99 
analogous to those presented by an individual member of the 
animal kingdom in kis progress from infancy to maturity. 
But, however attractive this theory may be as a hypothesis, 
there is not a single fact to support it a posteriori. In spite of 
all the ingenious reasoning which has been employed by the 
advocates of the progressive theory, the imposing procession 
obstinately refuses to move on. The gibbon never develops 
into an orang ; the orang never becomes a chimpanzee ; the 
chimpanzee is never transmuted into a gorilla ; and there is no 
ground for supposing that the gorilla will a thousand years 
hence resemble the human species any more than he does 
to-day. It is true that the theory of progressive development 
has received the sanction of names which stand high in the 
scientific world ; but we must take facts as we find them, and 
if we are reluctant to run counter to the opinions of such men 
as Darwin, we should remember that, especially in natural 
science, a too exclusive study of detail tends to disqualify men 
for taking comprehensive views, and that, while accepting 
them as authorities in the statement of scientific facts, we are 
in no way bound to agree with their conclusions. 
There exists a school of modern Anthropologists which is 
by no means content with this physiological gradation. M. 
Pouchet, a prominent member of this school, says, in his work 
on the Plurality of the Human Race, “ The intellect of 
vertebrate animals is identical, as their organism is identical ; 
thus gradually descending, passing through the orang from 
man himself to all the mammalia/'’ Again, “ From animals to 
man, everything is but a chain of uninterrupted gradation; 
therefore there is no human kingdom.” 
It is this important question of the existence or non- 
existence of a fundamental and essential distinction between 
the psychology of man and the psychology of the lower 
animals which will form the subject of the ensuing remarks. 
I have thought it advisable, on a question which involves 
some of the most difficult and abstruse problems in meta- 
physics, to avoid attempts at demonstrative reasoning, and 
to confine myself to a practical consideration of a few of the 
arguments which have been put forward on behalf of the 
theory of intellectual gradation. 
In regard to the first of the above extracts from M. 
Pouchet^s work, I would observe that, even if we admit the 
existence both of a physiological and an intellectual gradation, 
the theory of their correspondence is not borne out by the 
evidence of observed facts. In the Anthropological Review 
for the year 1864, three instances, amongst many others, are 
adduced for the purpose of supporting arguments in favour 
H 2 
