MAN AND BRUTE, 15 



apart from this general consideration, we meet with many 

 particular instances of mental improvement in successive 

 generations of animals, taking place even within the limited 

 periods over which human observations can extend. In my 

 previous work numerous cases will be found (especially in the 

 chapters on the plasticity and blended origin of instincts), 

 showing that it is quite a usual thing for birds and mammals 

 to change even the most strongly inherited of their instinctive 

 habits, in order to improve the conditions of their life in 

 relation to some change which has taken place in their 

 environments. And if it should be said that in such a case 

 *' the animal still does not rise above the level of birdhood or of 

 beasthood," the answer, of course, is, that neither does a 

 Shakespeare or a Newton rise above the level of manhood. 



On the whole, then, I cannot see that there is any valid 

 distinction to be drawn between human and brute psychology 

 with respect to improvement from generation to generation. 

 Indeed, I should deem it almost more philosophical in any 

 opponent of the theory of evolution, who happened to be 

 acquainted with the facts bearing upon the subject, if he were 

 Lo adopt the converse position, and argue that for the pur- 

 poses of this theory there is not a siifficietit distinction between 

 human and brute psychology in this respect. For when we 

 remember the great advance which, according to the theory 

 of evolution, the mind of palaeolithic man must already have 

 made upon that of the higher apes, and when we remember 

 that all races of existing men have the immense advantage 

 of some form of language whereby to transmit to progeny the 

 results of individual experience,— when we remember these 

 things, the difficulty appears to me to lie on the side of 

 explaining why, with such a start and with such advantages, 

 the human species, both when it first appears upon the pages 

 of geological history, and as it now appears in the great 

 majority of its constituent races, should so far resemble 

 animal species in the prolonged stagnation of its intellectual 



life. 



I shall now pass on to consider the views of Mr. Wallace 



