[Footnote 51: We and ours must die.]
[Footnote 52: In one of the Arabian Nights stories, a nobleman called Barmecide set before a beggar a number of empty dishes supposed to contain a feast.]
[Footnote 53: Mode of working.]
[Footnote 54: Archaeus: a spirit, having essentially the same form as the body within which it resided.]
[Footnote 55: Hume's Essay "Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy," in the Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding.—[Many critics of this passage seem to forget that the subject-matter of Ethics and Aesthetics consists of matters of fact and existence.—1892.]—Author's note.]
[Footnote 56: Or, to speak more accurately, the physical state of which volition is the expression.—1892.—Author's note.]
COMPARISON OF THE MENTAL POWERS OF MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS[57]
CHARLES DARWIN
My object in this chapter is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties. Each division of the subject might have been extended into a separate essay, but must here be treated briefly. As no classification of the mental powers has been universally accepted, I shall arrange my remarks in the order most convenient for my purpose; and will select those facts which have struck me most, with the hope that they may produce some effect on the reader.
As man possesses the same senses as the lower animals, his fundamental intuitions must be the same. Man has also some few instincts in common, as that of self-preservation, sexual love, the love of the mother for her new-born offspring, the desire possessed by the latter to suck, and so forth. But man, perhaps, has somewhat fewer instincts: than those possessed by the animals which come next to him in the series. The orang in the Eastern islands and the chimpanzee in Africa build platforms on which they sleep; and as both species follow the same habit, it might be argued that this was due to instinct, but we cannot feel sure that it is not the result of both animals having similar wants and possessing similar powers of reasoning. These apes, as we may assume, avoid the many poisonous fruits of the tropics, and man has no such knowledge; but as our domestic animals, when taken to foreign lands, and when first turned out in the spring, often eat poisonous herbs, which they afterward avoid, we cannot feel sure that the apes do not learn from their own experience or from that of their parents what fruits to select. It is, however, certain, as we shall presently see, that apes have an instinctive dread of serpents, and probably of other dangerous animals.