VIEWS OAT THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 36 1 



more perfect than in others, have also greater means 

 of varying and extending their intellectual faculties; 

 but it is always within limits circumscribed by their 

 necessities and habits. 



" The power of habit which is found to be still so 

 great in man, especially in one who has but slightly 

 exercised the organ of his thought, is among animals 

 almost insurmountable while their physical state re- 

 mains the same. Nothing compels them to vary 

 their powers, because they suffice for their wants 

 and these require no change. Hence it is constantly 

 the same objects which exercise their degree of in- 

 telligence, and it results that these actions are always 

 the same in each species. 



" The sole acts of variation, i.e., the only acts 

 which rise above the limits of habits, and which we 

 see performed in animals whose organization allows 

 them to, are acts of imitation. 1 only speak of 

 actions which they perform voluntarily or freely 

 {actions qu'ils font de leur plein gr^). 



" Birds, very limited in this respect in the powers 

 which their structure furnishes, can only perform 

 acts of imitation with their vocal organ ; this organ, 

 by their habitual efforts to render the sounds, and 

 to vary them, becomes in them very perfect. Thus 

 we know that several birds (the parrot, starling, 

 raven, jay, magpie, canary bird, etc.) imitate the 

 sounds they hear. 



" The monkeys, which are, next to man, the ani- 

 mals by their structure having the best means to 

 this end, are most excellent imitators, and there is 

 no limit to the things they can mimic. 



" In man, infants which are still of the age when 

 simple ideas are formed on various subjects, and 

 who think but little, forming no complex ideas, are 

 also very good imitators of everything which they 

 see or hear. 



" But if each order of things in animals is depend- 



