MAN AND BRUTE, 1 3 



mental progress in successive generations. On this alleged 

 distinction I may remark, first of all, that it begs the whole 

 question of mental evolution in animals, and, therefore, is 

 directly opposed to the whole body of facts presented in my 

 work upon this subject. In the next place, I may remark 

 that the alleged distinction comes with an ill grace from 

 opponents of evolution, seeing that it depends upon a recog- 

 nition of the principles of evolution in the history of mankind 

 But, leaving aside these considerations, I meet the alleged dis- 

 tinction with a plain denial of both the statements of fact on 

 which it rests. That is to say, I deny on the one hand that 

 mental progress from generation to generation is an invariable 

 peculiarity of human intelligence ; and, on the other hand, 

 I deny that such progress is never found to occur in the case 

 of animal intelligence. 



Taking these two points separately, I hold it to be a state- 

 ment opposed to fact to say, or to imply, that all existing 

 savages, when not brought into contact with civilized man, 

 undergo intellectual development from generation to genera- 

 tion. On the contrary, one of the most generally applicable 

 statements we can make with reference to the psychology of 

 uncivilized man is that it shows, in a remarkable degree, what 

 we may term a vis inertice as regards upward movement. 

 Even so highly developed a type of mind as that of the 

 Negro — submitted, too, as it has been in millions of individual 

 cases to close contact with minds of the most progressive type, 

 and enjoying as it has in many thousands of individual cases 

 all the advantages of liberal education — has never, so far as I 

 can ascertain, executed one single stroke of original work in 

 any single department of intellectual activity. 



Again, if we look to the whole history of man upon this 

 planet as recorded by his remains, the feature which to my 

 mind stands out in most marked prominence is the almost 

 incredible slowness of his intellectual advance, during all the 

 earlier millenniums of his existence. Allowing full weight to 

 the consideration that "the Palaeolithic age, referring as the 

 phrase does to a stage of culture, and not to any chronological 



