[13] 



members of the human family itself, various degrees of 

 intelligence, from the almost barren brains of the lowest 

 races of savages to the brilliant mental achievements of 

 a Newton or a Spencer ? 



It is beyond doubt that the intellectual superiority of 

 civilised man over his savage brethren is due to the 

 greater multiplicity of his objects of thought, and it 

 follows that savage man's intellectual superiority over 

 the lower animals is due to the same cause. The actions 

 of both have the same aim viz., the supplying of the 

 wants of the physical nature and the gratifying of the 

 desires aroused in the mind. It is frequently asserted 

 that man differs from the lower animals in possessing 

 the power of reflection ; but this I hold to be an ex- 

 ploded argument, and at variance with all recent teaching. 

 Dogs, elephants, and monkeys most certainly possess the 

 faculty of reflection, and it is not difficult to find races 

 belonging to the human family whose powers of reflec- 

 tion transcend hardly in the least degree those possessed 

 by the higher apes ; while the difference between the 

 reflective capacity of the lowest savage, which is of the 

 simplest conceivable kind, and that of the civilised 

 European, which has developed into genius, is enormous. 

 Then, again, it is often said that only man is emotional ; 

 but one need only have an ordinary acquaintanceship 

 with domestic animals to at once see the absurdity of 

 this argument, for dogs are frequently observed to laugh, 

 to cry, to express joy and gratitude by their actions, and 

 to betray feelings of shame and remorse; while horses 

 and elephants have been observed to punish their cruel 

 keepers in the most cunning manner and then to laugh 

 at the poor fellows' discomfiture. As to the " conscience 

 argument," so frequently brought forward, by religionists 

 especially, all I have to say here is that conscience, or the 

 knowledge of the distinction between right and wrong, 

 is not an inherent quality of the human mind, being 

 merely a result of the operation of the reflective faculty 

 aided by experience, as is quite evident from the fact 

 that the ideas of morality vary according to the age in 

 which we live. The same may be said about the greatest 

 of all the arguments against evolution viz., that of 

 language ; for, just as conscience is but a product of re- 



