122 THE DESCENT OF MAK. 



nuts, yet that the thought of fashioning a stone into a tool was 

 quite beyond his scope. Still less, as he would admit, could he 

 follow out a train of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathe- 

 matical problem, or reflect on God, or admire a grand natural 

 scene. Some apes, however, would probably declare that they 

 could and did admire the beauty of the colored skin and fur of 

 their partners in marriage. They would admit, that though they 

 could make other apes understand by cries some of their per- 

 ceptions and simpler wants, the notion of expressing definite ideas 

 by definite sounds had never crossed their minds. They might 

 insist that they were ready to aid their fellow-apes of the same 

 troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to take 

 charge of their orphans; but they would be forced to acknowl- 

 edge that disinterested love for all living creatures, the most 

 noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their comprehension. 



Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the 

 higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not 

 of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the 

 various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, 

 curiosity, imitation, reason, &c., of which man boasts, may be 

 found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed 

 condition, in the lower animals. They are also capable of some 

 inherited improvement, as we see in the domestic dog compared 

 with the wolf or jackal. If it could be proved that certain high 

 mental powers, such as the formation of general concepts, self- 

 consciousness, &c., were absolutely peculiar to man, which seems 

 extremely doubtful, it is not improbable that these qualities are 

 merely the Incidental results of other highly-advanced intellec- 

 tual faculties; and these again mainly the result of the continued 

 use of a perfect language. At what age does the new-born in- 

 fant possess the power of abstraction, or become self-conscious, 

 and reflect on its own existence? We cannot answer; nor can 

 we answer in regard to the ascending organic scale. The half- 

 art, half-instinct of language still bears the stamp of its gradual 

 evolution. The ennobling belief in God is not universal with 

 man; and the belief in spiritual agencies naturally follows from 

 oLher mental powers. The moral sense perhaps affords the best 

 and highest distinction between man and the lower animals; but 

 I need say nothing on this head, as I have so lately endeavored 

 to show that the social instincts, — the prime principle of man's 

 moral constitution™ — with the aid of active intellectual powers 

 and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye 

 "would that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise;" and 

 this lies at the foundation of morality. 



™ 'The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius,' &c., p. 139. 



