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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HM106 .M82 
 
 The universal kinship. 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 242 584 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030242584 
 
UNIFORM WITH 'THE UNIVERSAL KINSHIP' 
 
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 Third English Edition. 4s. 6d. net. 
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 THE FOOD OF THE FUTURE. A Summary 
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 THE LOGIC OF VEGETARIANISM. By 
 
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 LONDON ; GEORGE BELL & SONS 
 
THE UNIVERSAL KINSHIP 
 
OTHER WORKS BY MR. MOORE. 
 
 BETTER-WORLD PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The Problem of Industry — Blunders — The Social Problem — 
 Egoism and Altruism — The Preponderance of Egoism — The 
 Social Ideal — Origin of Human Nature — Race Culture — In- 
 dividual Culture. Price Si.oo [as. 6d. net]. 
 
 THE LOGIC OF HUMANITARIANISM. 
 
 The Nature and Fallibility of Opinion— The Thesis of Humani- 
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THE 
 
 UNIVERSAL KINSHIP 
 
 BY 
 
 J. HOWARD MOORE 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN ZOOLOGY, CRANE MANUAL TRAINING HIGH SCHOOL, 
 CHICAGO 
 
 ' A Sacred Kinship I would not forego 
 Binds me to all that breathes.' 
 
 BOYESEN. 
 
 LONDON 
 HUMANITARIAN LEAGUE 
 53 CHANCERY LANE 
 1906 
 
TO 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER 
 
 WHO HAVE DONE SO MUCH FOR ME IN THE 
 
 LONG YEARS 
 
 THAT ARE PAST AND GONE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Universal Kinship means the kinship of all 
 the inhabitants of the planet Earth. Whether 
 they came into existence among the waters or 
 among desert sands, in a hole in the earth, in the 
 hollow of a tree, or in a palace ; whether they 
 build nests or empires ; whether they swim, fly, 
 crawl, or ambulate ; and whether they realise it 
 or not, they are all related, physically, mentally, 
 morally — this is the thesis of this book. But 
 since man is the most gifted and influential of 
 animals, and since his relationship with other 
 animals is more important and more reluctantly 
 recognised than any other, the chief purpose of 
 these pages is' to prove and interpret the kinship 
 of the human species with the other species of 
 animals. 
 
 The thesis of this book comes pretty squarely 
 in conflict with widely-practised and highly-prized 
 sins. It will therefore be generally criticised 
 where it is not passed by in silence. Men as a 
 rule do not care to improve. Although they have 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 but one life to live, they are satisfied to live the 
 thing out as they have started on it. 
 
 Enthusiasm, which in an enlightened or ideal 
 race would be devoted to self-improvement, is used 
 by men in weaving excuses for their own inertia 
 or in singing of the infirmities of others. 
 
 But there is a Future. And the creeds and ideals 
 men bow down to to-day will in time to come 
 pass away, and new creeds and ideals will claim 
 their allegiance. Shrines change as the genera- 
 tions come and go, and out of the decomposition 
 of the old comes the new. The time will come 
 when the sentiments of these pages will not be 
 hailed by two or three, and ridiculed or ignored 
 by the rest ; they will represent Public Opinion and 
 Law. 
 
 M. 
 
 Chicago, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. MAN AN ANIMAL ----- 3 
 
 II. MAN A VERTEBRATE - - - - 7 
 
 III. MAN A MAMMAL - - - - - 12 
 
 IV. MAN A PRIMATE - - - • - 14 
 V. RECAPITULATION - - - - - 26 
 
 VI. THE MEANING OF HOMOLOGY - - - 28 
 
 VII. THE EARTH AN EVOLUTION - "30 
 
 VIII. THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION - - 35 
 
 IX. THE EVIDENCES OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION - 38 
 
 X. THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS - - - 74 
 
 XL CONCLUSION - - - - - 97 
 
 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 I. THE CONFLICT OF SCIENCE AND TRADITION - I05 
 
 II. EVIDENCES OF PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION - - IIO 
 
 III. THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW - - - 146 
 
 IV. THE ELEMENTS OF HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN 
 
 MIND COMPARED - . - . 196 
 
 V. CONCLUSION - - - - - 232 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. HUMAN NATURE A PRODUCT OF THE JUNGLE - 245 
 
 II. EGOISM AND ALTRUISM - - - - 247 
 
 III. THE ETHICS OF THE SAVAGE - - - 252 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT - - - 258 
 V. MODERN ETHICS ----- 267 
 
 VI. THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS TOWARDS NON- 
 HUMAN BEINGS - . - - 272 
 VII. THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM - - 282 
 VIIL UNIVERSAL ETHICS - - - - 291 
 IX. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM - - 296 
 X. ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS - - - 314 
 XI. ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF EVOLUTION ■ 319 
 XII. CONCLUSION - - . . . 324 
 
THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. MAN AN ANIMAL ----- 3 
 
 II. MAN A VERTEBRATE .... 7 
 
 III. MAN A MAMMAL - - - - - 12 
 
 IV. MAN A PRIMATE - - - - - 14 
 
 V. RECAPITULATION - - - - - 26 
 
 VI. THE MEANING OF HOMOLOGY - - - 28 
 
 VII. THE EARTH AN EVOLUTION - - "30 
 
 VIII. THE FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION - - 35 
 
 IX. THE EVIDENCES OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION - 38 
 
 X. THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS - - - 74 
 
 XI. CONCLUSION - - - - - 97 
 
' Like the Roman emperors, who, intoxicated by their 
 power, at length regarded themselves as demigods, so the 
 ruler of the earth believes that the animals subjected to his 
 will have nothing in common with his own nature. Man is 
 not content to be the king of animals. He insists on having 
 it that an impassable gulf separates him from his subjects. 
 The affinity of the ape disturbs and humbles him. And, 
 turning his back upon the earth, he flies, with his threatened 
 majesty, into the cloudy sphere of a special " human 
 kingdom." But Anatomy, like those slaves who followed 
 the conqueror's car crying, " Thou art a man," disturbs him 
 in his self-admiration, and reminds him of those plain and 
 tangible realities which unite him with the animal world.' — 
 Broca. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL KINSHIP 
 
 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 I. Man an Animal. 
 
 It was in the zoology class at college. We had 
 made all the long journey from amoeba to coral, 
 from coral to worm, from worm to mollusk, from 
 moUusk to fish, from fish to reptile, and from 
 reptile to mammal — and there, in the closing pages 
 of faithfril old Packard, we found it. ' A mammal 
 of the order of primates,' the book said, with that 
 unconcern characteristic of the deliverances of 
 science. I was almost saddened. It was the 
 first intimation I had ever received of that trite 
 but neglected truth that man is an animal. 
 
 But the intimation was so weak, and I was at 
 that time so unconscious, that it was not till years 
 later that I began, through reflection, actually to 
 realise the truth here first caught sight of. During 
 these years I knew that man was not a mineral 
 nor a plant — that, indeed, he belonged to the 
 
 3 1—2 
 
4 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 animal kingdom. But, like most men still, I 
 continued to think of him as being altogether 
 different from other animals. I thought of man 
 and the animals, not of man and the other animals. 
 Man was somehow sui generis. He had had, I 
 believed, a unique and miraculous origin ; for I 
 had not yet learned of organic evolution. The 
 pre-Darwinian belief that I had come down from 
 the skies, and that non-human creatures of all 
 kinds had been brought into existence as adjuncts 
 of the distinguished species to which I belonged, 
 occupied prominent place in my thinking. Non- 
 human races, so I had been taught, had in them- 
 selves no reason for existence. They were acces- 
 sories. A chasm, too wide for any bridge ever to 
 span, yawned between the human and all other 
 species. Man was celestial, a blue-blood barely 
 escaping divinity. All other beings were little 
 higher than clods. So faithfully and mechanically 
 did I reflect the bias in which I had grown up. 
 
 But man is an animal. It was away out there 
 on the prairies, among the green corn rows, one 
 beautiful June morning — a long time ago it seems 
 to me now — that this revelation really came to 
 me. And I repeat it here, as it has grown to 
 seem to me, for the sake of a world which is so 
 wise in many things, but so darkened and way- 
 ward regarding this one thing. However averse 
 to accepting it we may be on account of favourite 
 traditions, man is an animal in the most literal 
 and materialistic meaning of the word. Man has 
 not a spark of so-called ' divinity ' about him. In 
 
MAN AN ANIMAL 5 
 
 important respects he is the most highly evolved 
 of animals ; but in origin, disposition, and form he 
 is no more ' divine ' than the dog who laps his 
 sores, the terrapin who waddles over the earth in 
 a carapace, or the unfastidious worm who dines 
 on the dust of his feet. Man is not the pedestalled 
 individual pictured by his imagination — a being 
 glittering with prerogatives, and towering apart 
 from and above all other beings. He is a pain- 
 shunning, pleasure-seeking, death-dreading organ- 
 ism, differing in particulars, but not in kind, from 
 the pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking, death-dread- 
 ing organisms below and around him. Man is 
 neither a rock, a vegetable, nor a deity. He 
 belongs to the same class of existences, and has 
 been brought into existence by the same evolu- 
 tional processes, as the horse, the toad that hops 
 in his garden, the firefly that lights its twilight 
 torch, and the bivalve that reluctantly feeds him. 
 
 Man's body is composed fundamentally of the 
 same materials as the bodies of all other animals. 
 The bodies of all animals are composed of clay. 
 They are formed of the same elements as those 
 that murmur in the waters, gallop in the winds, 
 and constitute the substance of the insensate rocks 
 and soils. More than two-thirds of the weight of 
 the human body is made up of oxygen alone, a 
 gas which forms one-fifth of the weight of the air, 
 more than eight-ninths of that of the sea, and 
 forty-seven per cent, of the superficial solids of 
 the earth. 
 
 Man's body is composed of cells. So are the 
 
6 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 bodies of all other animals. And the cells in 
 the body of a human being are not essentially 
 different in composition or structure from the cells 
 in the body of the sponge. All cells are composed 
 primarily of protoplasm, a compound of carbon, 
 hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Like all other 
 animals, man is incapable of producing a particle 
 of the essential substance of which his body is 
 made. No animal can produce protoplasm. This 
 is a power of the plant, and the plant only. All 
 that any animal can do is to burn the compounds 
 formed in the sun-lit laboratories of the vegetable 
 world. The human skeleton, like the skeletons of 
 nearly all other animals, is composed chiefly of 
 ime — lime being, in the sea, where life spent so 
 many of its earlier centuries, the most available 
 material for parts whose purpose it is to furnish 
 shape and durability to the organism. Man grows 
 from an egg. So do all creatures of clay. Every 
 animal commences at the same place — in a single, 
 lowly, almost homogeneous cell. A dog, a frog, 
 a philosopher, and a worm cannot for a long 
 time after their embryonic commencement be 
 distinguished from each other. Like the oyster, 
 the ox, the insect, and the fish, like all that live, 
 move, and breathe, man is mortal. He increases 
 in size and complexity through an allotted period 
 of time; then, like all his kindred, wilts back into 
 the indistinguishable flux from which he came. 
 Man inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide. 
 So does every animal that breathes, whether it 
 breathe by lungs, gills, skin, or ectosarc, and 
 
MAN AN ANIMAL 7 
 
 whether it breathe the sunless ooze of the sea 
 floor or the ethereal blue of the sky. Animals 
 inhale oxygen because they eat carbon and 
 hydrogen. The energy of all animals is produced 
 mainly by the union of oxygen with the elements 
 of carbon and hydrogen in the tissues of animal 
 bodies, the plentiful and ardent oxygen being the 
 most available supporter of the combustion of 
 these two elements. 
 
 Man is, then, an animal, more highly evolved 
 than the most of his fellow-beings, but positively 
 of the same clay, and of the same fundamental 
 make-up, with the same eagerness to exceed and 
 the same destiny, as his less pompous kindred 
 who float and frolic and pass away in the seas and 
 atmospheres, and creep over the land-patches of a 
 common clod. 
 
 II. Man a Vertebrate. 
 
 Man is a vertebrate animal.* He has (anatomi- 
 cally at least) a backbone. He belongs to that 
 substantial class of organisms possessing an 
 articulating internal skeleton — the family of the 
 fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. 
 Most animals have some sort of skeleton, some 
 sort of calcareous contrivance, whose business it 
 is to give form and protection to the softer parts 
 of the organism. Some animals, as the star- 
 fishes, have plates of lime scattered throughout 
 the surface parts of the body ; others, as the corals 
 
 * See ' Classes of Animals,' p. 330. 
 
