CHAPTER I. 



RESULTS OF HUMAN IGNORANCE, ERROR, AND PREJUDICE. 



IT may, and probably will, appear to many perhaps the 

 majority of my readers a work of supererogation to insist 

 that he who ventures upon the study of mind in the lower 

 animals should do so free from bias or prejudice, having his 

 own mind in a state of preparedness for the observation of 

 facts and the deduction of logical inferences from facts ; or 

 to stipulate that the student should first possess a proper 

 knowledge of the human mind not only as it is developed 

 amidst the highest civilisation, but in its genesis, growth, de- 

 generacy, and decay in the child, the savage, the idiot, and 

 the lunatic. My own experiences, however, in conversation 

 and correspondence, as well as a varied and extensive reading, 

 leave me in no doubt as to the kind and amount of ignorance, 

 error, and prejudice regarding the mental endowments of 

 animals that are everywhere prevalent, not only among the 

 general public the indoctum vulgus but among our repre- 

 sentative men of the very highest culture ignorance, error, 

 and prejudice that are illustrated in speeches or writings 

 from the very highest public platforms, from the most in- 

 fluential official positions. 



It is desirable to explain what I mean by specifying some 

 of the errors which man has committed, and is constantly 

 committing, in regard to the mental aptitudes of other 

 animals, and by considering the obvious or probable sources 

 of these errors. 



1. The artificial differentiation of animal from human in- 

 telligence; the ascription of instinct as an exclusive posses- 



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