THE PRINCIPLES OP RANK AMONG ANIMALS. 



31 



animal " reason," if it is well to use that word in two very 

 different senses ; and, thongli differing in degrees according 

 to animal conditions and amount of various endowments, it 

 is really the same in all, — quite other than reason proper 

 with its implied abstractions and generalizations in every 

 man. Moreover, it is difficult, if not impossible to substan- 

 tiate even a general rise in this kind of " intelligence " in the 

 animal scale upward (though this is loosely asserted), for 

 quite as remarkable instances of animal ''reasoning" are 

 given in one grade or group as another, and among the 

 lowest. Besides, it is difficult, if not impossible to separate 

 an instance, a fact of this kind, from our anthropomorphic 

 interpretation of it, and still more difficult, if not impossible, 

 as the writer has shown elsewhere,* to separate such 

 assumed reasoning from the certainly predominatmg, per- 

 vading and diversified instincts, and from sense associations 

 with their impulses, which may be mistaken often for 

 reasoning in man himself, and no less often in domestic 

 animals possessing them as both original and in some way 

 abundantly acquired. One thing is certain that no better 

 instances of mind are observed in quadrumana tlian in dogs 

 and elephants; and thus man is removed as far from his 

 nearest zoological neighbours as from the more remote. The 

 invisible gulf is right at his side in museum arrangement. 

 It is a museum matter to locate him by his skeleton only. It 

 is neither logical nor zoological to put him among the group 

 of " Primates " as now formed, but rather to acknowledge 

 his unique position as shown by every principle of rank in 

 zoological classification. 



It hardly need be said that no one principle or character 

 determines an animal's place, or that of a group ; all must 

 be taken into account so far as applicable. And this, too, 

 enforces our lesson. Man must be taken for all that he is, in 

 all his characters and relations. 



In concluding, it needs to be emphasized that there should 

 be a marked distinction between the anatomical and the 

 zoological classification of man. Books and papers on 

 zoology do not fail to take into their scope the various 

 phenomena of animal life ; only when they come to classify 

 man do they exclude everything but his anatomy. Birds 

 and bees have been mentioned. The six pairs of minute 

 muscles in the syrinx of singing birds (in place of these as 



* Spirit of Beauty, 12mo., Nev/ York. 1888. 



