280 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



religious ideas which we found developed with remarkable 

 uniformity among savage peoples. 



In recapitulating the sum of specific human peculiarities, we 

 find that the general question, as regards the psychological basis 

 upon which the differences between man and the animal rest, 

 consists of a series of special questions, as follows : How does 

 it come to pass, that man gains so much more from experience 

 than the brute ? that he is capable of giving expression to his 

 ideas ? that he has the sense of beauty ? that he looks into 

 and cares for the future ? and that, finally, he believes that 

 there is a spiritual world beneath the material world ? 



The last of these questions is the most easily answered. 

 As man has wishes, pursues certain objects, and recognizes 

 that he has a will which regulates his actions, he attributes 

 all this to external nature, whenever he is hindered by it 

 in the attainment of his objects. He can only conceive the 

 course of nature from the analogy to his own actions ; so that 

 all natural phenomena whose powers he experiences, are con- 

 sidered by him as acting and willing beings. With regard to 

 the specific peculiarity, that man looks into and cares for the 

 future^ it may be observed, that the faculty is altogether em- 

 pirical, for all expectation of what is to come depends on the 

 recollection in what order and sequence events occurred in 

 the past. 



To what extent an individual is capable of profiting by 

 experience, chiefly depends on the correctness with which he 

 has conceived past phenomena, and the mode in which he com- 

 pares them with present circumstances. Particular circum- 

 stances may contribute to present the past to us in a more or 

 less vivid light, but the essential conditions always remain, 

 the mode and the strength of the original conception. We 

 must therefore assume that there is an original difference 

 between man and the brutes in the mode of conception, and 

 consequent recollection of external phenomena. 



We must here point out that the natural requirements of man 

 for the preservation of his life and protection against the 

 elements, are more various and more difficult to be procured, 

 and require greater mental efforts than those of animals, and 



