty 

 of imagining the first advent of man upon this planet, 

 or how either a new creature could have been suddenly 



