CHAPTER XL 



THE TRANSITION IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 



We are now, I think, in possession of sufficient material to 

 begin our answer to the question with which we set out — 

 namely, Is it conceivable that the human mind can have 

 arisen by way of a natural genesis from the minds of the 

 higher quadrumana? I maintain that the material now 

 before us is sufficient to show, not only that this is con- 

 ceivable, but inevitable. 



First of all we must remember that we share in common 

 with the lower animals not only perceptual, but also what 

 I have termed receptual life. Thus far, no difference of kind 

 can be even so much as suggested. The difference then, be 

 it one of kind or of degree, concerns only those superadded 

 elements of psychology which are peculiar to man, and which, 

 following other psychologists, I have termed conceptual. I 

 say advisedly the elements, because it is by no one disputed 

 that all differences of conceptual life are differences of degree, 

 or that from the ideation of a savage to that of a Shakespeare 

 there is unquestionably a continuous ascent The only ques- 

 tion, then, that obtains is as to the relation between the 

 highest recept of a brute and the lowest concept of a man. 



Now, in considering this question we must first remember 

 to what an extraordinarily high level of adaptive ideation the 

 purely receptual life of brutes is able to carry them. If we 

 contrast the ideation of my cebus, which honestly investi- 

 gated the mechanical principle of a screw, and then applied 

 his specially acquired knowledge to screws in general — if we 

 contrast this ideation with that of palaeolithic man, who for 



