the voices of other animals, and man's instinctive cries. When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably used his voice largely, as does one of the gibbon-apes at the present day, in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing; we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes, serving to express various emotions, as love, jealousy, triumph, and serving as a challenge to their rivals. The imitation by articulate sounds of musical cries might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions. As bearing on the subject of imitation, the trong tendency in our nearest allies, the monkeys, in microcephalous diots, and in the barbarous races of mankind, to imitate whatever they ear, deserves notice. As monkeys certainly understand much that is aid to them by man, and as in a state of nature they utter signal-cries f danger to their fellows, it does not appear altogether incredible, that me unusually wise ape-like animal should have thought of imitating e growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his fellow monkeys the sture of the expected danger. And this would have been a first step the formation of a language.' (Vol. i. p. 56.)

We ask for the evidence that at the present day any unsually wise ape has ever been known to imitate the cry of a ild beast, so as to indicate its presence to its fellows? Why so, if the first stage of articulate development began in usical cadences, by which the chords of the voice were rengthened and gradually perfected, and if the second consted in the imitation of other sounds, have not the birds olved for themselves an articulate language, seeing that they ercise their voices at least as much as any of the higher imals? The American mocking-bird imitates the cries of her birds, and has exercised its vocal chords acquired on the pothesis during courtship. Why does it not speak? This le of accounting for human speech covers too wide a field. it be true in the case of man, why is it not equally true in e case of birds? The answer that their intellect is not suffintly highly developed, merely refers the difficulty back to 2 cause by which the intellectual difference is brought about. id this Mr. Darwin, as we shall presently see, believes to ve been caused in great part by articulate speech. Mr. rwin can hardly mean, in the passage just quoted, that nkeys understand very much that is said to them by man, any other sense than a dog may be said to understand, that o say, the gestures, the tone of voice, and the expression of countenance, not that they can grasp the meaning of any stract term. A broken chain of loosely stated facts such as s cannot prove anything.

The second stage in the evolution of language is that in

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which the vocal organs were strengthened and perfected by the inherited effects of use, and this would react on the power of speech. But,' Mr. Darwin goes on to say, the relation between the continued use of language and the development of the brain has no doubt been far more important. The 'mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have 'been more highly developed than in any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use; but we may confidently believe that the continued ' use and advancement of this power would have reacted on the mind by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought. A long and complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra.' Articulate speech undoubtedly stands in the closest relation to the development of mental powers. Mr. Darwin indeed admits that, the fact of the higher apes not using their vocal organs for speech no doubt depends on their intelligence not having been sufficiently advanced. The possession by them of organs, which, with long-continued practice, might have been used for speech, although not thus used, is paralleled by the case of many birds which possess organs fitted for singing though they never sing.' How then is the origin of intelligence accounted for? Mr. Darwin states that it is merely the development by natural selection of those emotions and faculties which exist in the lower animals, such as love, memory, curiosity, imitation, and the like, by the gradual accumulation of variations through the principles of inheritance. But if this be true, why have not these faculties, so widely spread in the lower animals, borne fruit in a corresponding cerebral development? If all the essentials of our intelligence exist in the lower animals, why have they not produced something approaching to our intellect in some one of the innumerable forms of life? The fact that they have not done so renders the theory very improbable.

Articulate speech stands undoubtedly in direct relation to intellectual faculty, and that again to the large size of the brain in man, which, as we have seen, cannot be accounted for by natural selection. Whether or no language sprang originally from the imitation of the noises of nature and for the arguments for and against, we would refer to the works of Max Müller, Lubbock, and Tylor-Mr. Darwin has not adduced one shred of proof that it is merely descended in an unbroken line from the cries of animals. Man's intellect would

however use those emotional and interjectional sounds which are merely the physical expression of its wants and which, like the body, are links connecting man with the lower animals. After language was once originated a struggle for life would at once begin, as Max Müller remarks, in which the most favoured words and forms would survive the less favoured. And thus, although Mr. Darwin's principle cannot account for the origin of language, which we agree with Max Müller in considering beyond the powers of our analysis, it accounts to a great extent for the differences in dialects and forms of speech. But if Mr. Darwin's explanation of language be unsatisfactory, still more so is his theory of the derivation of those intellectual faculties which are undoubtedly peculiar to mankind, such as self-consciousness, abstraction, and the power of forming general ideas. If he can show that they are descended from certain rudiments in the lower animals, it must be admitted that our intellect is the same in kind with what passes for intellect in the brutes. He does not even venture to discuss them, for the very singular reason that writers have given them different definitions:

'It would be useless (he writes) to attempt discussing these high faculties, which, according to several recent writers, make the sole and complete distinction between man and the brutes, for hardly two authors agree in their definitions. Such faculties could not have been fully developed in man until his mental powers had advanced to a high standard, and this implies the use of a perfect language. No one supposes that one of the lower animals reflects whence he comes or whither he goes-what is death or what is life, and so forth. But can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On the other hand, as Büchner has remarked, how little can the hard-worked wife of a degraded Australian savage, who uses hardly any abstract words and cannot count above four, exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the nature of her own existence.'

It is certainly very prudent in Mr. Darwin to pass over those points which afford insuperable obstacles to his theory of natural selection as applied to mind; but their omission destroys the value of the argument. We cannot of course prove the negative that dogs have no self-consciousness, but the onus probandi, that they have, rests with Mr. Darwin. An appeal to the Australian savage will hardly help to bridge over the mental difference between men and animals, for although in a state of nature he does not exert his mental faculties, they are brought out by education. How this latent capacity was acquired, and why it is not lost by disuse in a state of nature,

are questions which cannot be answered by an appeal to natural selection,

We hold, therefore, that Mr. Darwin has signally failed in advancing proof, that either articulate language, or the higher faculties of the human mind, have been evolved by any known law from the cries or mental attributes of animals. Whatever kinship man may have with the brutes in bodily structure, and in some of the senses and faculties, these form a barrier between man and the brute, which cannot be accounted for in the present state of our knowledge, and which are wholly inexplicable on the Darwinian theory.

The universal belief in the supernatural is held by Mr. Darwin to be the result of the development of the intellectual faculties::

'Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it arose. As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally have craved to understand what was passing around him, and have vaguely speculated on his own existence. . . The belief in spiritual agencies would soon pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, and the same love of vengeance, or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves experienced.... The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties, to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless we see

some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behaviour of a dog when returning to his master after an absence, and, as I may add, of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from that towards their fellows. In the latter case, the transports of joy appear to be somewhat less, and the sense of equality is shown in every action.'

The comparison of the feeling of religious devotion in man, with the emotions of dogs and monkeys, would be unworthy of notice had it been made by any man less distinguished than Mr. Darwin. A belief in the supernatural is present in the one; can Mr. Darwin show that it is present in the other? The comparison of unlike things very often leads him into error. He compares, for instance, the belief of savages that natural objects are animated by living essences, with the barking of a very sensible' dog at a parasol moved by the wind on a lawn, which must have reasoned to himself in a 'rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any

apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory.' What right has he to attribute to the lower animals human motives? To reason from man to dog is as absurd as from dog to man.

Mr. Darwin deals with religion as summarily as he has dealt with the higher faculties of the human mind:

'The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange and superstitions customs. Many of these are terrible to think of-such as the sacrificing of human beings to a blood-loving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire, witchcraft, &c. Yet it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and our accumulated knowledge. As Sir J. Lubbock has well observed, "It is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every "pleasure." These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals.' (Vol. i. p. 68.)

So far as we can gather the meaning of this remarkable passage, our idea of a God is a mere reflection of ourselves, without objective reality, the inevitable result of the activity of our minds. The passage, as it stands, presents difficulties greater than those which it seeks to explain. How can we feel grateful to the improvement of our reason, to science, and accumulated knowledge,' to a mere abstraction, instead of a personal being? By what standard of right and wrong are the instincts of the lower animals to be judged? Is it possible for an instinct to be a mistake, and yet to be at the same time the result of the accumulation of variations good to the individual by natural selection? If that theory be true a mistake would be impossible. Mr. Darwin in this case also has not advanced any proof that we worship a God which is a mere expression of our own high mental activity, and not the cause of it. He has merely involved himself in a maze of difficulties and contradictions. The question of the existence. of a God who may be revealed to us need not be discussed, because it is not affected in the least degree by this argument. The lowest savage who worships a block of wood or stone does in fact express a sublime conception under a gross material form; but that single act of worship, even misapplied, severs him by an infinite chasm from the whole brute creation, which has, as far as we know, no conception of spiritual power.