8 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 and sponges, secrete plant-like frames, upon and 
 among the branches of which the organisms 
 reside ; and still others, as the clams, crustaceans, 
 and insects, have skeletons consisting of a shell 
 or sheath on the outside of, and more or less 
 surrounding, the softer substances of the body. 
 The limbs of insects are tiny tubes on the inside 
 of which are the miniature muscles with which 
 they perform their marvels of locomotion. The 
 skeleton of vertebrates, consisting of levers, beams, 
 columns, and arches, all skilfully joined together 
 and sunk deep within the muscular tissue, forms a 
 conspicuous contrast to the rudimentary frames of 
 other animals. The vertebrate skeleton consists 
 of a hollow axis, divided into segments and ex- 
 tending along the dorsal region of the body, from 
 the ventral side of which articulate, by means of 
 awkwardly-constructed girdles, an anterior and a 
 posterior pair of limbs. This dorsal axis ends in 
 front in a peculiar bulbous arrangement called the 
 head, which contains, among other valuables, the 
 brain and buccal cavern. The thoracic segments 
 of the backbone send off pairs of flat bones, which, 
 arching ventrally, form the chest for the protection 
 of the heart and other vitals. The limbs (except 
 in fishes) consist each of a single long bone, 
 succeeded by two long bones, followed by two 
 transverse rows of short, irregular wrist or ankle 
 bones, ending normally in five branching series of 
 bones called digits. This is essentially the skeleton 
 of all fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and 
 mammals. In short, it is the universal vertebrate 
 
MAN A VERTEBRATE 9 
 
 type of frame. There are minor modifications to 
 suit the various kinds of environment, adaptations 
 to the necessities of aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial 
 locomotion and life, some parts being specialised, 
 others atrophied, and still others omitted, but 
 there is never anywhere, from iishes to philoso- 
 phers, any fundamental departure from the estab- 
 lished vertebrate type of skeleton.* The pectoral 
 fins of fishes correspond to the fore-limbs of frogs 
 and reptiles, the wings of birds, and the arms of 
 men. The pelvic fins of fishes are homologous 
 with the hind-limbs of frogs, reptiles, and quad- 
 rupeds, and the legs of birds, apes, and men. 
 The foot of the dog and crocodile, the hand of the 
 orang, and the flipper of the dolphin and seal, all 
 have the same general structure as the hand of 
 man ; and the wings of the bat and bird, the fore- 
 limbs of the lizard and elephant, and the comical 
 shovels of the mole and ornithorhynchus, notwith- 
 standing the great differences in their external 
 appearance and use, contain essentially the same 
 bones and the same arrangement of the bones as 
 do the arms of men and women. The human 
 body has two primary cavities in it. So have the 
 bodies of all vertebrates : a neural cavity con- 
 taining the brain and spinal cord, and a visceral 
 cavity containing the heart, liver, lungs, and 
 alimentary canal. Invertebrates have only one 
 
 * Snakes are limbless, and hind-limbs are lacking in 
 whales and other degenerates ; but rudimentary limbs are 
 found in the embryonic stages of these animals. Frogs, it 
 may be said also, have no ribs. 
 
10 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 body cavity — the one corresponding to the visceral 
 cavity of vertebrates — and the main nerve trunk, 
 instead of extending along the back, as among 
 vertebrates, is in invertebrates located ventrally. 
 Vertebrates are the only animals on the earth that 
 have a highly developed circulatory system, a 
 system entirely shut off from the other systems, 
 and containing a heart, arteries, veins, and 
 capillaries. In all invertebrates the digestive and 
 circulatory systems remain to a greater or less 
 extent connected, the blood and food mingling 
 more or less in the general cavity of the body. 
 Worms and insects have pulsating tubes instead of 
 heart and arteries. Crustaceans have hearts with 
 one chamber, and mollusks have two or three cham- 
 bered hearts, but the blood, instead of returning 
 to the heart after its journey through the arteries, 
 passes into the body cavity. In man and other 
 vertebrates the circulating current is confined 
 strictly to the bloodvessels, no particle of it ever 
 escaping into the general body cavity. The heart 
 of vertebrates is distinguished from that of inver- 
 tebrates by being located ventrally. The heart of 
 invertebrates is in the back. The blood of verte- 
 brates differs from that of invertebrates in contain- 
 ing both red and white corpuscles. Invertebrates 
 have white corpuscles only. Worms have yellow, 
 red, or bright green blood. The blood of crusta- 
 ceans is bluish, that of mollusks is white, and that 
 of insects dusky or brown. The blood of all 
 vertebrates, excepting amphioxus, is red. All 
 backboned beings, whether they dwell in seas or 
 
MAN A VERTEBRATE ii 
 
 cities, and whether they build nests or empires, 
 have two eyes, two ears, nose and mouth, all 
 located in the head, and always occupying the 
 same relative position to each other. Inverte- 
 brates may have their brains in their abdomen, as 
 do the mites ; hear with their legs or antennas, as 
 many insects do ; see with their tunics, like the 
 scallops ; and breathe with their skin, as do the 
 worms. The crayfish hears with its ' feelers,' the 
 cricket and katydid with their fore-legs, the grass- 
 hopper with its abdomen, the clam with its ' foot,' 
 and mysis and other low crustaceans have their 
 auditory organs on their tails. 
 
 Man is, then, like the fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds, 
 and quadrupeds, a vertebrate animal. Excepting 
 in his infancy, when he is a quadruped going on 
 all fours, he uses his posterior limbs only for 
 locomotion, and his anterior for prehension and 
 the like. His spinal axis is erect instead of hori- 
 zontal, and his tail is atrophied. But he possesses 
 all of the unmistakable qualities of the vertebrate 
 type of structure — a two-chambered body cavity, a 
 highly developed and dorsally located nerve trunk, 
 vertebrate vitals, a closed circulatory system, a 
 ventral heart, red blood, a head containing sense 
 organs and brain, and a well-ordered internal 
 skeleton, consisting of a vertebral column with 
 skull and ribs and two pairs of limbs, the limbs 
 consisting each of one long bone, two long bones, 
 two transverse rows of irregular bones, and five 
 branches at the end. 
 
12 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 III. Man a Mammal. 
 
 Man is a mammal. He belongs to the most 
 brilliant and influential of the five classes of verte- 
 brates—the class to which belong so many of his 
 associates and victims, the class to which belong 
 the horse, the dog, the deer, the ox, the sheep, the 
 swine, the squirrel, the camel, the unattenuated 
 elephant, and the timid-hearted hare. To this 
 class belong also the lion, the tiger, the kangaroo, 
 the beaver, the bear, the bat, the monkey, the 
 mole, the wolf, the ornithorhynchus, and the 
 whale — in short, all animals that have hair. Fishes 
 and reptiles have scales ; birds have feathers ; all 
 mammals are covered to a greater or less extent 
 with hair. The aquatic habits of whales render 
 hair of no use to them. Hence, while the unborn 
 of these animals still cling to the structural tradi- 
 tions of their ancestors and are covered with hair, 
 the adults are almost hairless. The sartorial 
 habits of human beings and the selective influ- 
 ences of the sexes have had a similar effect on the 
 hairy covering of the human body. Hair exists 
 all over the human body surface, excepting on the 
 soles of the hands and feet, but in a greatly 
 dwarfed condition. It is only on the scalp and 
 on the faces of males, where it is scientifically 
 assisted for purposes of display, that it grows 
 luxuriantly. It is by no means certain that even 
 the hair on the masculine scalp will last forever. 
 For if the hermetical derby and other deadly 
 devices worn by men continue their devastations 
 
MAN A MAMMAL 13 
 
 as they have in the past, we may expect to have, 
 in the course of generations, men with foreheads 
 reaching regularly to the occiput. Most animals 
 lay eggs. Man does not. Like the dog, the 
 horse, the squirrel, and the bat, man is viviparous, 
 the eggs hatching within the parental body. 
 Human young are born helpless, and are sus- 
 tained during the period of their infancy by the 
 secretions of the milk glands. So are all the sons 
 and daughters of mammals. Whether they come 
 into the world among the waters or among the 
 desert sands, in the hollow of a tree, in a hole in 
 the earth, or in a palace, the children of mammals 
 are frail and pitiful, and they survive to grow and 
 multiply only because they are the object of the 
 loving and incessant sacrifices of a mother. 
 
 Mammals are distinguished from all other 
 animals by the possession of two kinds of skin 
 glands — the sweat glands and the oil glands — and 
 by the development of certain of these glands in 
 the female into organs for the nourishing of the 
 young. Among reptiles and birds the lower jaw 
 is suspended from the skull by a bone called the 
 quadrate bone. Among men and other mammals 
 the lower jaw is joined directly to the skull, the 
 quadrate bone becoming, in the vicissitudes of 
 evolution, the hammer (malleus) of the mammalian 
 ear. Man has a four-chambered heart — two reser- 
 voirs which receive, and two pumps which propel, 
 the scarlet waters of the body. Fishes have two- 
 chambered hearts; frogs and most reptiles have 
 three-chambered hearts; all mammals and birds 
 
14 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 have four-chambered hearts. The red corpuscles 
 in the blood of fishes, frogs, reptiles, and birds, are 
 discs, double-convex, nucleated, and in shape 
 oval or triangular. In man and in all other 
 mammals (except the archaic camel) the red 
 corpuscles are double-concave, non-nucleated, and 
 circular. Man has a diaphragm dividing the body 
 cavity into chest and abdomen, and a shining 
 white bridge of interlacing fibres, called corpus 
 callosum, uniting his cerebral hemispheres. And 
 man is a mammal because, like other mammals, 
 he has, in addition to the qualities already men- 
 tioned, these valuable and distinct characteristics. 
 
 IV. Man a Primate. 
 
 Man is a primate. There are four divisions in 
 the order of primates — lemurs, monkeys, apes, 
 and men. But the most interesting and important 
 of these, according to man, is man. Man is a 
 primate because, like other primates, he has arms 
 and hands instead of fore-legs. And these are 
 important characteristics. It was a splendid 
 moment when the tendencies of evolution, 
 pondering the possibilities of structural improve- 
 ment, decided to rear the vertebrate upon its 
 hind-limbs, and convert its anterior appendages 
 into instruments of manipulation. So long as 
 living creatures were able simply to move through 
 the airs and waters of the earth and over the 
 surface of the solids, they were powerless to 
 modify the universe about them very much. But 
 the moment beings were developed with parts of 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 15 
 
 their bodies fitted to take hold of and move and 
 fashion and compel the universe around them, 
 that moment the life process was endowed with 
 the power of miracles. With the invention of 
 hands and arms commenced seriously that long 
 campaign against the tendencies of inanimate 
 nature which finds its most marvellous achieve- 
 ments in the sustained and triumphant operations 
 of human industry. None of the primates except- 
 ing man use their hind-limbs as a sole means of 
 changing their place in the universe, but in all of 
 them the fore-limbs are regularly used as organs 
 of manipulation. Man is a primate because his 
 fingers and toes, like those of other primates 
 (except the tiny marmosets of Brazil), end in 
 nails. Man has neither claws to burrow into the 
 earth, talons with which to hold and rend his 
 victims, nor hoofs to put thunder into his move- 
 ments. The human stomach, like that of all the 
 other primates, is a bagpipe. The stomach of the 
 carnivora is usually a simple sack, while rodents 
 have, as a rule, two stomachs, and ruminants 
 four. Man is a primate because his milk glands 
 are located on the breast and are two in number. 
 The mammary glands vary in number in the 
 different orders of mammals, from two in the 
 horse and whale to twenty-two in some insec- 
 tivora. Most ruminating animals have four, swine 
 ten, and carnivora generally six or eight. These 
 glands may be located in the region of the groin, 
 as in the horse and whale ; between the fore- 
 limbs, as in the elephant and bat ; or arranged in 
 
i6 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 pairs extending from the fore to the hind limbs, 
 as in the carnivora and swine. In man and all 
 other primates (except lemurs) the mammary 
 glands are pectoral and two in number. All 
 primates, including man, have also a disc-shaped 
 placenta. The placenta is the organ of nutrition 
 in mammalian embryos. It is found in all young- 
 bearing animals above the marsupials, and con- 
 sists of a mass of glands between the embryo and 
 the parental body. In some animals it entirely 
 surrounds and encloses the embryo ; in others it 
 assumes the form of a girdle ; and in still others 
 it is bell-shaped. The primates are the only 
 animals in which this peculiar organ is in the 
 shape of a simple disc* 
 
 The nearest relatives by blood man has in this 
 world are the exceedingly man-like apes — the 
 tailless anthropoids — the gorillas and chimpanzees 
 of Africa, and the orangs and gibbons of southern 
 and insular Asia. The fact that man is an actual 
 relative and descendant of the ape is one of the 
 most disagreeable of the many distasteful truths 
 which the human mind in its evolution has come 
 upon. To a vanity puffed, as is that of human 
 beings, to the splitting, the consanguinity of gorilla 
 and gentleman seems horrible. Man prefers 
 to have arrived on the earth by way of a ladder 
 let down by his imagination from the celestial 
 concave. Within his own memory man has been 
 
 * The bat and a few other animals have a disc-like 
 placenta, but it develops into the disc shape by a different 
 route from what it does in the primates. 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 17 
 
 guilty of many foolish and disgraceful things. 
 But this attempt by him to repudiate his ancestors 
 by surreptitiously fabricating for himself an origin 
 different from, and more glorious than, the rest is 
 one of the most absurd and scandalous in the 
 whole list. It is a shallow logic — the logic of 
 those who, without worth of their own, try to 
 shine with a false and stolen lustre. No more 
 masterly rebuke was ever administered to those in 
 the habit of sneering at the truth in this matter 
 than the caustic reply of Huxley to the taunt of 
 the fat-witted Bishop — that he would rather be 
 the descendant of a respectable ape than the 
 descendant of one who not only closed his eyes 
 to the facts around him, but used his official 
 position to persuade others to do likewise. Man's 
 reluctance to take his anatomical place beside his 
 simian kinspeople has been exceeded only by his 
 selfish and high-handed determination to exclude 
 all other terrestrial beings from his heaven. 
 
