COMPARISON OF THE MENTAL POWERS OF MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS
The difference in mental power between the highest ape and the lowest savage, immense-Certain instincts in common-The emotions-Curiosity-Imitation-Attention-Memory- Imagination-Reason-Progressive improvement -Tools and weapons used by animals-Abstraction, Self-consciousness-Language-Sense of beauty-Belief in God, spiritual agencies, superstitions.
We have seen in the last two chapters that man bears in his bodily structure clear traces of his descent from some lower form; but it may be urged that, as man differs so greatly in his mental power from all other animals, there must be some error in this conclusion. No doubt the difference in this respect is enormous, even if we compare the mind of one of the lowest savages, who has no words to express any number higher than four, and who uses hardly any abstract terms for common objects or for the affections (1. See the evidence on those points, as given by Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times,' p. 354, etc. ), with that of the most highly organised ape. The difference would, no doubt, still remain immense, even if one of the higher apes had been improved or civilised as much as a dog has been in comparison with its parent-form, the wolf or jackal.
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