viii PREFACE 



which is urgent just now. So far as I have made use 

 of them, Ripley's conclusions can be confirmed by 

 any observant traveller who goes through Europe in 

 the old way by road, and is not content with inter- 

 national trains, international hotels, and large cities. 



The way in which the distinction between men 

 and animals is glossed over by the two fashionable 

 schools of modern thought, and the misleading fashion 

 in which observations on inheritance in plants and 

 animals have been extended to human qualities, 

 I have criticized in many occasional articles. The 

 attempt towards a theory of consciousness which I 

 sketch in this book is foreshadowed in my book on 

 The Childhood of Animals, published in 1912, and 

 in an address on Science and Life, published early 

 in 1914. 



If I may be permitted a comment on my own 

 work, it is that a serious presentation of some diffi- 

 cult biological problems is submitted here in a slight 

 and topical form. 



P. CHALMERS MITCHELL. 



London, March, 1915. 



