EDUCATION AND ITS KESULTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 



IT must be utterly fatal to the supposition, hitherto so 

 popular, that instinct is immutable, being already perfect, if 

 it can. be shown, as it very readily can be, that the moral 

 and intellectual faculties of the lower animals are capable of 

 improvement to a high degree, that there are ample evidences 

 among them of very marked progress in skill, ingenuity, 

 adaptiveness, caution, and other mental qualities or apti- 

 tudes. This mental improvement or progress includes even 

 the acquisition of new faculties, the development of those 

 which are latent, with the perfecting of others. 



What has been spoken of as mental potentiality, the 

 capability of progressive improvement, has long been regarded 

 as one of the many features that distinguish man from other 

 animals. It is just as absurdly assumed, however, that in 

 man there is a possible perfectibility of his moral or intellec- 

 tual nature as that in other animals there is no moral or 

 intellectual nature to be cultivated or developed. The truth 

 is that in both cases there are moral and intellectual powers, 

 capable of cultivation ; that in both perfection is practically 

 unattainable certainly has never been attained ; that in 

 both, and especially as regards the lower animals, the limit 

 already attained is not that which is attainable. It cannot 



