352 P^ RT V. WORKING STAGE. 



Looking, then, in perspective at the problem of the reality 

 of progress we learn that the negative view loses itself in a 

 sea of trifles and ignores the mountains of evidence in its 

 favour. Quantity in proof can only be neglected at the risk 

 of missing a general law. 



Yet even a comparatively insignificant degree of difference 

 may be due to new factors. Approaching the edge of a pre- 

 cipitous cliff, this is of no consequence to life and limb until 

 we are close to the edge. Working out a complicated problem, 

 the solution presents itself only at the very end. In this light, 

 it is contended here, ought we to consider man's intelligence. 

 From faintest sensibility, we advance in the animal kingdom 

 to the possession of a number of highly developed senses; 

 from simple and uncertain reactions, we come to complex and 

 definite instincts; and from scarcely perceptible intelligence, 

 we reach the acute sagacity of the higher mammals, and 

 especially of the monkeys and the apes. In the last of these 

 instances the quality and the scope of thought intimately 

 approaches man's. The manner in which the Orang Outang 

 in captivity studies his visitors, and visibly calculates and 

 adapts his actions (see Mind of Man, pp. 462-463), is confus- 

 ingly like man's. Why posit, then, a gigantic distance intellec- 

 tually between man and ape, when the two appear so closely 

 related? And still, scrutinising the subject circumspectly, we 

 find that the Orang Outang just misses being sufficiently 

 advanced intellectually to profit freely by the thoughts of 

 others. That is, a slight advance beyond the Orang Outang, 

 corresponding in some degree to man's completely erect attitude 

 and his larger brain, furnishes the possibility of freely learning 

 by the experience of others, and this, as is plain, opens a new 

 earth, nay a new universe. Just as the ultimate step at the 

 cliff's edge, or rather the ultimate line in our mathematical 

 problem, translate us, as if by magic, into a fresh world, so 

 the last step in the evolution of the intelligence, insignificant 

 in itself, is responsible for a fundamental change. 



We should beware hence of mechanically reasoning in regard 

 to degrees of difference. Great differences of degree may or 

 may not be due to qualitative differences, and small differences 

 may be in exactly the same position. The cause of a difference 

 should be in each case separately and scrupulously inquired 

 into. 1 



178. Inasmuch as the present and the succeeding Conclu- 

 sion are of extreme significance methodologically, we venture 

 to offer an example of how the two Conclusions may be applied 



1 Of course, we should also search for fixed differences. It is believed, 

 for instance, that there are no degrees of inheritance, a factor being either 

 present or absent. Furthermore, definite facts and laws are said to exist 

 in abundance, as the chemical elements, the law of gravitation, and the 

 laws of motion. 



