366 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Mat 1, 1885. 



Those gestures which express thought imply a far higher 

 stage of mental develoiiment than any of the other gestures 

 which we have been considering. Man has full possession 

 of those involuntary gestures which express feelings, and 

 of the gestures which express volition. He has these in 

 common with inferior animals ; but he has more than these, 

 for the mind of the most savage man transcends that of the 

 most cultured brute, although the difference is one of 

 degree only. Thus Mr. Gallon observes* that the 

 Dammaras are able to count as far as three only ; they 

 discover the loss of an ox, " not by the number of the herd 

 being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know." 

 If two sticks of tobacco are " the rate of exchange for one 

 sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Dau.mara to take two 

 sheep and give him four sticks ; " and he continues : " Once 

 while I watched a Dammara floundering hopelessly in a 

 calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my 

 spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She was over- 

 looking half-a-dozen of her newborn puppies ; and her 

 anxiety was excessive as she tried to find out if all were 

 present. . . . She kept puzzling and running her eyes 

 over them, backwards and forwards. She had evidently a 

 vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for 

 her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dcg and 

 Dammara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the 

 man." 



Differences of degree, however, widen so greatly that 

 in the course of time they become to all seeming dif- 

 ferences in kind. Thus, in animals and plants a .slight 

 variation from an original type may become so perpetuated 

 and encouraged by natural selection or surrounding condi- 

 tions that they may eventually appear to belong to a wholly 

 separate genus. 



The inherent similarity between brute and human intelli- 

 gence has been tacitly or explicitly acknowledged in all 

 ages. In those beast-fables which have been found all 

 over the world, human characteristics have been attributed 

 to the lower animals ; and, curiously enough, that most 

 human of all attributes — articulate .speech — Las been 

 ascribed to them by many and various nations. Familiar 

 instances of this are the talking serpent of Genesis,! 

 Balaam's ass,! and the characters in ^sop's Fables; but 

 less well known is the shark of Polynesian myth, which 

 speaks and acts like a human being. The pelican and 

 musk-duck, according to an Australian legend, are capable 

 of human speech and action ; and in South African legends, 

 not only do all animals speak, but the various kinds are 

 credited with different modes of pronunciation. 



In antithesis to this belief in the potsession of human 

 faculties by the brutes, may be regarded the prominent 

 doctrine still in existence, that an inseparable barrier 

 exists between the lower animals and man, a doc- 

 trine which, put shortly, is that the man possesses 

 a soul, while the animal, not having that gift, is 

 a mindless automaton. The supporters of the Evolu- 

 tion theory, however, regard the mind of man as 

 a direct development from that of the lower animals ; 

 they maintain that from the earliest ■ trace of a nervous 

 system, which is now found represented in the Medusiv, 

 there has been a process going on through countless suc- 

 cessive generations that has brought about the gradual 

 specialisation of a nervous system, which, becoming more 

 and more complicated at every step, has taken on functions 

 of greater complexity, till we have reached the brain of a 

 Shakespeare or a Bacon. This, too, is a hopeful theory, 

 for, having got so far, why should we not go farther in the 

 march of intellect ] 



* " Tropical Africa," p. 132. 

 X Numbers, xxii., 28 et seq. 



f Chap. iii. 



Against the conclusion of my second article, " That 

 man's mind was developed by the struggle for existence," 

 ex h)/]h evolut.,a. correspondtnt, " Halliards" [1626], has 

 formulated the pseudo syjlogism, "all other races are older 

 than man. No other races have developed mentally like 

 man, though all have been struggling (and successfully) for 

 existence longer than he has. Ergo, man's mental 

 superiority is not the result of these circumstances, but is 

 itself the efficient cause of his use of firearms, language, 

 and of his domination over all other animals." I simply 

 take this as a type of the arguments commonly used to 

 support the doctrine of the special creation of tLo mind of 

 man, although it is perhaps unjust to take so illogical a 

 specimen, for it is obvious that the conclusion therein givp.n 

 cannot possibly be arrived at from its premisses. 



It has never been attempted to show that other races 

 have developed mentally like man ; but it has already been 

 pointed out that man's use of weapans, language, ifec., and 

 domination over other animals was a manifestation of his 

 mental superiority which had been attained in the struggle 

 for existence. There are various kinds of development 

 which lead to success in the struggle for existence. 

 Mental development is only one of these. 



Thus we find a leaf caterpillar has developed a green colour, 

 which prevents its being conspicuous to its enemies, the 

 birds ; while, in the same way, another kind of caterpillar 

 has come to resemble a piece of dried twig. The hare has 

 gained swiftness, the skunk a malodorous secretion, the 

 porcupine quills, the adder its poison glands. In short, 

 volumes might be written, only detailing these myriad pro- 

 tective developments. Briefly, I will formulate my argu- 

 ment as follows : — All animals that have survived have 

 been enabled to do so in virtue of developing a pro- 

 tection against adverse surrounding circumstances. Man 

 has survived ; therefore man must have developed a 

 protection against adverse surrounding circtimstances. 

 Some animals develop one kind of protection, some 

 another ; development in man has taken place by way of 

 the nervous system, he has g:iined brain-force, and con- 

 sequently mental superiority, and this mental superiority 

 has been the means of his devising weapons, tools, clothes, 

 and all the other implements of civilisation and life in a 

 community, for which life language is one of the most 

 important conditions. The question is often raised, " Why 

 do not the lower animals develop language?" The answer 

 is that they have not attained sufficient complexity of 

 mental and communal life to need such a means of expres- 

 sion as language, such as we know it. Language in a 

 general sense they do possess — a means of communication 

 sufficing for their necessities. Articulate .speech has grown 

 up with the mind of man and could not exist without it 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE SENSE 



OF BEAUTY. 



.- - ' 



By Constance C. W. Naden. 



{Continned from j)aijc 34-1.) 



LET us now investigate somewhat more in detail the 

 pleasures and pains given by li(//it and shade, by 

 coloiiT, and hj/orm. The discrimination of colour doubt- 

 less succeeds that of light and shade, but it will be more 

 conveniently treated first. 



I must briefly explain the " Young-Helmholtz " hypo- 

 thesis, which is good till a better is suggested ; but it 

 scarcely claims to be more than a symbolic expression of 



