1881.] Recent Literature. 49 
which are attended by consciousness. These views differ in one 
or other respect, he claims, from those of Spencer, Lewes and 
Bain, and still more widely on the other hand from the generality 
of metaphysicians who habitually regard mind as an entity, and 
speak of the “mind” using the brain as its instrum 
While the Medusa and organisms only a little "above them 
such as mollusks and worms, act unconsciously, the intellectual 
processes being but a few degrees more complex than those which 
may take place in a sun-dew or other sensitive plant, the author 
brings forward reasons for the belief that as the nervous system 
increases in complexity from the lowest animals to the fishes, rep- 
tiles and birds, so the mental and motor phenomena of which such 
organisms are capable, show a similar tendency to increase in 
complexity. Consciousness first seems to appear, according to 
the author, in insects, Cephalopods, fishes, reptiles and birds. 
“These organisms are so high in the scale of organization as to 
leave no room for doubt that some of their nerve actions are at- 
tended by conscious states, but it is impossible for us definitely 
to decide which are and which are not so endowed.” 
He ascribes little reason to insects, believing that “while the 
instincts of birds are perhaps less elaborate, their adaptive intelli- 
gence or reason and the strength and definiteness of their emo- 
tions are unquestionably far superior to those presented by the 
social insects.” Moreover, the author logically claims that reason, 
imagination and volition are “mere higher developments arising 
out of previous processes,” such as the automatic actions of the 
lower animals, 
Bastian then describes the brain of mammals, especially Quad- 
rumana, and claims that there is a progression in mental capacity 
from the lower mammals to the monkeys and apes: “The de- 
velopment of intelligence, emotion and volition, which becomes 
so obvious in lower Quadrumana, is, however, recognizable in a 
still more striking degree when we come to the so-called man- 
like apes, viz., the gibbons, the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the 
orang-outan 
The pte half of the book is devoted to the human brain 
and human psychology. The chief interest of the book to us is _ 
the fact so well brought out that the leading features of the mind 
of man have their germs in the mental processes of the lower 
animals, and that there is, on ene whole, a progressive develop- 
ment from invertebrates to m 
Finally the author states his belief that “every higher intellec- 
tual and moral process—just as much as every lower sensorial 
or perceptive process—involves the activity of certain related cell- 
and-fibre networks in the cerebral cortex, and is absolutely de- 
pendent upon the functional activity of such networks.” He 
claims that “consciousness or feeling must be a phenomenon 
having a natural origin, or else it must be a hon-naturg; non- 
