482 The American Naturalist. [June, 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN AND THE 

 LOWER' ANIMALS. 



By Alice Bodington. 



The science of Psychology is at last emerging from the 

 cloudland of Metaphysics in which it has been enveloped 

 from immemorial ages. Deep would be the folly of the man 

 who would declare that we know what mind or consciousness 

 really is, but at least we are beginning to understand some- 

 thing of its phenomena on the physical side, and to recognize 

 that even the human mind is a product of evolution. 

 Whether an impassable gulf, or a rubicon which can be boldly 

 and safely crossed, separates the human mind from mind in 

 the lower animals, is still a moot point with men of the high- 

 est scientific repute. 



I do not for a moment pretend to approach the question 

 from the high metaphysical point of view, but only to apply 

 to the subject the same method which has so successfully 

 been applied in biology ; to put theories on one side, until we 

 have ascertained as many ordinary facts as possible. In 

 biology the greatest triumphs have been obtained by the 

 demonstration that ontogeny, the history of the individual, is 

 a guide to phylogeny — the history of the race. And in exam- 

 ining the history of the race, we find the development of the 

 lower species of animals an invaluable guide in understanding 

 the development of the higher species. Moreover if we wish 

 to understand the peculiarities of domesticated animals, we 

 must study the habits of their wild relations. These three 

 guides we may take in studying the development of the human 

 mind ; in the child we may study its ontogeny ; in the devel- 

 opment of intelligence in animals we can observe the dawn of 

 faculties which attain their supreme expression in man; 

 and in the more primitive or savage races of man, we may see 

 the germ which contained the nucleus of our civilization. 



