122 HUME v 



doubted ; and, since it is highly probable and 

 cannot be disproved, we are quite safe in accepting 

 it, as, at any rate, a good working hypothesis. 



But, if we accept it, we must extend it to a 

 much wider assemblage of living beings. What- 

 ever cogency is attached to the arguments in 

 favour of the occurrence of all the fundamental 

 phenomena of mind in young children and deaf 

 mutes, an equal force must be allowed to appertain 

 to those which may be adduced to prove that the 

 higher animals have minds. We must admit that 

 Hume does not express himself too strongly when 

 he says 



"no truth appears to me more evident, than that the beasts are 

 endowed with thought and reason as well as men. The argu- 

 ments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the 

 most stupid and ignorant." (I. p. 232.) 



In fact, this is one of the lew cases in which the 

 conviction which forces itself upon the stupid and 

 the ignorant, is fortified by the reasonings of the 

 intelligent, and has its foundation deepened by 

 every increase of knowledge. It is not merely that 

 the observation of the actions of animals almost 

 irresistibly suggests the attribution to them of 

 mental states, such as those which accompany 

 corresponding actions in men. The minute com- 

 parison which has been instituted by anatomists 

 and physiologists between the organs which we 

 know to constitute the apparatus of thought in 

 man, and the corresponding organs in brutes, has 



