CHAPTER IX - EVOLUTION AND PSYCHOLOGY

Summary

WHAT we have seen with regard to the action of man in modifying his environment appears even more plainly when we consider his mental life. From the consideration of his mental life we shall gather that he is a unique being, with notes and characteristics which are only foreshadowed in the lower world of animals. That there are such foreshadowings it would be idle to deny. There are in the lower creation adaptations which seem to be unconscious, such as the colours of animals, and many others which cannot be ascribed to the purpose and will of the animals concerned. But there are other actions and adaptations of which the only explanation is that they were purposely intended by the animals who did them. Whoever reads such works as those of Dr. Romanes on Animal Intelligence will at once admit that the question is beyond dispute. Animals are intelligent; but their intelligence is of a rudimentary kind. The only question which is of interest here is, Can we explain human intelligence as if it were the same in kind as the intelligence we see in the ant and the elephant, and in other animals? Can we substitute for the higher nature the laws and processes of the narrower non-human world, and explain the higher by the lower?