DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL SENSE. 201 



DBVELOPMEKT OF THE GOLDEN KULE. 



„ ,„, There can be no doubt that the difference 



Page 125. 



between the mind of the lowest man and that 



of the highest animal is immense. An anthropomorphous 

 ape, if he could take a dispassionate view of his own case, 

 would admit that though he could form an artful plan to 

 plunder a garden, though he could use stones for fight- 

 ing or for breaking open nuts, yet that the thought of 

 fashioning a stone into a tool was quite beyond his scope. 

 StiU less, as he would admit, could he follow out a train 

 of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathematical prob- 

 lem, 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 perceptions 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 com- 

 prehension. 



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 in- 

 tuitions, the various emotions and faculties, stich as love, 

 memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of 

 which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even 

 sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower 

 anin^als. They are also capable of some inherited im- 

 10 



