MENTAL LIFE 



of growth. But the functions as well as the organs 

 have been inherited by man from his primate ancestors. 

 This applies to the mind also, which is merely the col- 

 lective function of the phronema, the central organ of 

 thought. An impartial comparison of mental life in the 

 anthropoid ape and the savage shows that the differ- 

 ences between the two are not more considerable than 

 the differences in the structure of their brains. Hence, 

 if one accepts the dualistic theory of the soul formtilated 

 by Plato and Kant and accepted by so many modem 

 psychologists, it is necessary to attribute an immortal 

 sotd to the anthropoid apes and the higher mammals 

 (especially to domestic dogs) just as well as to savage 

 or civilized man {cf. chapter xi. of the Riddle). 



The thorough and careful study of the mental life of 

 the savage, supported by the results of anthropogeny 

 and ethnography, has in the course of the last forty 

 years decided the issue of this struggle between the 

 conflicting theories of the origin of civilization. The 

 older theory of degeneration, based on religious beliefs, 

 and so preferred by theologians and theosophists, de- 

 clared that man — the "image of God" — ^was created 

 originally with perfect bodily and mental powers, and 

 only fell away from his high estate after the original sin. 

 On this view the present savages are degenerate descend- 

 ants of the first godlike men. (In tropical lands the 

 anthropoid apes are in similar fashion regarded by the 

 natives as degenerate branches of their own stem!) 

 Although this Biblical degeneration theory is still taught 

 in most of our schools, and even supported by a few 

 mystic philosophers, it had lost all scientific counte- 

 nance before the end of the nineteenth century. It is 

 now replaced by the modern theory of evolution, which 

 was represented by Lamarck, Goethe, and Herder a 

 century ago, and raised to a predominant position in 

 ethnography by Darwin and Lubbock. It has taught 



333 



