THE INTERPRETER I 27 



It seems hard to assign any good reason for denying 

 to the higher animals any mental state, or process, in 

 which the employment of the vocal or visual symbols 

 of which language is composed is not involved; and 

 comparative psychology confirms the position in rela- 

 tion to the rest of the animal world assigned to man 

 by comparative anatomy. As comparative anatomy 

 is easily able to show that, physically, man is but the 

 last term of a long series of forms which lead, by 

 slow gradations, from the highest mammal to the al- 

 most formless speck of living protoplasm which lies 

 on the shadowy boundary between animal and 

 vegetable life ; so comparative psychology, though but 

 a young science, and far short of her elder sister's 

 growth, points to the same conclusion. 1 



Nevertheless, the gulf which separates the man from 

 the ape and from animals whose intelligence excels 

 that of the ape, is vast and impassable. Its vastness 

 prevents some among the qualified few, and of course 

 the majority of the prejudiced or ill-informed, from 

 accepting the fact of a common origin of animal and 

 human mental faculties. Among those who walked 

 one mile with Darwin, but refused to go " twain," 

 the most notable is Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the 

 co-propounder of the theory of natural selection. 

 He contends that man's spiritual and intellectual na- 

 ture " must have had another origin, and for this 

 origin we can only find adequate cause in the unseen 

 universe of spirit." In like manner, the late Pro- 



1 Coll. Essays, vi. p. 125. 



