MIMICRY. 117 



same spirit runs throughout Dr. J. E. Taylor's ' Sagacity and 

 Morality of Plants.' 



Animal intelligence has been opposed by two great factors — 

 the philosophy of Descartes * and theological dogma. The first 



* In discussing a philosophy like that of Descartes one must not trust 

 alone to his own impressions and reading of the philosopher, or a critic may 

 soon be found to prove that either he has not such an intimate acquaintance 

 with the language in which it was written as to prevent misunderstanding, 

 or that his mind is not sufficiently attuned to escape misconception. I will 

 therefore quote some authorities to whom these objections do not, or should 

 not, apply. According to Dr. Martineau, Descartes taught that " the soul, 

 i. e. the thinking principle, though united with the whole body, exercises its 

 chief functions in the brain." " But the soul he pronounced to be exclusively 

 human, and, in the human being, a substance entirely distinct from the 

 body." Hence animals are automata. " All the things that you make 

 Dogs or Horses or Monkeys do are only movements of their fear, their hope, 

 or their joy, which can be made without any thought" ('Types of Ethical 

 Theory,' 3rd edit. vol. i. pp. 141, 144, 145). — Prof. Mahaffy, describing 

 Descartes' opinion on the point, and in respect to the supposition that other 

 animals, from the likeness of their organs to ours, may have some thought, 

 though less perfect than our own, makes him, in rejoinder, to say: — " To 

 this I have nothing to reply, except that, if they thought as we do, they 

 must have an immortal soul, which is not likely, as we have no reason to 

 extend it to some animals without extending it to all, such as Worms, 

 Oysters, Sponges, &c." Thus, as Prof. Mahaffy further remarks : — " The 

 difficulty which the opponents of Descartes felt most strongly was the possible 

 extension of souls to Oysters and Worms. Thus theological questions deter- 

 mined the questions on both sides" ('Descartes,' pp. 180 and 182). It is a 

 relief to turn to Kenan, who describes Francis of Assisi as "far removed 

 from the brutality of the false spiritualism of the Cartesians ; he only acknow- 

 ledged one sort of life ; he recognized degrees in the scale of being, but no 

 sudden interruption ; like the sages of India, he could not admit that false 

 classification which places man on one side, and, on the other, those 

 thousand forms of life of which we only see the outside, and in which, 

 though our eyes detect only uniformity, there may lie infinite diversity. For 

 Francis, nature had but one voice " (' Studies in Eeligious History,' p. 313). 



Even Weismann may be considered no supporter of the view of animal 

 intelligence, judging from the following remarks : — " It is usually considered 

 that the origin and variation of instincts are also dependent upon the exercise 

 of certain groups of muscles and nerves during a single life-time, and that 

 the gradual improvement which is thus caused by practice is accumulated by 

 hereditary transmission. I believe that this is an entirely erroneous view, 

 and I hold that all instinct is entirely due to the operation of natural selection, 

 and has its foundation, not upon inherited experiences, but upon the varia- 

 tions of the germ" ('Lectures on Heredity,' &c, Eng. transl., 2nd edit. 

 vol. i. p. 92), 