 Man is a talkative and religious ape. He is an 
 ape, but with a much greater amount of enterprise 
 and with a greater likelihood of being found in 
 every variety of climate. Like the anthropoid, 
 man has a bald face and an obsolete tail. But he 
 is distinguished from his arboreal relative by his 
 arrogant bearing, his skilled larynx, and especially 
 by the satisfaction he experiences in the con- 
 templation of the image which appears when he 
 looks in a mirror. 
 
 The man-like apes are from three to six feet tall, 
 and are all of them very strong, the gorilla, who 
 
 2 
 
18 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 sometimes weighs over three hundred pounds, 
 being about the bravest and most formidable un- 
 armed animal on the planet. They are erect or 
 semi-erect, have loud voices, plantigrade feet, and 
 irritable dispositions— in all of these particulars 
 being strikingly like men. The gorilla, chim- 
 panzee, and gibbon are highlanders, preferring 
 the uplands and mountains. The orang is a low- 
 lander, living phlegmatically among the sylvan 
 swamps of Sumatra and Borneo. The gorilla 
 and chimpanzee are terrestrial, seldom going 
 among the trees except to get food or to sleep. 
 The orang and gibbon are arboreal, seldom 
 coming to the ground except to drink or bathe. 
 They all walk on their hind-limbs, generally in a 
 stooping posture, with their knuckles or fingers 
 touching the ground. But they sometimes walk 
 with their arms hanging down by their sides, 
 and sometimes with their hands clasped back of 
 their heads to give them balance. None of them 
 ever place their palms on the ground when they 
 walk — that is, none of them walk on four feet. 
 The anthropoid races, in the shape of their heads 
 and faces and in the general form and structure 
 of their bodies, and even in their habits of life, 
 resemble in a remarkable manner the lowest races 
 of human beings. This resemblance is recognised 
 by the negro races, who call the gorilla and chim- 
 panzee ' hairy men,' and believe them to be de- 
 scendants of outcast members of their own species. 
 There are differences in structure between man 
 and the apes, just as there are differences in 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 19 
 
 structure between the Caucasian and the Caffre, 
 or even between individual Caucasians or individual 
 Caffres. There are differences in structure and 
 topography, often very noticeable differences, even 
 among members of the same family. But in all 
 of its essential characters, and extending often to 
 astonishing particulars, the structure of man is 
 identical with that of the anthropoid (i).* 
 
 In external appearances the man-like races differ 
 from men in having a luxuriant covering of natural 
 hair. But anthropoids differ very much among 
 themselves in this particular. The orang, usually 
 covered with long hair, is sometimes almost hair- 
 less. There are, too, races of human beings 
 whose bodies are covered with a considerable 
 growth of hair. The Todas (Australians) and 
 Ainus (aborigines of Japan) are noted for the 
 hairiness of their bodies, certain individuals among 
 them being covered with a real fur, especially on 
 the lower limbs (2). 
 
 Individuals also often appear in every race with 
 a remarkable development of the hair. Adrian 
 and his son Fedor, exhibited years ago over 
 Europe. as 'dog-men,' are examples. The father 
 was completely covered with a thick growth of fine 
 dirty-yellow hair two or three inches long. Long 
 tufts grew out of his nostrils and ears, giving him 
 a striking resemblance to a Skye terrier. Fedor, 
 and also his sister, were covered with hair like the 
 
 * Figures in parentheses ( ) at the close of borrowed ideas 
 refer to book numbers in the bibliography at the close of the 
 chapter. 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 father, but another son was like ordinary men. 
 The man-hke races have also longer arms in pro- 
 portion to the height of the body than man gene- 
 rally has. But this is also true of human infants 
 and negroes. The gibbon has relatively much 
 longer arms than the other anthropoids. It 
 differs from the chimpanzee in this respect more 
 than the chimpanzee differs from man. When 
 standing upright and reaching down with the 
 middle finger, the gibbon can touch its foot, while 
 the chimpanzee can reach only to the knee. Man 
 ordinarily reaches part way down the thigh, but 
 negroes have been known to have arms reaching 
 to the knee-pan (3). 
 
 The skeleton of the African races contains many 
 characters recognised by osteologists as ' pithe- 
 coid,' or ape-like. It is massive, the flat bones are 
 thick, and the pelvis narrow. In the manlike apes 
 the large toe is opposable to the other four, and 
 is used by them much as the thumb is used. But 
 this difference between the two races of beings is 
 just what might be expected from the differences 
 in their modes of life. Man has little need of this 
 opposability on account of his exclusively terrestrial 
 life, while to the ape it is indispensable on account 
 of his arboreal environment and life. ' But there 
 are,' says Haeckel, ' wild tribes of men who can 
 oppose the large toe to the other four just as if it 
 were a thumb, and even new-born infants of the 
 most highly-developed races of men can grasp as 
 easily with their hind-hands as with their fore- 
 hands. Chinese boatmen row with their feet, 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 21 
 
 and Bengal workmen weave with them. The 
 negro, in whom the big toe is freely movable, 
 seizes hold of the branches of trees with it when 
 dimbing, just like the four-handed apes ' (4). 
 
 Many men have lost their arms by accident 
 and have learned to use their feet as hands with 
 wonderful skill. Not many years ago there died 
 in Europe an armless violinist who had during 
 his lifetime played to cultured audiences in most 
 of the capitals of the world. Some of the most 
 accomplished of penmen hold their pen between 
 their toes. The man-like apes live to about the 
 same age as man, and all of them, like man, have 
 beards. The anthropoid beard, too, like the 
 human, appears at the age of sexual maturity. 
 The human beard often differs in colour from the 
 hair of the scalp, and whenever it does it has 
 been observed to be invariably lighter — never 
 darker — than the hair on the scalp. This is true 
 among all races of men. The same rule and the 
 same uniformity exists among anthropoids. The 
 races of mankind are divided into two primary 
 groups depending upon the shape of the head and 
 the character of the hair : the short-headed races 
 (Brachycephali), such as the Malays, Mongols, and 
 Aryans, with round or oval faces, straight hair, 
 and vertical profiles ; and the long-headed races 
 (Dolichocephali), with woolly hair and progna- 
 thous faces, such as the Papuans and African 
 races. The skin of the short-headed races is 
 orange or white, while the skin and hair of the 
 long-headed races are glossy black. 
 
22 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 It is, at least, interesting that the orang and 
 gibbon, who live in Asia and its islands, where 
 the brachycephalic races of men supposedly arose, 
 are themselves brachycephalic ; and that the 
 gorilla. and chimpanzee, who live in Africa, where 
 the dolichocephahc races chiefly live, are dolicho- 
 cephalic. The gorilla and chimpanzee also have, 
 like the men and women of Africa, black skin and 
 hair; while the hair of the orang is a reddish- 
 brown, and its skin sometimes yellowish-white. 
 The dentition of the anthropoids and men is in 
 all essentials identical. They all have two sets of 
 teeth : a set of milk-teeth, twenty in number, and 
 thirty-two permanent teeth, the permanents con- 
 sisting of two incisors, one canine, two premolars, 
 and three molars, in each half-jaw. Man has 
 ordinarily twelve pairs of ribs and thirty-two 
 vertebrae. So has the orang. The other anthro- 
 poids have thirteen pairs of ribs. But the number 
 of ribs in both human and anthropoid beings is 
 not uniform, man occasionally having thirteen 
 pairs, and the gorilla fourteen. Man has also the 
 same number of caudal vertebrae in his rudimentary 
 tail as the anthropoid has. The hands and feet 
 of anthropoids, bone for bone and muscle for 
 muscle, correspond with those of men, no greater 
 structural differences existing than among different 
 species of men. The human foot has three muscles 
 not found in the human hand — a short flexor 
 muscle, a short extensor muscle, and a long 
 muscle extending from the fibula to the foot. 
 All of these muscles are found in the anthropoid 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 23 
 
 foot just as in the foot of man. There are also 
 the sanae differences between the arrangement of 
 the bones of the anthropoid wrist and ankle as 
 between the wrist and ankle bones of man. What- 
 ever set of anatomical particulars may be selected, 
 whether it be hands, arms, feet, muscles, skull, 
 viscera, ribs, or dentition, it is found that the 
 anthropoid races and men are in all essentials the 
 same. The differences are such as have arisen as 
 a result of different modes of life, and such as 
 exist between different tribes of either group of 
 animals. 
 
 ' The structural differences which separate man 
 from the gorilla and chimpanzee,' says Huxley, in 
 summing up the conclusion of his brilliant inquiry 
 into ' Man's Place in Nature,' ' are not so great as 
 those which separate the gorilla from the lower 
 apes.' 
 
 ' The body of man and that of the anthropoid 
 are not only peculiarly similar,' says Haeckel, 
 'but they are practically one and the same in 
 every important respect. The same two hundred 
 bones, in the same order and structure, make up 
 our inner skeleton ; the same three hundred 
 muscles effect our movements ; the same hair 
 clothes our skin ; the same four-chambered heart 
 is the central pulsometer in our circulation ; the 
 same thirty-two teeth are set in the same order in 
 our jaws ; the same salivary, hepatic, and gastric 
 glands compass our digestion ; the same repro- 
 ductive organs insure the maintenance of our 
 race ' (5). 
 
24 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 ' Not being able,' says Owen in his paper on 
 ' The Characters of Mammalia,' ' to appreciate or 
 conceive of the distinction between the psychical 
 phenomena of a chimpanzee and of a Boschisman 
 or of an Aztec with arrested brain-growth, as 
 being of a nature so essential as to preclude a 
 comparison between them, or as being other than 
 a difference in degree, I cannot shut my eyes to 
 the significance of that all-pervading similitude of 
 structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly homo- 
 logous — which makes the determination of the 
 difference between Homo and Pithecus the anato- 
 mist's difficulty.' 
 
 ' If before the appearance of man on the earth,' 
 says Ward in his ' Dynamic Sociology,' ' an 
 imaginary painter had visited it, and drawn a 
 portrait embodying the thorax of the gibbon, the 
 hands and feet of the gorilla, the form and skull 
 of the chimpanzee, the brain development of the 
 orang, and the countenance of Semnopithecus, giving 
 to the whole the average stature of all of these apes, 
 the result would have been a being not far removed 
 from our conception of the primitive man, and not 
 widely different from the actual condition of 
 certain low tribes of savages. The brain develop- 
 ment would perhaps be too low for the average 
 of any existing tribe, and would correspond better 
 with that of certain microcephalous idiots and 
 cretins, of which the human race furnishes many 
 examples.' 
 
 And it is not true, as is commonly supposed, 
 that, after all other resemblances between the 
 
MAN A PRIMATE 25 
 
 human and anthropoid structures have been made 
 out, there still exists somewhere some undistin- 
 guishable difference in the organic structure of their 
 brains. All differences in structure from time to 
 time suspected or asserted to exist between the 
 brain of man and that of the man-like apes have 
 been one after another completely swept away. 
 And it is now known to all neurologists that the 
 human and anthropoid brains differ structurally in 
 no particulars whatever, both of them containing 
 the same lobes, the same ventricles and cornua, 
 and the same convolutional outline. Even the 
 posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippo- 
 campus minor, so long triumphantly asserted to 
 be characteristic features of the human brain, have 
 been pitilessly identified in all anthropoids by the 
 profound and terrible Huxley. There is not an 
 important fold or fissure in the brain of man that 
 is not found in the brain of the anthropoid. 'The 
 surface of the brain of a monkey,' says Huxley, 
 ' exhibits a sort of skeleton map of man's, and in 
 the man-like apes the details become more and 
 more filled in, until it is only in minor characters 
 that the chimpanzee's or the orang's brain can be 
 structurally distinguished from man's ' (6) . 
 
