128 THE DA WN OF MIND. 



isolation, the homogeneous but ministrant monads, 

 the joint multitude of which forms the living body." ^ 



With these preliminary cautions, let us turn for a 

 little to the facts. The field here is so full of interest 

 in itself that apart from its forming a possible chapter 

 in the history* of Man it is worth a casual survey. 



The difficulty of establishing even the general 

 question of Ascent is of course obvious. After Mind 

 emerged from the animal state, for a long time, and in 

 the very nature of the case, no record of its progress 

 could come down to us. The material Body has left 

 its graduated impress upon the rocks in a million 

 fossil forms ; the Spirit of Man, at the other extreme 

 of time, has traced its ascending curve on the tablets 

 of civilization, in the drama of history, and in the 

 monuments of social life ; but the Mind must have 

 risen into its first prominence during a long, silent 

 and dateless interval which preceded the era of monu- 

 mental records. Mind cannot be exhumed by Palae- 

 ontology or fully embalmed in unwritten history, and 

 apart from the analogies of Embryology we have 

 nothing but inference to guide us until the time came 

 when it was advanced enough to leave some tangible 

 register behind. 



But so far as knowledge is possible there are mainly 

 five sources of information with regard to the past of 

 Mind. The first is the Mind of a little child ; the 

 second the Mind of lower animals; the third, those 

 material witnesses — flints, weapons, pottery — to prim- 

 itive states of Mind which are preserved in an- 

 thropological museums ; the fourth is the Mind of a 

 Savage ; and the fifth is Language. 



1 Lot^e, Microcoamue, p. 162. 



