118 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



A little higlier in the animal M'orld a rude ear has 

 developed, first as a very delicate organ for feeling the 

 waves caused by approaching food or enemies; only 

 later as an organ of hearing. Meanwhile the eye has 

 been developing, to perceive the subtle ether vibra- 

 tions. The eye of the tm-bellaria distinguishes only 

 light from darkness, that of the annelid is a true visual 

 organ. Now the brain can begin to perceive the shape 

 of objects at a little distance. Touch and smell, hear- 

 ing, sight ; such is sequence of sense perceptions. 

 The sense-organs respond to continually more delicate 

 and subtle impacts, and cover an ever-widening range 

 of more and more distant objects. Up to this point 

 intelligence has hardly included more than sense-per- 

 ceptions. 



But these sense-perceptions have been all the time 

 spurring the mind to begin a higher work. At first it 

 is conscious merely of objects, and its main effort is to 

 gain a clearer and clearer perception of these. 



Now it is led to undertake, so to speak, the work of 

 a sense-organ of a higher grade. It begins to directly 

 see invisible relations just as truly as through the 

 eye it has perceived light. First perhaps it perceives 

 that certain perceptions and experiences, agi-eeable or 

 disagreeable, occur in a certain sequence. It begins to 

 associate these. It learns thus to recognize the pre- 

 monitory symptoms of nature's favor or disfavor, and 

 thus gains food or avoids dangers. The bee learns to 

 associate accessible nectar with a certain spot on the 

 flower marked by bright dots or lines, " honey-guides," 

 and the chimpanzee that when a hen cackles there is 

 an egg in the nest. But association is only the first 

 lesson ; inference and understanding follow. 