 The great difference physically between man 
 and the anthropoids, aside from man's talented 
 larynx and erect posture, lies in man's abnormal 
 cranial capacity. The normal human cranium 
 never contains less than 55 cubic inches of space, 
 while the largest gorilla cranium contains only 
 34I cubic inches. This is a difference of zo^ cubic 
 
26 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 inches. And 20J cubic inches of thinking matter 
 is an alarming amount to be lacking in a single 
 individual. But this cranial gap between gorilla 
 and man is deprived of some of its significance by 
 the fact that human crania sometimes measure 
 114 cubic inches, making a difference between the 
 smallest and largest human brains of 59 cubic 
 inches. The difference between the gorilla and 
 the savage -in cranial capacity is, therefore, only 
 about one-third as great as the cranial chasm between 
 the savage and the sage. 
 
 V. Recapitulation. 
 
 The anatomical gulf between men and apes does 
 not exist. There are, in fact, no gulfs anywhere, 
 only gradations. All chasms are completely 
 covered by unmistakable affinities, in spite of the 
 fact that the remains" of so many millions of 
 deceased races lie hidden beneath seas or ever- 
 lastingly locked in the limy bosoms of the conti- 
 nents. There are closer kinships and remoter 
 kinships, btit there are kinships everywhere. The 
 more intimate kinships are indicated by more 
 definite and detailed similarities, and the more 
 general relationships by more fundamental resem- 
 blances. All creatures are bound to all other 
 creatures by the ties of a varying but undeniable 
 consanguinity. 
 
 Man stands unquestionably in the primate order 
 of animals, because he has certain qualities of 
 structure which all primates have, and which all 
 other animals have not : hands and arms and 
 
RECAPITULATION 27 
 
 nails, a bagpipe stomach, great subordination of 
 the cerebellum, a disc-like placenta, teeth dif- 
 ferentiated into incisors, canines, and molars, and 
 pectoral milk glands. 
 
 Man is more closely akin to the anthropoid apes 
 than to the other primates on account of his 
 immense brain, his ape-like face, his vertical spine, 
 and in being a true two-handed biped. The man- 
 like apes and men have the same number and 
 kinds of teeth, the same limb bones and muscles, 
 like ribs and vertebrae, an atrophied tail, the same 
 brain structure, and a suspicious similarity in looks 
 and disposition. Men and anthropoids live about 
 the same number of j-ears, both being toothless 
 and wrinkled in old age. The beard, too, in both 
 classes of animals appears at the same period of 
 life and obeys the same law of variation in colour. 
 Even the hairs on different parts of the bodies of 
 men and anthropoids, as on the arms, incline at a 
 like angle to the body surface. The hair on the 
 upper arm and that on the forearm, in both anthro- 
 poids and men, point in opposite directions — 
 toward the elbow. This peculiarity is found no- 
 where in the animal kingdom excepting in a few 
 American monkeys. 
 
 Man's mammalian affinities are shown in his 
 diaphragm, his hair, his four-chambered heart, his 
 corpus callosum, his non-nucleated blood-corpuscles, 
 and his awkward incubation. 
 
 The fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds, and non-human 
 mammals are human in having two body cavities, 
 segmented internal skeletons, two pairs of limbs, 
 
28 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 skulls and spinal columns, red blood, brains, and 
 dorsal cords ; and in possessing two eyes, two ears, 
 nostrils, and mouth opening out of the head. 
 
 And finally all animals, including man, are 
 related to all other animal forms by the great 
 underlying facts of their origin, structure, com- 
 position, and destiny. All creatures, whether they 
 live in the sea, in the heavens, or in subterranean 
 glooms ; whether they swim, fly, crawl, or walk ; 
 whether their world is a planet or a water-drop ; 
 and whether they realise it or not, commence exist- 
 ence in the same way, are composed of the same 
 substances, are nourished by the same matters, 
 follow fundamentally the same occupations, all do 
 under the circumstances the best they can, and all 
 arrive ultimately at the same pitiful end. 
 
 VI. The Meaning of Homology. 
 
 The similarities and homologies of structure 
 existing between man and other animals, and be- 
 tween other animals and still others, are not acci- 
 dental and causeless. They are not resemblances 
 scattered arbitrarily among the multitudinous 
 forms of life by the capricious levities of chance. 
 That all animals commence existence as an egg 
 and are all made up of cells composed of the 
 same protoplasmic substance, and all inhale oxygen 
 and exhale carbon dioxide, and are all seeking 
 pleasure and seeking to avoid pain, are more than 
 ordinary facts. They are filled with inferences. 
 That vertebrate animals, differing in externals as 
 widely as herring and Englishmen, are all built 
 
THE MEANING OF HOMOLOGY 29 
 
 according to the same fundamental plan, with 
 marrow-filled backbones and exactly two pairs of 
 limbs branching in the same way, is an astonishing 
 coincidence. That the wing of the bird, the fore- 
 leg of the dog, the flipper of the whale, and the 
 fore-limb of the toad and crocodile, have essentially 
 the same bones as the human arm has is a fact 
 which may be without significance to blind men, 
 but to no one else. The metamorphosis of the 
 firog from a fish, of the insect from a worm, and of 
 a poet from a senseless cell, are transformations 
 simply marvellous in meaning. And it is not 
 easy, since Darwin, to understand how such lessons 
 could remain long unintelligible, even to stones 
 and simpletons. Not many generations have 
 passed, however, since these revelations, now so 
 distinct and wonderful, fell on the listless minds 
 of men as ineffectually as the glories of the flower 
 fall on the sightless sockets of the blind. 
 
 It is hardly two generations since the highest 
 intelligences on the earth conceived that not 
 only the different varieties of men. — the black, the 
 white, and the orange — but all the orders and 
 genera of the animal world, and not only animals, 
 but plants, had all been somehow simultaneously 
 and arbitrarily brought into existence in some 
 indistinct antiquity, and that they had from the 
 beginning all existed with practically the same 
 features and in approximately the same conditions 
 as those with which and in which they are found 
 to-day. The universe was conceived to be a fixed 
 and stupid something, born as we see it, incapable 
 
30 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 of growth, and indulging in nothing but repetitions. 
 There were no necessary coherencies and con- 
 sanguinities, no cosmical tendencies operating 
 eternally and universally. All was whimsical and 
 arbitrary. It was not known that anything had 
 grown or evolved. All things were believed to 
 have been given beginning and assigned to their 
 respective places in the universe by a potential and 
 all-clever creator. The serpent was limbless 
 because it had officiously allowed Eve to include 
 in her dietary that which had been expressly for- 
 bidden. The quadruped walked with its face 
 towards the earth as a structural reminder of its 
 subjection to the biped, who was supposed to be 
 especially skilled in keeping his eyes rolled heaven- 
 ward. The iiowers flung out their colours, not 
 for the benefit of the bugs and bees, and the stars 
 paraded, not because they were moved to do so by 
 their own eternal urgings, but because man had 
 eyes capable of being affected by them. Man was 
 an erect and featherless vertebrate because his 
 hypothetical maker was erect and featherless. (I 
 wonder whether, if a clam should conceive a 
 creator, it would have the magnanimity to make 
 him an insect or a vertebrate, or anything other 
 than a great big clam.) 
 
 VII. The Earth an Evolution. 
 
 The world now knows— at least, the scientific 
 part of it knows— that these things are not true, 
 that they are but the solemn fancies of honest but 
 simple-minded ancients who did the best they 
 
THE EARTH AN EVOLUTION 31 
 
 could in that twilight age to explain to their 
 inquiring instincts the wilderness of phenomena 
 in which they found themselves. The universe is 
 a process. It is not petrified, but flowing. It is 
 going somewhere. Everything is changing and 
 evolving, and will always continue to do so. The 
 forms of life, of continents and oceans, and of 
 streams and systems, which we perceive as we 
 open our senses upon the world to-day, are not 
 the forms that have always existed, and they are 
 not the forms of the eternal future. There was a 
 time, away in the inconceivable, when there was 
 no life upon the earth, no solids, and no seas. 
 The world was an incandescent lump, lifeless and 
 alone, in the cold solitudes of the spaces. There 
 was a time — there miist have been a time — when 
 life appeared for the first time upon the earth, 
 simple cellules without bones or blood, and without 
 a suspicion of their immense and quarrelsome 
 posterity. There was a time when North America 
 was an island, and the Alleghany Mountains were 
 the only mountains of the continent. The time 
 was — in the coal-forming age — when the Missis- 
 sippi Valley, from the Colorado Islands to the Alle- 
 ghanies, was a vast marsh or sea, choked with 
 forests of equisetum and fern, and swarming with 
 gigantic reptiles now extinct. There was a time 
 when palms grew in Dakota, and magnolias waved 
 in the semi-tropical climate of Greenland and 
 Spitzbergen. There was a time when there were 
 no Rocky Mountains in existence, no Andes, no 
 Alps, no Pyrenees, and no Himalayas. And that 
 
32 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 time, compared with the vast stretches of geo- 
 logical duration, was not so very long ago, for 
 these mountains are all young mountains. The 
 time was when Jurassic saurians — those repulsive 
 ruffians of that rude old time — represented the 
 highest intelligence and civilisation of the known 
 universe. There were no men and women in the 
 world, not even savages, when our ape-like fore- 
 fathers wandered and wondered through the awe- 
 some silences of primeval wilds ; there were no 
 railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, telephones, type- 
 writers, harvesters, electric lights, nor sewing 
 machines ; no billionaires nor bicycles, no social- 
 ists nor steam-heat, no ' watered stock ' nor 
 'government by injunction,' no women's clubs, 
 captains of industry, labour unions, nor 'yellow 
 perils ' — there was none of these things on the 
 earth a hundred years ago. All things have 
 evolved to be what they are — the continents, 
 oceans, and atmospheres, and the plants and 
 populations that live in and upon them. 
 
 There will come a time, too, looking forward 
 into the future, when what we see now will be 
 seen no more. As we go backward into the past, 
 the earth in all of its aspects rapidly changes ; 
 the continents dwindle, the mountains melt, and 
 existing races and species disappear one after 
 another. The farther we penetrate into the past, 
 the stranger and the more different from the 
 present does everything become, until finally we 
 come to a world of molten rocks and vapourised 
 seas without a creeping thing upon it. As it has 
 
THE EARTH AN EVOLUTION 33 
 
 been in the past so will it be in time to come. 
 The present is not everlasting. The minds that 
 perceive upon this planet a thousand centuries in 
 the future will perceive a very different world from 
 that which the minds of this day perceive — 
 different arts, animals, events, ideals, geographies, 
 sciences, and civilisations. The earth seems fixed 
 and changeless because we are so fleeting. We 
 see it but a moment, and are gone. The tossing 
 forest in the wrath of the storm is motionless 
 when looked at by a ilash of lightning. The same 
 tendencies that have worked past changes are at 
 work to-day as tirelessly as in the past. By 
 invisible chisels the mountains are being sculp- 
 tured, ocean floors are lifting, and continents are 
 sinking into the seas. Species, systems, and 
 civilisations are changing, some crumbling and 
 passing away, others rising out of the ruins of the 
 departed. Mighty astronomical tendencies are 
 secretly but relentlessly at work, and immense 
 vicissitudes are in store for this clod of our 
 nativity. The earth is doomed to be frozen to 
 death. In a few million years, according to 
 astronomers, the sun will have shrunken to a 
 fraction of his present size, and will have become 
 correspondingly reduced in heat-giving powers. 
 It is estimated that in twelve or fifteen million 
 years the sun, upon whose mighty dispensations 
 all life and activity on the earth are absolutely 
 dependent, will become so enfeebled that no form 
 of life on the earth will be possible. The partially- 
 cooled earth itself is giving up its internal warmth, 
 
 3 
 
34 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 and will continue to give it up until it is the same 
 temperature as the surrounding abysms, which is 
 the frightful negative of something like 270 centi- 
 grade degrees. These are not very cheerful facts 
 for those who inhabit the earth to contemplate. 
 But they that seek the things that cheer must 
 seek another sphere. No power can stay the 
 emaciation of suns or the thievery of enveloping 
 immensities. Old age is inevitable. It is far off, 
 but it is as certain as human decay, and as 
 mournful. In that dreadful but inevitable time 
 no living being will be left in this world ; there 
 will be no cities nor states nor vanities nor creep- 
 ing things, no flowers, no twilights, no love, only 
 a frozen sphere. The oceans that now rave 
 against the rocky flanks of the continents will be 
 locked in eternal immobility; the atmospheres, 
 which to-day drive their fleecy flocks over the 
 azure meads of heaven and float sweet sounds and 
 feathered forms, will be, in that terrible time, 
 turned to stone ; the radiant woods and fields, 
 the home of the myriads and the green play-places 
 of the shadows, will, like all that live, move, and 
 breathe, have rotted into the everlasting lumber 
 of the elements. There will be no Europe then, 
 no pompous philosophies, no hellish rich, and no 
 gods. All will have suffered indescribable refrigera- 
 tion. The earth will be a fluidless, lifeless, sunless 
 cinder, unimaginably dead and desolate, a decrepit 
 and pitiful old ruin falling endlessly among heart- 
 less immensities, the universal tomb of the 
 activities. 
 
FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 35 
 
 The universe is an evolution. Change is as 
 extensive as time and space. The present has 
 come out of that which has been, and will enter 
 into and determine that which is to be. Every- 
 thing has a biography. Everything has evolved — 
 everything — from the murmur on the lips of the 
 speechless babe to the soul of the poet, and from 
 the molecule to Jehovah. 
 
 VIII. The Factors of Organic Evolution. 
 
 The animal kingdom represents one of the two 
 grand branches of the organic universe. It has 
 been evolved — evolved in a manner as simple and 
 straightforward as it is revolting. It has all been 
 brought about by partiality or selection. Genera- 
 tions of beings have come into existence. The 
 individual members of each generation have 
 differed from each other — differed in size, strength, 
 speed, colour, shape, sagacity, luck, and likelihood 
 of life. No two beings, not even those born from 
 the same womb, are in all respects identical. 
 Hardships have come. They have come from 
 the inanimate universe in the form of floods, fires, 
 frosts, accidents, diseases, droughts, storms, and 
 the like; from other species, who were competitors 
 or enemies ; and from unbrotherly members of 
 the same species. Some have survived, but the 
 great majority have perished. Only a fraction, 
 and generally an appallingly small fraction, of 
 each generation of a species have lived to maturity. 
 The lobster lays 10,000 eggs in a season, yet the 
 mortality is such that the number of lobsters do 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 not increase from one year to another. The 
 elephant is the slowest breeder of all animals, yet, 
 if they should all live, the offspring of a single 
 pair in 750 years would, according to Darwin, 
 number nearly 19,000,000. It has been shown 
 that at the normal rate of increase of English 
 sparrows, if none were to die save of old age, it 
 would take but twenty years for a single pair to 
 give one sparrow to every square inch in the State 
 of Indiana (7). A single cyclops (one of the 
 humbler crustaceans) may have 5,000,000 descen- 
 dants in a season. One aphis will produce 100 
 young, and these young will reproduce in like 
 manner for ten generations in a season, when, if 
 they should all live, there would be a quintillion 
 of young. A female white ant, when adult, does 
 nothing but lie in a cell and lay eggs. She lays 
 80,000 eggs a day regularly for several months. 
 An oyster lays 2,000,000 eggs in a season, and if 
 all these eggs came to maturity a few dozen 
 oysters might supply the markets of the world. 
 The tapeworm is said to produce the incredible 
 number of 1,000,000,000 ova, and some of the 
 humbler plants three times this number of spores. 
 If each egg of the codfish should produce an adult, 
 a single pair in twenty-five years would produce a 
 mass of fish larger than the earth. Lower forms 
 of life are even more prolific than the higher. 
 Maupas said that certain microscopic infusorians 
 which he studied multiplied so rapidly that, if 
 they should continue to multiply for thirty-eight 
 days, and all of them should live, any one of them 
 
FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 37 
 
 would produce a mass of protoplasm as big as 
 the sun. 
 
 Those of each generation that have died have 
 been inferior, or unfitted to the environment 
 in which they found themselves. Those that 
 have survived have been superior, superior in 
 something — bigness, cunning, courage, virtue, 
 vitality, strength, speed, littleness, or ferocity — 
 something that has related them advantageously 
 to surrounding conditions. The surviving remnant 
 of each generation have become the progenitors 
 of the next generation, and have transmitted, or 
 tended to transmit, to their offspring the quahties 
 of their superiority. This winnowing has gone on 
 in each generation of living beings during many 
 millions of years — almost ever since life com- 
 menced to be on the earth. Some have continued 
 themselves, and others have died childless. The 
 environment of each species has been an immense 
 sieve, and only the superior have gone through it. 
 Different environments have emphasised different 
 qualities of structure and disposition, and have 
 thus given rise to permanent varieties in survival. 
 These varieties, through the accumulated effects 
 of many generations of selection, have diverged 
 into species ; species, after a still longer series of 
 selections, have evolved into genera ; genera have 
 evolved into families ; families into orders ; and so 
 on. In this simple, terrible manner have all the 
 branches of organic beings (thanks to the horrors 
 of a million ages) been brought into existence. 
 
 Variation, therefore, which furnishes variety in 
 
38 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 offspring; Heredity, which tends to perpetuat 
 peculiarities by causing offspring to resembl 
 more or less the characters of their parents ; an( 
 Environment, which determines the character c 
 "^ the selections, are the three factors, and the onl; 
 three factors, in organic evolution. 
 
 IX. The Evidences of Organic Evolution. 
 
 That the forms of life to-day found on the eartl 
 have come into existence by the evolution of thi 
 more complex forms from the simpler, and of thesi 
 simpler forms from still simpler, through the ever 
 operating law of Selection, is a necessary conclusioi 
 from the following facts : 
 
 I. The existence in the animal world of al 
 grades of structures, from the humblest possibli 
 protozoan, whose body consists of a single simpL 
 speck, to the most powerful and complex o 
 mammals. There are estimated to be something 
 like a million species of animals living on thi 
 earth to-day. There may be several times thi 
 number. These species are linked together b; 
 millions of varieties, and are so related to eacl 
 other that they may be all gathered together intc 
 various genera ; these genera may be grouped int< 
 families, the families into orders, and the order 
 into seven or eight great primary phyla. B; 
 taking existing species and adding to them thi 
 extinct species of the rocks, and placing them a] 
 according to their structural affinities, it is pos 
 sible to arrange them in the form of a tree wit! 
 the various phyla, orders, families, genera, an( 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 39 
 
 species, branching and rebranching from the main 
 trunk. The existence of structures, so graduated 
 as to render such an arrangement possible, is in 
 itself suggestive of a common relationship and 
 origin. 
 
 2. Evolution is suggested by the similarities 
 and homologies of structure found throughout the 
 animal kingdom. Some of these similarities and 
 homologies have already been mentioned. They 
 are everywhere — remoter and more fundamental, 
 some of them, others closer and more detailed. 
 To the untrained mind, which sees surfaces only, 
 and not even surfaces well, the animal world is an 
 interminable miscellany of forms. But to the 
 biologist, who looks deeper and with immense 
 acumen over the whole field of animal life, there 
 are only seven or eight different types of structure 
 in the entire animal world. These seven or eight 
 types correspond with the primary classes, or 
 phyla, into which animals are divided, viz., pro- 
 tozoa, sponges, celenterates, echinoderms, worms, 
 mollusks, arthropods, and vertebrates. However 
 widely the members of each of these great groups 
 may differ among themselves in colour, size, 
 habits of life, and the like, the members of each 
 group all resemble each other fundamentally. 
 Moles differ from monkeys, bats from men, and 
 birds from crocodiles and toads. They differ 
 enormously. But they are all vertebrates with 
 red blood, double body cavities, backbones, two 
 pairs of limbs, and five fingers on each Hmb. 
 When they are looked at superficially, there is 
 
40 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 not much similarity between a water-strider and 
 a butterfly or between a stag-beetle and a gnat. 
 But they are all, in reality, built according to the 
 same plan. Like all other insects, they have six 
 legs, a sheath-like skeleton, and bodies character- 
 istically divided into head, thorax, and abdomen. 
 It is the same with all other great classes of beings. 
 All worms resemble each other; and so do all 
 mollusks, although they may differ in particulars 
 as widely as nautiluses and clams, Echinoderms 
 have a radiate structure, celenterates and sponges 
 are vase-like in shape, and protozoa are one-celled. 
 The differences in structure among the members 
 of a group consist in different modifications of a 
 fundamental type. Among the vertebrates the 
 fore-limb may be an arm, a leg, a wing, a shovel, a 
 flipper, or a fin. But in all cases it is the same 
 organ — that is, the same implement modified to 
 serve different ends. Take the mouth-parts of 
 insects. In the grasshopper and cricket these 
 parts are fitted for grinding; in the moths and 
 butterflies they are fashioned into long tubes for 
 sucking the sweets of flowers; in the mosquito they 
 form an elaborate apparatus for drilling and drink- 
 ing; and in the mayfly the mouth-parts, though 
 present, are not used at all. In all of these animals 
 these parts are essentially the same, although differ- 
 ing so much in their forms and purposes that the 
 unscientific can scarcely be made to believe they 
 are fundamentally alike. There is no fact more 
 familiar to the biologist or more frequently met 
 with in the fields of animal morphology than the 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 41 
 
 fact that the same general type may be hammered 
 into dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands, of 
 different patterns by the incessant industry of its 
 surroundings, and that the same organic part may 
 be moulded into various implements serving totally 
 different ends by the environmental vicissitudes 
 of time and space. On the hypothesis that the 
 members of each group of animals possessing 
 common characteristics, whether the group be 
 large or small, have sprung from a common 
 ancestry, and that the differences in structure 
 have arisen as a result of differences in environ- 
 ment, the similarities and homologies of structure 
 existing among animals are perfectly intelligible. 
 But on any other supposition they are in- 
 explicable. 
 
 3. Evolution is suggested by the remarkable 
 series of phenomena presented by embryology. 
 There are at least four facts in the developmental 
 history of every creature vi^hich can hardly be 
 accounted for on any other supposition than that 
 of organic evolution. 
 
 First, the fact that every animal, above the 
 lowest, individually passes through an evolution 
 between the beginning of its existence and its 
 maturity. Terrestrial beings are not born, like 
 Minerva, full-grown. They grow. They evolve. 
 They commence close down to the very atoms. 
 And from this lowly genesis they rise, through 
 a series of marvellous changes, to that high state 
 of perfection and greatness from which they 
 descend to dissolution. 
 
42 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 If we knew by actual observation as little con 
 cerning the evolution of individuals as we do c 
 the evolution of species — if we had always beei 
 used to seeing animals, including ourselves, in ful 
 bloom — had never watched the tadpole, the pupa 
 and the babe pass through their wonderful meta 
 morphoses on their way to maturity, it woul< 
 probably be just as hard for many minds t( 
 believe that animals evolve individually to h 
 what they are as it is for them to believe tha 
 species have grown to be what they are. In thi 
 case of individuals, however, the evolution take 
 place right before our eyes largely, while thi 
 evolution of species goes on so slowly and stretche 
 back so far into the past that it can only h 
 inferred. 
 
 Second, the fact that animals, no matter hov 
 much they may differ from each other at maturity 
 all begin existence at the same place. Ever 
 animal commences its organic existence as an egj 
 — as a one-celled animal — as an organism identica 
 in structure with the simplest protozoan. Thi 
 ova of whales ' are no larger than fern seeds. 
 The eggs of the coral, the crab, the ape, and thi 
 man are so precisely alike that the highest power 
 of the microscope cannot distinguish betweei 
 them. 
 
 Third, the fact that the members of the sami 
 great group of animals in their individual develop 
 ment pass through similar stages of evolution. Thi 
 ' worm ' stage in the development of most insect 
 and the ' fish ' stage of frogs are well known 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 43 
 
 There are no more remarkable instances of in- 
 dividual evolution in the whole range of animal 
 life. The fish, the reptile, the bird, the dog, and 
 the human being — all vertebrates, in short — 
 cannot for some time after their embryonic com- 
 mencement be distinguished from each other. 
 ' The feet of lizards and mammals, the wings and 
 feet of birds, and the hands and feet of men,' says 
 the illustrious Von Baer, as quoted by Darwin, 
 ' all arise from the same fundamental form ' (8). 
 
 ' It is quite in the later stages of development,' 
 saj-s Huxley, ' that the human being presents 
 marked differences from the ape, while the latter 
 departs as much from the dog in its development 
 as the man does ' (6). 
 
