10 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



I will here quote a short passage to show that I have not 

 misrepresented the extent to which agreement prevails 

 among adherents of otherwise opposite opinions. And for 

 this purpose I select as spokesman a distinguished naturalist, 

 who is also an able psychologist, and to whom, therefore, I 

 shall afterwards have occasion frequently to refer, as on both 

 these accounts the most competent as well as the most 

 representative of my opponents. In his Presidential Address 

 before the Biological Section of the British Association in 

 1879, Mr. Mivart is reported to have said :— 



"I have no wish to ignore the marvellous powers of 

 animals, or the resemblance of their actions to those of man. 

 No one can reasonably deny that many of them have feelings, 

 emotions, and sense-perceptions similar to our own ; that 

 they exercise voluntary motion, and perform actions grouped 

 in complex ways for definite ends ; that they to a certain 

 extent learn by experience, and combine perceptions and 

 reminiscences so as to draw practical inferences, directly 

 apprehending objects standing in different relations one to 

 another, so that, in a sense, they may be said to apprehend 

 relations. They will show hesitation, ending apparently, 

 after a conflict of desires, with what looks like choice or 

 volition ; and such animals as the dog will not only exhibit 

 the most marvellous fidelity and affection, but will also 

 manifest evident signs of shame, which may seem the outcome 

 of incipient moral perceptions. It is no great wonder, then, 

 that so many persons, little given to patient and careful 

 introspection, should fail to perceive any radical distinction 

 between a nature thus gifted and the intellectual nature of man." 



We may now turn to consider the points wherein human and 

 brute psychology have been by various writers alleged to differ- 



The theory that brutes are non-sentient machines need 

 not detain us, as no one at the present day is likely to 

 defend it.* Again, the distinction between human and brute 



• If any one should be disposed to do so, I can only reply to him in the words 

 of Professor Huxley, who puts the case tersely and well :— " What is the value of 



