CHAPTER XXXIX. 



MENTAL INTELLIOENCE. 



The most 

 important 

 question of 

 biology is 

 whether 

 intelli- 

 gence is a 

 primary 

 fact. 



I have 

 argiied the 

 alfinnative 

 of organ- 

 izing in- 

 telligence, 

 and have 

 now to 

 argue it 

 of mental. 



Difficulty 

 of the 



IN my opinion, the most important question now under 

 discussion in the sciences of life and mind, and I 

 think I may add the most important question that ever 

 can be debated in those sciences, is this : — Is intelligence 

 an ultimate primary fact, witliout physical cause, and with- 

 out any cause except Creative Power ; or only a resultant, 

 put together out of unintelligent elements by the action of 

 the laws of habit ? In the chapter on Natural Selection 

 I have argued, in opposition to the theories of Darwin 

 and H. Spencer, that the organizing intelligence which 

 adapts one part of the organism to another is an ultimate 

 fact, not to be accounted for, as those most able writers 

 endeavour to account for it, by the principles of habitual 

 self-adaptation and natural selection. In this chapterj[ shall 

 have to argue the same of mental intelligence, — namely, 

 that it is an ultimate fact, not to be accounted for by the 

 laws of habitual association. In the chapter on Intelligence,^ 

 I have given my reasons for believing that organizing in- 

 telligence and mental intelligence are only different mani- 

 festations of one principle. Possibly, not many of my 

 readers will agree with me in this ; but it is most probable 

 that all who think with me as to the primary and inde- 

 pendent nature of intelligence in either of these two cases 

 will agree with me in the other case also. It is, however, 

 necessary to argue the question of the nature of organizing 

 intelligence, and of mental intelligence, on totally different 

 grounds. The argument as to the latter is, at least to me, 

 the most difficult ; but this is not because 1 think it less 



1 Chapter XXVII. 



