INTRODUCTION. 11 



CHAPTER II. 



" INSTINCT." 



FROM this standpoint the study of the intellectual 

 capabilities of animals is of a far other and of a far 

 deeper significance than of old, when, as already stated, it 

 was generally regarded and treated rather as a pastime, or 

 as hunting out anecdotes for amusement, or as adorning 

 theological and teleological disquisitions, than as a scientific 

 system. For if it be true that organic gradations form an 

 unbroken series, and that man himself is compelled to trace 

 his origin to a set of lowly organised forms, as is main- 

 tained by the theory of development and descent now- 

 more and more accepted then is it further clear that 

 not only the bodily, but also the mental powers of man must 

 have the same origin, and intellectual development must be 

 regarded as a common quality of organised matter. Com- 

 parative anatomy, i.e., the study of bodies, which we have 

 long followed, must necessarily have beside it comparative 

 psychology, the study of minds ; indeed the former must 

 find in the latter its true completion. " The study of the 

 special mental science of man, which is the groundwork of 

 universal mental science," says a more recent writer on the 

 subject (T. Bignoli : " On the fundamental law of intelli- 

 gence in the animal kingdom," p. 25), "requires this 



foundation a comparative psychology of animals is 



unattainable .... if this same psychical power is not 

 studied in the whole of intelligent life. The animal king- 

 dom is, so to speak, without a head, and man without feet 



on which he can stand The science of comparative 



anatomy and psychology is therefore senseless and cannot be 

 understood, unless it be crowned with the still more fruitful 

 science of the study of mind in animals." 



This claim and this deduction are so clear and irrefragable 



