Animal Causes. 235 



with magnetism or electricity in as much as it per- 

 vades the nerves as a virtual electric circulation. 



While the intelligence of the lowest animal is thus 

 allied to magnetic manifestations, that of the highest 

 is akin to electrical action. 



That this electricity works the animal machinery 

 somewhat differently, and by different agents from an 

 artificial electric machine is what might be expected, 

 but that the points of resemblance are numerous, have 

 long been obvious to all physiologists and biologists and 

 enrich every book now written on the subject of mind 

 or intelligence. Remembering that our knowledge of 

 electricity is still in its infancy, even an Edison might 

 learn much valuable information from the electric 

 mechanisms of animals if properly investigated. 



It is no part of our purpose to detail the mental 

 mechanisms of animals, or to describe the various 

 mental systems in serial development from the lowest 

 to the highest. Such already exist in numerous 

 physiological and biological works and are matter of 

 common knowledge to scientists. But the interpreta- 

 tion we place on the mode of motion in these organ- 

 isms is different from current authority and has yet to 

 be exhaustively tested. We shall content ourselves 

 in a succeeding chapter with a fuller description of 

 that which chiefly concerns ourselves, the mental 

 mechanism of man, the evolution of human intelligence, 

 and the physical processes of human consciousness. 



