CHAPTER VI. 



EVOLUTION OP MIND IN THE ASCENDING ZOOLOGICAL SCALE. 



I. The Invertebrata. 



So little is at present known of the phenomena of inind in 

 the lowest classes of animals, that it is impossible as yet to 

 give any comprehensive and exact outline of the genesis and 

 development of mind in the animal kingdom as a whole. We 

 know a great deal about the mental or moral character of the 

 dog, cat, horse, elephant, and other Mammalia ; of the parrot, 

 starling, domestic fowl, canary, sparrow, and other birds; 

 of the ant, bee, wasp, and other insects ; but of mind in all 

 other classes of animals our knowledge is as yet and at 

 present most limited and fragmentary. 



What are the earliest dawnings of mind whether they 

 are concomitant with the earliest appearance of animal life, 

 or whether they are to be met with in the vegetable king- 

 dom depends very much, if not altogether, on what are our 

 conceptions of the constitution or essentials of mind what 

 are our definitions of such things or terms as sensation, 

 sensibility, sensitiveness and sense, consciousness, will, emo- 

 tion or feeling, thought and knowledge, memory, instinct, 

 intelligence, and so forth. 



If we use such terms in their widest and general accepta- 

 tions, we must regard mind as beginning in the vegetable 

 kingdom. If, on the other hand, we re-define all these, and 

 allied or included, terms, so as to be applicable to man alone, 

 or to man and other animals, difficulties of an insuperable 

 kind will, I fear, be met with. Any such re-definition, more- 

 over, will necessitate the multiplication of technical terms 

 for the distinguishing of processes which I believe to be 



