Chap. II. 
MENTAL POWERS. 
(S3 
That animals retain their mental individuality is 
unquestionable. When my voice awakened a train of 
old associations in the mind of the above-mentioned 
dog, he must have retained his mental individuality, 
although every atom of his brain had probably under- 
gone change more than once during the interval of five 
years. This dog might have brought forward the 
argument lately advanced to crush all evolutionists, 
and said, “ I abide amid all mental moods and all 
“ material changes. . . . The teaching that atoms leave 
“ their impressions as legacies to other atoms falling 
“ into the places they have vacated is contradictory of 
“ the utterance of consciousness, and is therefore false ; 
“but it is the teaching necessitated by evolutionism,. 
“ consequently the hypothesis is a false one.” 49 
Sense of Beauty . — This sense has been declared to 
be peculiar to man. But when we behold male birds 
elaborately displaying their plumes and splendid colours 
before the females, whilst other birds not thus deco- 
rated make no such display, it is impossible to doubt 
that the females admire the beauty of their male part- 
ners. As women everywhere deck themselves with 
these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be 
disputed. The Bower-birds by tastefully ornamenting 
their playing-passages with gaily-coloured objects, as 
do certain humming-birds their nests, offer additional 
evidence that they possess a sense of beauty. So with 
the song of birds, the sweet strains poured forth by the 
males during the season of love are certainly admired 
by the females, of which fact evidence will hereafter be 
given. If female birds had been incapable of appre- 
ciating the beautiful colours, the ornaments, and voices 
49 The Rev. Dr. J. M‘ Cairn, ‘ Anti-Darwinism/ 1869, p. 13. 
