SECT. I.] DISTINCTIONS OP MAN AND BRUTE. 281 



that consequently he is driven to thousands of expedients by 

 which he is both taught and psychically developed. By his 

 upright walk, nature seems to have destined him to take a 

 comprehensive view of surrounding objects; whilst the pos- 

 session of " the instrument of instruments," as Aristotle calls 

 the human hand, equally indicates his capacity for a higher 

 mental development. 1 All these are, no doubt, important at- 

 tendant circumstances, contributing in a high degree to the 

 preservation of man's capacity to learn from experience, as 

 compared with that of brutes ; but these are merely subordinate, 

 not fundamental conditions. Little would it avail man that 

 his wants are more multifarious than those of brutes, that 

 nature grants him less, that he must use his own exertions, 

 and that his necessities stimulate him to use his senses and his 

 natural instruments, if he were not enabled to do so by his 

 greater powers of perception and recollection of individual 

 phenomena and their relations. 



That there exists in this respect a very great difference be- 

 tween man and the brute, is established by many facts. When 

 in a state of liberty, animals appropriate only clear conceptions 

 of the few things relating to their food and mode of life. 

 Everything else passes by them unnoticed, though they pos* 

 sess equally acute, and in some respects stronger, senses. But 

 all their senses are not developed in an equal degree ; thus the 

 sense of smell is more developed, the selection of their food 

 being chiefly dependent on its exercise. Man, on the other 

 hand, requires all his senses for the satisfying of his wants ; 

 hence, not one of them acquires such a predominance as 

 we see in most animals. If to this development of all the 

 senses be added, a better memory for received impressions, a 

 larger basis for a higher psychical development becomes mani- 

 fest. Having thus disposed of one great distinctive feature 

 between man and the brute, as regards his capacity to profit 

 by experience, we shall now investigate two other specific cha- 

 racters, individualization, and the power of speech. 



1 Buffon maintains, that the greater intellect of some men, in comparison 

 with others, may be explained from the more extended use of the hands made 

 by the former in early childhood. 



