MAN'S ACCOUNT WITH THE LOWER ANIMALS 15 



together to form tissues and organs, until the entire structure is 

 perfected. All this is done unconsciously, but it is none the 

 less the result of past experience on the part of innumerable 

 antecedent generations of living organisms, each one treading 

 in the path well worn by its predecessors and perhaps making 

 a little progress on its own account. 



How far what we call intelligence can be said to be involved 

 in these unconscious processes of growth and development I 

 must leave to students of philosophy to decide, but, at any rate 

 amongst the higher animals, a point is reached in the course of 

 development where the part played by intelligence can no 

 longer be called in question, and in man especially experience 

 is consciously utilised as the most important factor in both 

 individual and racial progress. It is this conscious use of 

 experience that chiefly distinguishes mankind from the lower 

 animals, and the point which I wish to emphasise here is that 

 man, by virtue of his greater intelligence, is able to avail him- 

 self not only of the past experience of his own species but of 

 the experience of the entire animal kingdom. 



Not the least of the debts which we owe to the lower 

 animals is the liberal education which they offer to those who 

 choose to avail themselves of it, and this education may have 

 a very practical bearing upon human affairs. How many 

 inventions of the human mind have been unconsciously 

 anticipated by the lower animals in the construction of their 

 own bodies ? What is the photographic camera but an 

 imperfect imitation of the eye as it occurs in every typical 

 vertebrate ? The electric telegraph is little more than an 

 extension, beyond the limits of the body, of the infinitely 

 more perfect system of nerves and ganglia within the body 

 itself. I should not be in the least surprised to learn that 

 something like wireless telegraphy is practised amongst the 

 lower animals, if only we could recognise the apparatus by 

 means of which it is carried on. 



The problem of flight has been unconsciously solved no 

 less than four times by different groups of the animal 

 kingdom insects, reptiles, birds and bats and by each in 



