Masterpieces of Science 



the aid of his social habits he long ago became 

 the most dominant of all living creatures. 



A great stride in the development of the 

 intellect will have followed, as soon as the half- 

 art and half-instinct of language came into 

 use; for the continued use of language will have 

 reacted on the brain and produced an inherited 

 effect; and this again will have reacted on the 

 improvement of language. As Mr. Chauncey 

 Wright has well remarked, the largeness of the 

 brain in man relatively to his body, compared 

 with the lower animals, may be attributed in 

 chief part to the early use of some simple form 

 of language — that wonderful engine which 

 affixes signs to all sorts of objects and qualities, 

 and excites trains of thought which would never 

 arise from the mere impression of the senses, 

 or if they did arise could not be followed out. 

 The higher intellectual powers of man, such 

 as those of ratiocination, abstraction, self- 

 consciousness, etc., will have followed from 

 the continued improvement of other mental 

 faculties; but without considerable culture of 

 the mind, both in the race and in the individual, 

 it is doubtful whether these high powers would 

 be exercised and thus fully attained. 



The development of the moral qualities is a 

 more interesting problem. The foundation lies 

 in the social instincts, including under this 

 term the family ties. These instincts are highly 

 complex, and in the case of the lower animals 

 give special tendencies toward certain definite 

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