 Not only frogs, but reptiles, birds, and mammals, 
 including man, all have gills at a certain stage 
 in their embryonic development. Nearly all the 
 lower invertebrate animals are hermaphroditic — 
 that is, in the body of each animal is found the 
 two kinds of sex organs which in the higher 
 animals exist in distinct animals. And frogs, 
 birds, and other higher animals, which as adults 
 are unisexual, have, as an inheritance from these 
 primitive forms, hermaphroditic embryos (10). 
 
 Fourth, the fact that the structural stages through 
 which animals in embryo pass correspond in a 
 wonderful manner with the permanent structures 
 of those lower forms which extend serially back to 
 the beginnings of life. It is the proudest boast of 
 the embryologist that he is able to know the route 
 through which any species has come to be what it 
 
44 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 is by a simple study of the individual evolution of 
 its members. Each animal repeats in its individual 
 evolution the evolution of its species. This re- 
 capitulation is not always complete — is, in fact, 
 frequently vague, sometimes circuitous, and often 
 broken or abbreviated. Processes requiring origin- 
 ally centuries or thousands of years to accomplish 
 are here telescoped into a iew months, or even 
 days. It is not strange that the process is im- 
 perfect. But so firmly is the belief in the cor- 
 respondence of ontogeny and phylogeny fixed in 
 the minds of modern biologists that, in determining 
 the classification and affinities of any particular 
 animal, more reliance is placed on the facts of 
 embryology than on those of adult structure. 
 
 The first thing that an animal becomes after it 
 is an egg — unless it is a one-celled animal, in 
 which case it remains always an egg — is two cells ; 
 these two cells become four ; these four become 
 eight ; and so on, until the embryo becomes a 
 many-celled ball, consisting of a single layer of 
 cells surrounding a fluid interior. A dimple forms 
 in the cell layer on one side of this ball, and, by 
 deepening to a hollow, changes the ball into a 
 double-walled sac. This is the gastnda— the per- 
 manent structure of the sponges and celenterates, 
 and an (almost) invariable stage in the larval deve- 
 lopment of all animals above the sponges and 
 celenterates. The gastrula becomes a worm (or 
 an insect or a fish through the worm) by elongation 
 and enlargement, and by the development of the 
 endoderm, which is the inner layer of the cell wall, 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 45 
 
 into organs of nutrition and reproduction, and by 
 the development of the ectoderm, which is the outer 
 cell layer, into organs of motion and sensation. 
 
 The embryonic development of a human being 
 is not different in kind from the embryonic de- 
 velopment of any other animal. Every human 
 being at the beginning of his organic existence 
 is a protozoan, about -j-w-g inch in diameter ; at 
 another stage of development he is a tiny sac- 
 shaped mass of cells without blood or nerves, the 
 gastrula ; at another stage he is a worm, with a 
 pulsating tube instead of a heart, and without 
 head, neck, spinal column, or limbs ; at another 
 stage he has, as a backbone, a rod of cartilage 
 extending along the back, and a faint nerve cord, 
 as in amphioxus, the lowest of the vertebrates ; at 
 another stage he is a fish with a two-chambered 
 heart, mesonephric kidneys, and gill-slits with gill 
 arteries leading to them, just as in fishes ; at 
 another stage he is a reptile with a three-chambered 
 heart, and voiding his excreta through a cloaca like 
 other reptiles ; and finally, when he enters upon 
 post-natal sins and actualities, he is a sprawling, 
 squalling, unreasoning quadruped. The human 
 larva from the fifth to the seventh month of 
 development is covered with a thick growth of hair 
 and has a true caudal appendage, like the monkey. 
 At this stage the embryo has in all thirty-eight 
 vertebrae, nine of which are caudal, and the great 
 toe extends at right angles to the other toes, and is 
 not longer than the other toes, but shorter, as in 
 the ape. 
 
46 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 These facts are unmistakable. There is a reason 
 for everything, and there is a reason for these trans- 
 formations through which each generation of living 
 beings journeys. The individual passes through 
 them because the species to which he belongs has 
 passed through them. They represent ancestral 
 wanderings. As if to emphasise the kinship of all 
 of life's forms and to render incontrovertible the 
 fact of universal evolution, Nature compels every 
 individual to commence existence at the same 
 place, and to recapitulate in his individual evolu- 
 tion the phylogenetic journeyings of his species. 
 
 4. That existing forms of life have been evolved 
 from other forms, and that these ancestral forms 
 have been diiferent from those derived from them, 
 is shown by the occasional appearance of ante- 
 cedent and abandoned types of structure among 
 the offspring of existing species. Occasionally a 
 human child is born strangely unlike its parents, 
 but bearing an unmistakable resemblance in looks 
 and disposition to his great-grandfather or some 
 other remote ancestor. This is atavism, that 
 tendency to revert to ancestral types which is pre- 
 valent among all animals. We may think of it 
 figuratively as a flash of indecision when Nature 
 hesitates for a moment whether to adopt a new 
 form of structure or cling to the old and tried. 
 Horses and mules are sometimes born with three 
 toes on each foot, and zebra-like stripes on their 
 legs and shoulders ; and domestic pigeons, such as 
 are naturally black, red, or mottled, occasionally 
 produce offspring with blue plumage and two black 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 47 
 
 wing-bars, like the wild rock-dove, from which all 
 domestic breeds have sprung. In man the cheek- 
 bone and the frontal bone of the forehead consist 
 normally each of a single bone. But in children 
 and human embryos these bones are always double, 
 as is normally the case in adults among some of 
 the anthropoids and other mammals. Gills appear 
 regularly in the embryos of reptiles, birds, and 
 mammals, and human young are sometimes b'orn 
 with gill-slits on the neck. There are times when, 
 owing to inaccurate or incomplete embryological 
 development, these fish-like characteristics are so 
 perfect at birth as to allow liquids, on being 
 swallowed, to pass out through them and trickle 
 down on the outside of the neck. Many muscles 
 are occasionally developed in man which are 
 normal in the apes and other mammals. As 
 many as seven different muscular variations have 
 been found in a single human being, every one of 
 which were muscles found normally in the struc- 
 ture of the apes (8). 
 
 5. Closely akin to atavism, which is the occa- 
 sional persistence of ancestral types of character, 
 is the regular occurrence of vestigial organs or 
 structures, organs which in ancestral forms have 
 definite functions, but which in existing species, 
 owing to changed conditions, are rudimentary and 
 useless. On the back of each ankle of the horse 
 are two splints, the atrophied remains of the second 
 and fourth toes. Similar vestiges of two obsolete 
 toes are also found just back of the wrists and 
 ankles on all the two-toed ungulates, such as the 
 
48 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 cow and sheep. In the body of the whale where 
 hind-limbs would naturally be, there are found the 
 anatomical ruins of these organs in the form of a 
 few diminutive bones. The same thing is true in 
 the sirenians. In the Greenland whale there are 
 remnants of both femur and tibia in the region of 
 the atrophied hind-limbs. The snakes are limb- 
 less, but the pythons and boas have internal 
 remnants of hind-limbs, and sometimes even clawed 
 structures representing toes. The so-called 'glass- 
 snake ' or 'joint-snake ' (which is really a limbless 
 lizard) has four 'complete internal limbs. Young 
 turtles, parrots, and whalebone whales have teeth, 
 but the adults of these animals are toothless. 
 Cows, sheep, deer, and other ruminants, never have 
 as adults any upper incisors, but these teeth are 
 found in the foetal stages of these animals just 
 under the gums. The female frog has rudimentary 
 male reproductive organs, and the male has cor- 
 responding vestiges of female organs. Similar 
 remnants of the reproductive structures exist in ' 
 many other animals. They represent stages in 
 the transition from the hermaphroditism of primi- 
 tive animals to the unisexuality of the higher 
 forms, the separation of the sex organs into those 
 of male and female having come about through the 
 decay of one set of structures in each individual. 
 
 For reasons which it is not necessary to mention 
 here, biologists believe that insects all originated 
 from a common parental form, with two pairs of 
 wings and six legs. Insects all retain their original 
 allowance of legs, but in many species one or the 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 49 
 
 other pair of wings has become more or less 
 degenerated. In the whole order of flies the back 
 pair of wings is represented by a couple of insig- 
 nificant knobs. In the Strepsiptera, a sub-order of 
 beetles, the front-wings are similarly reduced, 
 being mere twisted filaments. Many parasites, 
 such as fleas and ticks, whose mode of life renders 
 organs of aerial locomotion unnecessary, are en- 
 tirely wingless. The insects of small isolated 
 islands are also largely without wings, the propor- 
 tion of wingless species being much larger than 
 among insects inhabiting continents. This is due 
 to their greater liability on small land masses of 
 being carried out to sea and drowned, owing to 
 the feebleness and uncertainty of insect flight. 
 On the island of Madeira, out of the 550 species 
 found there, 220 species no longer have the power 
 of flight. 
 
 Air-breathing animals — amphibians, reptiles, 
 birds, and mammals — have normally a pair of 
 lungs — a right one and a left one. But in 
 snakes and snake-like lizards, where the body is 
 very slender and elongated, only one lung, some- 
 times the right one, and sometimes the left, is fully 
 developed. The right ovary is likewise aborted in 
 all birds, the left one yielding all the eggs. The 
 swifts and frigate birds live almost their whole 
 lives long on the wing, and the legs of these birds 
 have grown so short and weak and rudimentary, as 
 a result of their constant life in the air, that they 
 can scarcely walk. The chimney swift is said 
 never to alight anywhere except on the sooty inner 
 
 4 
 
50 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 walls of the chimney where its nest is. Its foo 
 consists of insects which it gathers in the air, an 
 the few dead twigs used in making its nest ar 
 nipped from the tree while the bird continues it 
 flight. The ostriches, cassowaries, and many othe 
 birds, have, on the other hand, developed their leg 
 at the expense of their wings. The ostrich is sail 
 to be able to outrun the horse, but it has no powe 
 of flight, although it has wings and wing muscles 
 and even the skin-folds covering the wings corre 
 sponding to those of birds that fly. But its whol 
 flying apparatus is in ruins. The rudimentar 
 hind-toe of birds is a vestigial organ, and so ar^ 
 the claws which appear on the thumb and firs 
 finger of all young birds. So also are the rudi 
 ments of eyes in cave crickets, fishes, and othe 
 inhabitants of total darkness. The flounder an( 
 other so-called flat fishes swim straight up, a: 
 ordinary fishes do, when young. But as they grov 
 they incline more and more to one side, and finalh 
 swim entirely on their side, the eye on the lowe 
 side migrating around, and joining the other oi 
 the upper side of the head. 
 
 About the first thing a human infant does oi 
 coming into the world is to prove its arborea 
 origin by grasping and spitefully clinging to every 
 thing that stimulates its palms. A little peeper 
 less babe an hour old can perform feats of strengtl 
 with its hands and arms that many men anc 
 women cannot equal. It can support the entin 
 weight of its body for several seconds hanging b^ 
 its hands. Dr. Robinson, an English physician 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 51 
 
 found as a result of sixty experiments on as many 
 infants, more than half of whom were less than an 
 hour old, that with two exceptions every babe was 
 able to hang to the finger or to a small stick, and 
 sustain the whole weight of the body for at least 
 ten seconds. Twelve of those just born held on 
 for nearly a minute. At the age of two or three 
 weeks, when this power is greatest, several suc- 
 ceeded in sustaining themselves for over a minute 
 and a half, two for over two minutes, and one for 
 two minutes and thirty-five seconds. The young 
 ape for some weeks after birth clings tenaciously 
 to its mother's neck and hair, and the instinct of 
 the child to cling to objects is probably a survival 
 of the instinct of the young ape. I believe it 
 is Wallace who relates somewhere an incident 
 which illustrates the instinct of the young simian 
 to cling to something. Wallace had captured 
 a young ape, and was carrying it to camp, when 
 the little fellow happened to get its hands on 
 the naturalist's whiskers, which it mistook, evi- 
 dently, for the hirsute property of its mother, 
 and, driven by the powerful instinct of self-pre- 
 servation, it hung on to them so desperately it 
 could scarcely be pulled loose. Many mammals 
 are provided with a well-developed muscular 
 apparatus for the manipulation of their ears. But 
 in man there does not exist the same necessity for 
 auricular detection of enemies, and while these 
 muscles still exist, and are capable of being used 
 to a slight extent by occasional individuals, they 
 are generally so emaciated as to be useless. 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Another vestigial organ in the body of man, an( 
 one of significance from the standpoint of mor 
 phology, is the tail. The tail is an exceedingi; 
 unpopular part of the human anatomy, most mei 
 and women being unwilling to admit that the] 
 have such an appendage. But many a persoi 
 who has hitherto dozed in ignorance on this matte: 
 has learned with considerable dismay, when h( 
 has for the first time looked upon the undrapec 
 lineaments of the human skeleton, that mar 
 actually has a tail. It consists of three or foui 
 (sometimes five) small vertebras, more or les; 
 fused, at the posterior end of the spinal column 
 That this is really a rudimentary tail is provec 
 beyond a doubt by the fact that in the embryo ii 
 is highly developed, being longer than the limbs 
 and is provided with a regular muscular apparatus 
 for wagging it. These caudal muscles are gener- 
 ally represented in grown-up people by bands o; 
 fibrous tissue, but cases are known where the actual 
 muscles have persisted through life (g) . 
 
