110 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



must be sustained by facts. Now, you are not stating a 

 fact when you ask, " Can we feel sure that an old dog never 

 reflects on his past pleasures in the chase ? " You yourself 

 merely suppose he does, but are evidently not certain of it. 



Homo. Mr. Darwin is thus unable, my Lord, even when 

 taking the argument his own way, to find self- consciousness 

 in a dog. The huntsman is self-conscious when he recalls 

 the events of the chase, and the part he himself took in it, 

 anck-discusses them with his friends ; but can Mr. Darwin 

 himself imagine a hound remembering the circumstances 

 even of yesterday's chase, and reasoning on them with his 

 fellow hounds ? Has he ever seen a pack of hounds con- 

 ferring together on the events of the chase when it is over, 

 each showing himself conscious, by the tone in which ho 

 barks, of the part he has had in it ? As to the hard-worked 

 wife of the Australian savage, Mr. Darwin does not venture 

 to deny to her, degraded though she be, the power of 

 exerting self-consciousness, and reflecting on her own ex- 

 istence. Even granting that she uses hardly any abstract 

 words, and cannot count above four, the fact that she does 

 use some abstract words, and can count four, is sufficient to 

 prove that she possesses the power of abstraction, and can 

 form general ideas. She can also do what Mr. Darwin tells 

 us no one of the lower animals can do she can reflect on 

 "whence she comes and whither she goes what is death 

 and what is life, and so forth." We have here then, on 

 Mr. Darwin's own showing, even in the lowest form of 

 savage life, all the high faculties of which he speaks, Felf- 

 consciousness, Abstraction, General Ideas, and also Indi- 

 viduality, for the others imply this ; but Mr. Darwin fails 

 to show even the dawn of any one of these faculties in any 

 brute whatever. 



Darwin. My Lord, "that animals retain their mental 



