HIS ZOOLOGICAL RELATIONS. 51 



ever improvable and progressive — improvable in the 

 individual, and progressive in the race. And this 

 improvabUity seems to arise chiefly from his power of 

 generalising his ideas, or, as metaphysicians term it, 

 " the faculty of abstraction,'' in conjunction with the 

 power of expressing these ideas in articulate language. 

 Indeed, on these endowments some reasoners found 

 the main distinction between man and the lower 

 animals ; but we must not lose sight of the fact that 

 there may be difference in degree without there being 

 any difference in kind, and that without the higher 

 structural adaptations — the erect gait and the hand 

 to manipulate — ^these mental gifts would of themselves 

 be of comparatively little value. " This," says Locke, 

 in his Essay on the Hv/mm Understanding, " I think I 

 may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is 

 not at all in them ; and that the having of general 

 ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt 

 man and brutes, and is an excellency which the 

 faculties of brutes do by no means attain to." And 

 Dr. H. Bischoff, in his Essay on the Difference between 

 Man and Brutes, says, "It is impossible to deny to 

 animals, qualitatively and quantitatively, as many 

 mental faculties as we find in man. They possess 

 consciousness. They feel, think, and judge ; they 

 possess a will which determines their actions and 

 motions. Animals possess attachment : they are 



