96 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



many kinds, including birds, that tlie individuals differ 

 greatly in every mental characteristic. In what manner the 

 mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms 

 is as hopeless an inquiry as how life itself first originated. 

 These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever 

 to be solved by man. 



/As man possesses the same senses as the lower animals, 

 his fundamental intuitions must be the same. Man has also 

 some few instincts in common, as that of self-preservation, 

 sexual love, the love of the mother for her new-born off- 

 spring, the desire possessed by the latter to suck, and so 

 forth. But man, perhaps, has somewhat fewer instincts 

 than those possessed by the animals which come next to 

 him in the series. The orang in the Eastern islands, and 

 the chimpanzee' in Africa, build platforms on which they 

 sleep; and, as both species follow the same habit, it might 

 be argued that this was due to instinct, but we cannot feel 

 .sure that it is not the result of both animals having similar 

 wants, and possessing similar powers of reasoning. These 

 apes, as we may assume, avoid the many poisonous fruits 

 of the tropics, and man has no such knowledge; but as our 

 domestic animals, when taken to foreign lands, and when 

 first turned out in the spring, often eat poisonous herbs, 

 which they afterward avoid, we cannot feel sure that the 

 apes do not learn from their own experience or from that 

 of their parents what fruits to select. It is, however, cer- 

 tain, as we shall presently see, that apes have an instinctive 

 dread of serpents, and probably of other dangerous animals. 

 The fewness and the comparative simplicity of the in- 

 stincts in the higher animals are remarkable in contrast 

 with those of the lower animals. Cuvier maintained that 

 instinct and intelligence stand in an inverse ratio to each 

 other; and some have thought that the intellectual faculties 

 of the higher animals have been gradually developed from 

 their instincts. But Pouchet, in an interesting essay,' has 



'' "L'lnstinct chez les Insectes," "Eevue dea Deux Mondes," Feb., 1810, 

 p. 690. 



