COMPAKATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. 25 



only date from the time of the reaction against Cartesian ideas, 

 a science still without a name, merely touched upon even 

 by great minds which have the inestimable privilege of un- 

 derstanding everything; it has never been studied, never 

 thoroughly investigated, never submitted to all our means 

 of information.* We should call it Comparative Psychology. 



We should, then, re-enter into one great Unity. The intellect 

 of vertebrate animals would be identical, as their organism is 

 identical; thus gradually descending, passing through the orang, 

 from man himself to all the mammalia. It may be said that 

 these propositions are not yet proved, at least it will be 

 allowed, seeing what has passed during a very few years, that 

 the last word has not yet been said concerning the intellect of 

 animals. 



Has this question, then, made so much progress, either to 

 the profit of animals or the detriment of mankind, that we 

 should wish to stop it, when it has started already on so 

 straight a path? Saint Chrysostom reproached the Gentile 

 philosopher, it is said, with having always been inclined to 

 assimilate that which they called the soul of animals with that 

 of man himself. t The opinion of these Gentiles, nevertheless, 

 is worth the trouble of being noticed. They were as well able 

 to observe animals as ourselves. Since then, the means of 

 study, as applied to intellect, have made little or no progress ; 

 observation and reflection are still the same ; we have found 

 no new process, no new method, by which we can more pro- 

 foundly examine into this subject ; we have, then, no reason 

 to think that the solutions given by ourselves upon this point 

 are at all preferable to those of the ancients. It may be rather 

 the contrary. For their opinion has this much in its favour, 

 that it was born free, in minds which did not restrain, even 

 unwittingly, any new influence or theory which might be 



joy and pride of maternity, of which they believed themselves alone" to be 

 susceptible" (E. G-eoffroy Saint- Hilaire, Cours d'Histoire Naturelle des Mam- 

 miferes, Paris, 1829, vol. i; Lesson, vi, p. 16). 



* Proudhon has already laid down as a principle the establishment of a 

 psychology among animals (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 279). Frederick Cuvier 

 has done the same. 



f Horn, iv in Acta Apostolorum. See Eechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, 

 Erfurt, 1706, p. 1. 