 The nictitating membrane, which in birds and 
 many reptiles consists of a half-transparent curtair 
 acting as a lid to sweep the eye, is in the human eye 
 dwindled to a small membranous remnant, draped 
 at the inner corner. The growth of hair over the 
 human body surface may be regarded, in view o: 
 the sartorial habits of man, as a vestigial inherit- 
 ance from hairy ancestors. One of the mos1 
 notorious of the vestigial organs of man is the 
 vermiform appendix, a small slender sac opening 
 from the large intestine near where the large 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 53 
 
 intestine is joined by the small intestine. In some 
 animals this organ is large and performs an 
 important part in the process of digestion. But 
 in man it is a mere rudiment, not only of no 
 possible aid in digestion, but the source of frequent 
 disease, and even of death. 
 
 There are in all, according to Darwin, about 
 eighty vestigial organs in the human body. But 
 these organs occur everywhere throughout the 
 animal kingdom. There is not an order of animals, 
 nor of plants either, without them. They are neces- 
 sary facts grovnng out of evolution. Organic struc- 
 tures are the result of adjustment to surrounding 
 conditions. The continual changes in environment 
 to which all organisms are exposed necessitate 
 corresponding changes in structure. And the 
 vestiges found in the bodies of all animals repre- 
 sent parts which in the previous existence were 
 useful and necessary to a complete adjustment of 
 the organism, but which, owing to a change of 
 emphasis in surroundings, have become useless, 
 and consequently shrunken. They are the 
 obsolete or obsolescent parts of animal structure 
 — parts which have been outgrown and super- 
 seded—the ' silent letters ' of morphology. They 
 sustain the same relation to the individual 
 organism as dead or dwindling species sustain to 
 a fauna. They furnish indisputable proof of the 
 kinship and unity of the animal world. 
 
 6. It is only on the supposition that the life of 
 the earth has evolved step by step with the evolu- 
 tion of the land masses, and that the forms of life 
 
54 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 from which existing forms were evolved were 
 dispersed over the earth at a time when physio- 
 graphic conditions were very different from what 
 they are now, that it is possible to account for the 
 peculiar manner in which animals are distributed 
 over the earth. The cassowary is a flightless bird 
 of the ostrich order inhabiting Australia and the 
 islands to the north of it. This bird is found no- 
 where else in the world, and each area has its own 
 particular species. The same things are also true 
 of the kangaroo. It is found over a similar region, 
 with a different species occupying each land mass. 
 Now, on the hypothesis of special creation there 
 is no thinkable reason why these animals should 
 be divided, as they are, into distinct species, and 
 restricted to this particular region. But on the 
 hypothesis of evolution it is perfectly plain. All 
 of these regions at one time were united with one 
 another, and were subsequently submerged in part, 
 forming islands. Each group of animals, being 
 isolated from every other group and subjected to 
 somewhat different conditions, developed a style 
 of departure from the original type of structure 
 different from that of every other group in response 
 to the peculiar conditions operating upon it. This 
 has led, in the course of centuries of selection, to 
 the formation of distinct species such as exist 
 to-day. 
 
 Lombock Strait, a narrow neck of water between 
 Bali and Lombock Island, and Macassar Strait, 
 separating Celebes from Borneo, are parts of a 
 continuous passage of water which in remote times 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 55 
 
 separated two continents — an Indo-Malayan con- 
 tinent to which belonged Borneo, Sumatra, Java, 
 and the Malay Peninsula; and an Austro-Malayan 
 continent, now represented by Australia, Celebes, 
 the Moluccas, New Guinea, Solomon's Islands, etc. 
 Wallace first announced this ancient boundary, 
 and it has been called ' Wallace's line.' He was 
 led to infer its existence by the fact which he 
 observed as he travelled about from island to 
 island, that, while the faunas of these two regions 
 are as wholes very different from each other, the 
 faunas of the various land patches in each area 
 have a wonderful similarity. Australia is a verit- 
 able museum of old and obsolete forms of both 
 plants and animals. Its fauna and flora are made 
 up prevailingly of forms such as have on the other 
 continents long been superseded by more special- 
 ised species. No true mammals, excepting men 
 and a few rats, lived in Australia when English- 
 men first went there. The most powerful animals 
 were the comparatively helpless marsupials. The 
 explanation of these remarkable facts is probably 
 this : The Australian continent, which formerly 
 included New Guinea and other islands to the 
 north, has not been connected with the other land 
 masses for a very long period of time. The develop- 
 ment upon the other continents of the more 
 powerful mammals, especially of the ungulates 
 and the carnivora, resulted in the extermination 
 of the more helpless forms from most of the 
 earth's surface. But Australia, protected by its 
 isolation, has retained to this day its old-fashioned 
 
56 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 forms of life, neither land animals nor plants 
 having been able to navigate the intervening 
 straits. This supposition is strengthened by the 
 fact that fossil remains of marsupials are to-day 
 found scattered all over the world, w^hile, with 
 the exception of the American opossums, living 
 marsupials are found only in Australia and its 
 islands. There is to-day not a single survivor of 
 these once-numerous races in either Europe, Asia, 
 or Africa. Similar facts of distribution are furnished 
 by the lemurs — those small, monkey-like animals 
 with fox faces, which are sometimes called ' half- 
 apes,' since they are supposed to be the link con- 
 necting the true apes with lower forms. Fossil 
 lemurs are found in both America and Europe, 
 but lemurs are now extinct in both continents. 
 Those of America were probably exterminated by 
 the carnivora, who are known to be very fond of 
 monkey meat of all kinds. The European lemurs 
 seem to have migrated southward into eastern 
 Africa at a time when Madagascar formed a part of 
 the mainland. ' There they have been isolated, 
 and have developed in a fashion comparable to 
 that which has occurred in the case of the 
 Australian marsupials. Of fifty living species, 
 thirty are confined to Madagascar, and the lemurs 
 are there exceedingly numerous in individuals. 
 Outside of Madagascar they only maintain a 
 precarious footing in forests or on islands, and are 
 usually few in number' (lo). 
 
 If the earth were peopled by migrations from 
 Ararat, it would require a good deal of intellectual 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 57 
 
 legerdemain to show why the sloths are confined 
 to South America and the monotremes to Australia 
 and its islands. The reindeer of northern Europe 
 and Asia, and the elk and caribou of Arctic 
 America, are so much alike they must have 
 descended from a common ancestry, and been 
 developed into distinct species since the separation 
 of North America and Eurasia. The same thing 
 is probably also true of the puma and jaguar, who 
 inhabit the middle latitudes of the New World, 
 and the lion, tiger, and leopard, occupying like 
 latitudes of the Old World. They all belong to 
 the cat family, and represent divergences from 
 a common feline type of structure. The camel 
 does not exist normally outside of northern Africa 
 and central and western Asia. And when the 
 camel-like llama of South America first became 
 known to zoologists, it was a problem how this 
 creature could have become separated so far from 
 the apparent origin of the camel family. But 
 since then fossil camels have been found all over 
 both North and South America. And it has even 
 been suspected that perhaps America was the 
 original home of the camel, and that, like the 
 horse, the camel migrated to the eastern hemi- 
 sphere at a time when the eastern and western 
 land masses were connected. The foxes, hares, 
 and other mammals of the upper Alps, also many 
 Alpine plants, are like those of the Arctic regions. 
 The most probable explanation of these resem- 
 blances is that these Alpine species climbed up 
 into these inhospitable altitudes, and were left 
 
58 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 stranded here on this island of cold, when their 
 relatives, on the return of warmth at the close of 
 the glacial period, retreated back to the ice-bound 
 fastnesses around the pole. It is for a similar 
 reason, probably, that the flora of the upper 
 White Mountains resembles that of Labrador. 
 
 7. One of the' strongest pieces of evidence 
 bearing on evolution that is furnished by any 
 department of knowledge is that furnished by 
 geology. It is the evidence of the rocks. Geology 
 is, among other things, a history of the earth. 
 This history has been written by the earth itself 
 on laminae of stone. It is from these records that 
 we learn incontestably the order in which the 
 forms of life have made their appearance on the 
 earth. 
 
 Three-fourths of the surface of the earth is sea. 
 Over the surface of the remaining fourth, except- 
 ing in mountainous places, is a layer of soil, vary- 
 ing from a few feet to a few hundred feet in depth. 
 Beneath this coverlet of soil, extending as far 
 as man has penetrated into the earth, is rock. 
 Excepting in regions overflowed by lava poured 
 out from beneath, or along the backbones of 
 continents where the surface rocks have been 
 upheaved into folds and carried away by denuda- 
 tion, the rocks immediately beneath the soil, to 
 a thickness often of thousands of feet, are in the 
 form of layers, or sheets, arranged one above 
 another. These rocks are called sedimentary 
 rocks, as distinguished from the unlaminated 
 rocks of the interior. They have been formed 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 59 
 
 at the bottom of the sea, and have, hence, all 
 been formed since the condensation of the oceans. 
 They have been formed out of the detritus of 
 continents brought down by the rivers and the 
 accumulated remains of animal and vegetal forms 
 which have slowly settled down through the waters. 
 They are the successive cemeteries of the dead past. 
 Such rocks are now forming over the floors of all 
 oceans — forming just as they have formed through- 
 out the long eons of geological history. Along 
 the axes of ancient mountains and in deep-cut 
 canyons the rock layers are exposed to a thickness 
 of thousands of feet, in some cases thirty or forty 
 thousand feet. Here they lie, piled up, one on 
 top of another, the great, broad pages upon which 
 are written the long, dark story of our planet. It 
 is the mightiest and most everlasting of all annals 
 — the autobiography of a world. It is possible, by 
 studying these rock records, to know not only the 
 kind of life that lived in each age, but a good deal 
 regarding the conditions in which that life lived 
 and passed away. Just as the naturalist is able, 
 from a single bone of an unknown animal, to 
 reconstruct the entire animal and to infer some- 
 thing of its surroundings and habits of life, and as 
 the archeologist, by going back to the graves of 
 deceased races and digging up the dust upon 
 which these races wrought, is able to tell much 
 of their history and characteristics, so the geologist, 
 by studying the bones of those more distant 
 civilisations, the civilisations sandwiched among 
 the fossiliferous rocks, is able to know, not only 
 
6o THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 just the kind of life that lived in each age, but, by 
 comparing the species of successive strata, can 
 construct with astonishing fulness the genealogi- 
 cal outline of the entire life process. The suc- 
 cession of life forms as they appear in the rocks, 
 with a sketch of their probable genealogy, is traced 
 elsewhere in this chapter. It is only necessary to 
 say here that the order in which the forms of life 
 appear in the sedimentary strata is that of a 
 gradually increasing complexity. The inverte- 
 brates appear first ; then the fishes, the lowest of 
 the vertebrates ; after these come the amphibians ; 
 following these the reptiles ; and finally the birds 
 and mammals. 
 
