30 



PROFESSOR HENRY WEBSTER PARKER^ ON 



moil to mammals (witli partial exceptions), namely, a pro- 

 tective covering of hair, wliicli is even a part of the general 

 definition of the class. As this absence is related to man's 

 proper life, both as an inventive being and as one susceptible 

 of a noble shame, — related also to his distinctive beauty, — it 

 becomes a sign of superiority that removes him far from 

 other animals. 



IG. Brain has its place among other organs in estimating 

 grade, increasing in size and the cerebrum becoming relatively 

 larger, from fish upward. Size and complexity oi the brain 

 are now regarded as having relation to all the activities of 

 its possessor, physical as well as mental ; so that any half- 

 way approximation of the simian to the human brain in the 

 size and convolutions is not necessarily an approximation 

 either m amormt or kind of intelligence. The vast difference 

 is admitted. For the rest, among invertebrates, the supra- 

 oesophageal ganglion is but one among others apparently 

 similar, until, in the ascending scale, it is modified in direct 

 visible relation to organs of special sense. 



17. Instinct hardly comes into zoological rank, except it 

 be in the case of the higher insects. Its striking manifesta- 

 tions are distributed with little reference to structural grade, 

 and therefore, it may be added, with as little relation to any 

 capacity for " experience.'' There is good reason to subscribe 

 to Herbert Spencer's view, that instincts fall among reflex 

 processes ; and this, notwithstanding that its results often far 

 surpass the ordinary ones of reason proper in man, which is 

 quite another process from an^-thing demonstrable in animals 

 below him, as proved both by experiment and philosophy. 

 The attempts of late years to confuse ail well established 

 distiactions on this subject, by resolving something into 

 nothing of its OAvn definable kind are among the curiosities 

 of literature. It is just as true as ever that man stands alone 

 as rational, however many instincts may be attributed to him, 

 and however many of his acts are on the animal plane of 

 sense association and its connected automatic impulses. 



18. Mind is as truly an attribute of animals as flesh and 

 bone, — at least in all that have a brain proper there is an 

 animal mind : but it is remarkable that it has never come 

 into classification, except in respect to man ; and now it is 

 not considered " zoological " to take it into account even in 

 his case. There are good reasons that may justify the 

 general exclusion ; namely, below man it is a distinctively 

 animal mind, animal intelligence," so termed, or even 



