PREFACE xv

underestimate the psychical powers of animals, it will be

well to pass in review some of the more striking anecdotes

of animal intelligence in both the lower and higher classes of

the animal kingdom. Remarkably divergent forms of speech

of both infants and savages would likewise seem to require

some notice, as also the question as to the origin of speech.

If the result of this somewhat prolonged inquiry should

be a conviction that between the highest psychical powers of

men and animals there is a difference of kind a difference

absolute and not consisting of degrees of difference it

would then be a question whether such a breach of con-

tinuity, such a new departure, stands alone, or whether

there are others, analogous sudden interruptions, to be met

with in nature? If we become convinced that it is an un-

questionable fact that there are other breaches of continuity

such, for example, as between the inorganic and organic

worlds and between insentient and sentient organisms

then an a priori probability will become thereby established

in favour of a breach of continuity between merely sentient

animality and the rational animality of man.

All these introductory inquiries (as to the conditions

necessary for the existence of science ; as to Idealism ; as

to what science implies ; as to both physical and psychical

antecedents of science ; and as to the place in nature of

the human intellect) having been disposed of, we shall

next have to examine into our own highest intellectual

powers. In beginning that examination, existing circum-

stances, and the prevalent prejudices of the day, compel

us to expressly consider the bearing upon our estimate

as to the rank and value of our own mental powers, of the

widely accepted doctrine of " Natural Selection." If we

come to recognize that we are in the possession of self-

evident truths which could never have given their possessors

an improved chance of survival, then it is clear that our

underestimate the psychical powers of animals, it will be

well to pass in review some of the more striking anecdotes

of animal intelligence in both the lower and higher classes of

the animal kingdom. Remarkably divergent forms of speech

of both infants and savages would likewise seem to require

some notice, as also the question as to the origin of speech.

If the result of this somewhat prolonged inquiry should

be a conviction that between the highest psychical powers of

men and animals there is a difference of kind a difference

absolute and not consisting of degrees of difference it

would then be a question whether such a breach of con-

tinuity, such a new departure, stands alone, or whether

there are others, analogous sudden interruptions, to be met

with in nature? If we become convinced that it is an un-

questionable fact that there are other breaches of continuity

such, for example, as between the inorganic and organic

worlds and between insentient and sentient organisms

then an a priori probability will become thereby established

in favour of a breach of continuity between merely sentient

animality and the rational animality of man.

All these introductory inquiries (as to the conditions

necessary for the existence of science ; as to Idealism ; as

to what science implies ; as to both physical and psychical

antecedents of science ; and as to the place in nature of

the human intellect) having been disposed of, we shall

next have to examine into our own highest intellectual

powers. In beginning that examination, existing circum-

stances, and the prevalent prejudices of the day, compel

us to expressly consider the bearing upon our estimate

as to the rank and value of our own mental powers, of the

widely accepted doctrine of " Natural Selection." If we

come to recognize that we are in the possession of self-

evident truths which could never have given their possessors

an improved chance of survival, then it is clear that our