392 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



curious coincidence with this interval, the law of continuity 

 was violated — notwithstanding that in the case of every 

 individual human mind such is known never to be the case. 



In order to overturn so immense a presumption as is thus 

 raised against the contention of my opponents on merely 

 a priori grounds, it appears to me that they must be fairly 

 called upon to supply some very powerful considerations of 

 an a posteriori kind, tending to show that there is something 

 in the constitution of the human mind which renders it 

 virtually impossible to suppose that such an order of mental 

 existence can have proceeded by way of genetic descent 

 from mind of lower orders. I therefore next proceeded to 

 consider the arguments which have been adduced in support 

 of this thesis. 



In order that the points of difference on which these 

 arguments are founded might be brought out into clear relief, 

 I began by briefly considering the points of resemblance 

 between the human mind and mind of lower orders. Here 

 we saw that so far as the Emotions are concerned no difference 

 of kind has been, or can be, alleged. The whole series of 

 human emotions have been proved to obtain among the 

 lower animals, except those which depend on the higher 

 intellectual powers of man — i.e. those appertaining to religion 

 and perception of the sublime. But all the others — which in 

 my list amount to over twenty — occur in the brute creation ; 

 and although many of them do not occur in so highly 

 developed a degree, this is immaterial where the question is 

 one of kind. Indeed, so remarkable is the general similarity 

 of emotional life in both cases — especially when we have 

 regard to the young child and savage man — that it ought 

 fairly to be taken as direct evidence of a genetic continuity 

 between them. 



And so, likewise, it is with Instinct, For although this 

 occurs in a greater proportion among the lower animals 

 than it does in ourselves, no one can venture to question the 

 identity of all the instincts which are common to both. And 

 this is the only point that here requires to be established. 



