COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



Such a result is just what the Doctrine of Evo- 

 lution teaches us to anticipate — and it thor- 

 oughly cohfirms our statement that, in point of 

 intelligence and capacity for progress, the real 

 contrast is not between all mankind and other 

 primates, but between civilized and primeval 

 man. 



Let us now consider some of the leading char- 

 acteristics of this gradual but increasingly rapid 

 intellectual progress, regarded as a growing cor- 

 respondence between the human mind and its 

 environment. 



In the second chapter of our Prolegomena 

 it was shown that the highest kinds of scientific 

 knowledge differ only in degree from the low- 

 est kinds of what is called ordinary knowledge. 

 In spite of their great differences in mental ca- 

 pacity, it is obvious that the antelope who on 

 hearing a roar from the neighbouring thicket 

 infers that it is high time to run for his life, the 

 Bushman who on seeing the torn carcase of the 

 antelope infers that a lion has recently been pre- 

 sent, and the astronomer who on witnessing cer- 

 tain unforeseen irregularities in the motions of 

 Uranus infers that an unknown planet is attract- 

 ing it, perform one and all the same kind of 

 mental operation. In the three cases the pro- 

 cesses are fundamentally the same, though dif- 

 fering in complexity according to the number 

 and remoteness of the past and present relations 



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