92 HOMO V. DAEWIN-. 



inferior kind of reason. Kow, even granting that in such 

 cases a dog acts from a principle higher than instinct, 

 ■which principle may be called reason, such reason is cer- 

 tainly very different from the reason that influences a man 

 when he compares ideas, weighs motives, prepares for the 

 future, determines on some course of action, or engages in 

 the study of Philosophy or of Natural History. We cannot 

 conceive such faculties as a dog possesses, however highly 

 developed, turned to such subjects as those on which man 

 employs his faculties habitually. But I will now hear what 

 Mr. Darwin has to advance as evidence that the mental 

 and moral powers of man may have arisen by development 

 from the faculties of the lower animals. 



Darwin. " No doubt," my Lord, " the difference in this 

 respect," respect of mental power, " is enormous, even if we 

 compare the mind of one of the lowest savages, who has no 

 words to express any number higher than four, and who uses 

 no abstract terms for the commonest objects or affections, 

 with that of the most highly organised ape. The difference 

 would, no doubt, still remain immense, even if one of the 

 higher apes had been improved or civilized as much as a 

 dog has been, in comparison with its parent form, the wolf 

 or jackal. The Fuegiansrank among the lowest barbarians ; 

 but I was continually struck with surprise how closely the 

 three natives on board H.M.S. " Beagle," who had lived 

 some years in England and could talk a little English, 

 resembled us in disposition, and in most of our mental 

 faculties." (Vol. i. p. 34.) 



Homo. He supposes, my Lord, that it would be possible 

 for us to improve and civilize an ape as we can a dog. 

 Now, it is clear that the dog may be improved, and, in a 

 certain sense, civilized, but we have no evidence that the 

 ape can. Had the civilizing of this creature been possible, 



