12 THE HUMAN KINGDOM. 



transmit, ought to vary like these influences, and in the same 

 proportion ? 



It is very easy to admit that there is more distance between 

 the intelligence of man and that of the anthropomorphous 

 apes, than between the intelligence of these last and that of the 

 smooth-brained squirrel, and that at the same time the im- 

 mense distance is only marked in the first case by very 

 superficial variations of the organ of intellectual manifestations, 

 whilst, in the second case, this lesser distance is explained by 

 enormous differences. 



To admit, with Bossuet,* that this superior intelligence, the 

 appanage of man, is not attached to the organs reserved for 

 the manifestations of this inferior intelligence common to man 

 and animals, is to return to Descartes, and this is to fall again 

 into new difficulties. Will this superior intelligence, thus de- 

 tached from the material world, be then inaccessible to phy- 

 sical violence ? 



Whilst the finger of the physiologist or the surgeon, pressing 

 the brain, extinguishes for a moment in the animal, the 

 faculty of thinking, will human intelligence, freed from this 

 servitude, remain, in the like case, undisturbed in a higher 

 sphere? No, by the compression of the brain man loses 

 consciousness like the animal. It is material substance, which, 

 brought into contact with the anatomical elements of the 

 nervous centres, can excite, f trouble, J or depress, the in- 

 telligence of animals, and leave no part of the human intellect 

 untouched. 



Let us reconsider these two systems : viz., that man is 

 similar to animals as much by his intelligence as by his bodily 

 formation; or that he differs from them entirely. And now 

 we have two clearly stated theories before us for our considera- 

 tion. To embrace either one or the other d priori, merely for 

 the sake of propriety or sentiment, would be an arbitrary 

 proceeding, essentially faulty, and contrary to all rule ; as in 



* See Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Generale des regnes or- 

 ganiques, vol. ii, p. 252. 



f Certain essential oils, like those of coffee, tea, or hemp. 

 j Alcoholic liquors. Narcotics. 



