FIFTH DAYS SITTING. 99 



Eomo. Pray, observe, my Lord, the singular way in 

 which Mr. Darwin reasons. He is replying to Archbishop 

 Sumner's remark, "that man alone is capable of progressive 

 improvement," meaning, clearly enough, such an improve- 

 ment as has been going on among men for thousands of 

 years, is going on now, and, for aught we can tell, may go 

 on for ever. In reply to this, ]\Ir. Darwin urges that the 

 common rat is superior in cunning to other rats, and that 

 it may owe this superiority to the habitual exercise of all 

 its faculties in avoiding extirpation by man. He thus 

 makes the supposed improvement of an instinct in rats to 

 be parallel to the advancement of the whole human race in 

 knowledge. The Archbishop says, "Man alone of all 

 animals is capable of indefinite progressive improvement, 

 and therefore differs in faculty from all other animals." 

 Mr. Darwin replies, "The common rat is superior in cunning 

 to all other rats, and may perhaps have become so through 

 contact with man ; the common rat, therefore, is capable of 

 indefinite, progressive improvement." This, surely, is 

 reasoning with the imagination. Mr. Darwin talks of our 

 " begging the question of the evolution of species " ! He 

 is begging it himself by such reasoning. 



Lord C. You say, Mr. Darwin, that "the superior 

 cunning of the rat may be attributed to the exercise of all 

 its faculties to avoid being extirpated by man." Will you 

 mention the faculties it has exercised to this end ? I 

 should like to know what faculties, in addition to its five 

 senses, you ascribe to the rat. 



Homo. Mr. Darwin does not go so minutely into his 

 subject as your Lordship's question supposes. Probably, 

 however, he would say that, in addition to the usual 

 senses, a rat has memory, perhaps also curiosity, imita- 

 tion, attention, imagination, and reason. He supposes 