 8. There is another reason for a belief in evolu- 
 tion furnished by geology, but of a somewhat 
 different kind from that just stated. It consists 
 in the fact that there are found in the rocks series 
 or grades of structures, which fit with amazing 
 accuracy on to the structures of existing species. 
 Now, this is precisely what, according to the 
 evolutional hypothesis, is to be expected. For, if 
 evolution is true, existing species represent the 
 tops of things. They are the existing and visible 
 parts of processes which extend indefinitely back 
 into the past, and whose deceased stages may 
 reasonably be expected to be found fossil in the 
 earth. Considering the youth and inexperience 
 of paleontology and the torn and incoherent 
 character of the record, it is surprising that anat- 
 omists have been able to accomplish what they 
 have accomplished. In many cases — notably, 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 6i 
 
 those of man, the snail, the crocodile, and the 
 horse — antecedent forms of structure have been 
 found in almost unbroken gradations leading back 
 to types differing immensely from their existing 
 representatives. Bones and fossils of men have 
 been found buried beneath the alluvium of rivers, 
 under old lava-beds, and in caves, crusted over by 
 the deposits of percolating waters. Many such 
 fossils are found in quaternary rocks, along with 
 the bones of animals still living and some extinct. 
 Some of these remains indicate unmistakable 
 affinities vwth the ape. The most celebrated of 
 these discoveries is the fossil of an erect ape-man 
 {Pithecanthropus erecttcs), iound by a Dutch Governor 
 on the island of Java in 1894. This fossil, in the 
 shape and size of the head and in its general struc- 
 ture, strikes about as near as could be the middle 
 between man and ape. That it is the fossil of an 
 ambiguous form is indicated by the fact that, when 
 it was examined by a company of twelve special- 
 ists at Berlin soon after its discovery, three of them 
 declared it to be the remains of an individual 
 belonging to a low variety of man ; three others 
 thought it was a large anthropoid ; while the other 
 six held that it was neither man nor anthropoid, 
 but a genuine connecting link between them. It 
 is discussed at length by Haeckel in ' The Last 
 Link,' a paper read before the International Con- 
 gress of Zoology, at Cambridge, in i8g8. ' It is,' 
 says the veteran biologist, 'the much -sought 
 " missing link " supposed to be wanting in the 
 chain of primates which stretches unbroken from 
 
62 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 the lowest catarhine to the most highly developed 
 man.' Associated with this fossil ape-man were 
 the fossils of the elephant, hyena, and hippo- 
 potamus, none of which any longer exist in that 
 part of the world, also the fossil remains of two 
 orders of animals now extinct. The genealogy of 
 the crocodile has been traced by Huxley, through 
 all intermediate stages, back to the giant reptiles 
 of the early Tertiary.* And the pedigree of the 
 horse has been even more completely worked out 
 by the indefatigable Marsh. In the museum of 
 Yale University may be seen the fossil history of 
 this splendid ungulate, from the time it was a 
 clumsy little quadruped only 14 inches high, and 
 with four or five toes on each foot, down to existing 
 horses. The earliest known ancestor of the horse, 
 the eohippus, lived at the beginning of the Eocene 
 epoch. It had five toes, almost equal, on each 
 front foot (four toes behind), and was about the 
 size of a fox. The orohippus, which lived a little 
 later, had four toes on each front- foot, and three 
 behind. The mesohippus, found in the Miocene, 
 had three toes and one rudimentary toe on each 
 front-foot, and three toes behind. It was about 
 the size of a sheep. The miohippus, which is 
 found later, had three toes on each of its four feet, 
 with the middle toe on each foot larger than the 
 other two. The pliohippus, living in the Pliocene 
 epoch, had one principal toe on each foot, and two 
 secondary toes, the two secondary toes not reach- 
 ing to the ground. It was about the size of a 
 
 * See table of geological ages, p. 79. 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 63 
 
 donkey. Existing horses have one toe on each 
 foot — the digit corresponding to the big middle 
 finger — and the ruins of two others in the form of 
 spHnts on the back of each ankle. In the embryo 
 of the horse these sphnts are segmented, each of 
 them, into three phalanges. Fossil remains repre- 
 senting all stages in the development of the horse 
 have been found in the regions about the upper 
 vifaters of the Missouri River. 
 
 It is an important fact that the types of struc- 
 ture forming any series grow^ more and more 
 generalised as the distance from the present 
 increases, and that different lines of development, 
 vi^hen traced back into the past, often converge in 
 types which combine the main characters of 
 various existing groups. The horses, rhinoceroses, 
 and tapirs, great as are the differences among 
 them now, can be traced back step by step through 
 fossil forms, their differences gradually becoming 
 less marked, until 'the lines ultimately blend 
 together, if not in one common ancestor, at all 
 events into forms so closely alike in all essentials 
 that no reasonable doubt can be held as to their 
 common origin.' ' The four chief orders of the higher 
 mammals — the primates, ungulates, carnivora, and 
 rodents — seem to be separated by profound gulfs, 
 when we confine our attention to the representa- 
 tives of to-day. But these gulfs are completely 
 closed, and the sharp distinctions of the four orders 
 are entirely lost, when we go back and compare 
 their extinct predecessors of the Cenozoic period, 
 who lived at least three million years ago. There 
 
64 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 we find the great sub-class of the placentals, which 
 to-day comprises more than two thousand five 
 hundred species, represented by only a small 
 number of insignificant pro-placentals, in which 
 the characters of the four divergent orders are so 
 intermingled and toned down that we cannot in 
 reason do other than consider them as the pre- 
 cursors of those features. The oldest primates, 
 the oldest ungulates, the oldest carnivora, and the 
 oldest rodents, all have the same skeletal structure 
 and the same typical dentition (forty-four teeth) 
 as these pro-placentals ; all are characterised by 
 the small and imperfect structure of the brain, 
 especially of the cortex, its chief part, and all 
 have short legs and five-toed, flat-soled (planti- 
 grade) feet. In many cases among these oldest 
 placentals it was at first very difficult to say 
 whether they should be classed with the primates, 
 ungulates, carnivora, or rodents, so very closely 
 and confusedly do these four groups, which diverge 
 so widely afterwards, approach each other at that 
 time. Their common origin from a single ances- 
 tral group follows incontestably ' (5). 
 
 g. Man is the most powerful and influential of 
 animals. He rules the world — rules it with a 
 sovereignty more despotic and extensive than that 
 hitherto exercised by any other animal. Many 
 races of beings are, and have been for centuries, 
 completely dominated by him. These races, 
 during their long subjection, have been changed 
 and transformed by man in a wonderful manner 
 through his control of their power to breed. All 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 65 
 
 domestic animals have come from wild animals ; 
 they have been derived by a process of selective 
 evolution conducted by man himself. By con- 
 tinually choosing as the progenitors of each 
 generation those with qualities best suited to his 
 whims and purposes, man has evolved races as 
 diiferent from each other in appearance and struc- 
 ture, and as different from the original species, as 
 many groups which, in the wild state, constitute 
 distinct species ; indeed, man has in some cases 
 created entirely new species, both of plants and 
 animals — species that breed true and are what 
 biologists call ' good ' — by his own selections. 
 
 There are something over 150 different varieties 
 of the domestic pigeon. Some of these varieties — 
 as many as a dozen, Mr. Darwin thinks — differ 
 from each other sufficiently to be reckoned, if 
 they are considered solely with reference to their 
 structures, as entirely distinct species. The 
 carrier, for instance, the giant of the pigeons, 
 measures 17 inches from bill-tip to the end of its 
 tail, and has a beak if inches long. Around each 
 eye is a large dahlia-like wattle, and another large 
 wattle is on the beak, giving the beak the appear- 
 ance of having been thrust through the kernel of 
 a walnut. The tumbler is small, squatty, and 
 almost beakless. It has the preposterous habit 
 of rising high in the air and then tumbling heels 
 over head. The roller, one of the many varieties 
 of the tumbler, descends to the ground in a series 
 of back somersaults, executed so rapidly that it 
 looks like a falling ball. The runt is large, weigh- 
 
 5 . 
 
66 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 ing sometimes as much as the carrier. The fan- 
 tail has thirty or forty feathers in its tail, while all 
 other varieties have only twelve or fourteen, the 
 normal number for birds. The trumpeter, so 
 named on account of its peculiar coo, has an 
 umbrella-like hood of feathers covering its head 
 and face, and its feet are so heavily feathered that 
 they look like little wings. In the correct speci- 
 mens of this variety the feathers have to be clipped 
 from the face before the birds can see to feed 
 themselves. The pouter has the absurd habit of 
 inflating its gullet to a prodigious size, and the 
 Jacobin wears a gigantic ruff. The homing pigeon 
 has such a strong attachment for its cote that it 
 will travel hundreds of miles, sometimes as many 
 as 1,400 miles, in order to reach the home from 
 which it has been separated. But it is not simply 
 in their colour, size, habits, and plumage, that 
 pigeons vary. There are corresponding differences 
 in their structures, in the number of their ribs and 
 vertebrae, in the shape and size of the skull, in 
 the bones of the face, in the development of the 
 breast-bone, and in the length of the neck, legs, 
 and bill. Pigeons also differ in the shape and size 
 of their eggs, and in their dispositions and voice. 
 ' There is,' says Huxley in summing up his dis- 
 cussion of the great variety in these birds, ' hardly 
 a particular of either internal econony or external 
 shape which has not by selective breeding been 
 perpetuated and become the foundation of a new 
 race ' (11). 
 All of the 150 different varieties of domestic 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 67 
 
 pigeons have been evolved by human selection 
 during the past three or four thousand years from 
 the blue rock-doves which to-day inhabit the sea- 
 coast countries of Europe. 
 
 What is true of pigeons is also true largely of 
 most of the other races associated with man — of 
 cats, cattle, horses, sheep, swine, goats, fowls, 
 and the like. All varieties of the domestic 
 chicken — the clumsy Cochin with its feather- 
 duster legs, the tall and stately Spanish, the great- 
 crested Minorca, the Dorking with its matchless 
 comb and wattle, the almost combless Polish, the 
 blue Andalusian, the gigantic Brahma, the tiny 
 Bantam, the Wyandottes in all colours (black, 
 white, buff, silver, and golden), the magnificent 
 Plymouth Rocks, and the exceedingly pugnacious 
 Game-cock — these and dozens of other varieties, 
 all flightless, have come from the jungle-bird 
 whose morning clarion still greets Aurora from 
 the wilds of distant India. The dog is a civilised 
 wolf, and the wild-boar is the progenitor of the 
 oleaginous swine. The Merino and South Down 
 breeds of sheep have come from the same stock in 
 the last century and a half. In 1790 a lamb was 
 born on the farm of Seth Wright in Massachusetts. 
 It had a long body and short, bowed legs. It was 
 noticed that this lamb could not follow the others 
 over the fences. The owner thought it would be 
 a good thing if all his sheep were like it. So he 
 selected it to breed from. Some of its offspring 
 were like it, and some were like the ordinary 
 sheep. By continual selection of those with long 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 bodies and short legs the ancon breed of sheep was 
 finally produced. In 1770 in a herd of Paraguay 
 cattle a hornless male calf appeared, and from 
 this individual in a similar way came the stock of 
 Muleys. The occasional appearance of horned 
 calves and lambs among the offspring of hornless 
 breeds of cattle and sheep are examples of atavism 
 indicating the presence of a vestigial tendency to 
 breed true to their horned ancestors. The Hereford 
 cattle originated as a distinct variety about 1769 
 through the careful selections of a certain English- 
 man by the name of Tompkins. All domesticated 
 quadrupeds, except the elephant, have come from 
 wild species with erect ears, the ears acting as 
 funnels to harvest the sound-waves. But there 
 are few of them in which there is not one or more 
 varieties with drooping ears— cats in China, horses 
 in parts of Russia, sheep in Italy, cattle in India, 
 and pigs, dogs, and rabbits in all long-civilised 
 lands. We are so accustomed to seeing dogs and 
 pigs with pendent ears that we are surprised to 
 know there are varieties with erect ears. The 
 goldfish is a carp, and in its native haunts in the 
 waters of China it has the colour of the carp. The 
 golden hue seen in the occupants of our aquaria 
 has been given to this fish by the Chinese through 
 the continual selection of certain kinds. The 
 goldfish, almost as much as the pigeon, has been 
 the sport of fanciers, and the strangest varieties 
 have resulted. Some have outlandishly long fins, 
 while others have no dorsal fin at all. Some are 
 streaked and splotched with gold and scarlet ■ 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 69 
 
 others are pure albinos. One of the most monstrous 
 varieties has a three-lobed tail-fin, and its eye- 
 balls, without sockets, are on the outside of its 
 head. All of our common barnyard fowls — 
 turkeys, ducks, geese, and chickens — are flight- 
 less, but the varieties from which the domesticated 
 forms have come all have functional wings, two of 
 these varieties crossing continents in their annual 
 migrations. 
 
 Not only animals, but plants also, many of 
 them, have been greatly changed by man in his 
 efforts to adapt them to his uses as food, orna- 
 mentation, and the like. On the seaside cliffs of 
 Chili and Peru may still be found growing the 
 wild-potato — the small, tough, bitter ancestor of 
 the mammoth Burbank, Peerless, Early Rose, 
 and the nearly two hundred other varieties of this 
 matchless tuber found in the gardens of civilised 
 man. The cabbage, kale, cauliflower, and kohl- 
 rabi are all modifications of the same wild species 
 {Brassica oleracea), the cauliflower being the de- 
 veloped flower, kohlrabi the stalk, and kale and 
 cabbage the leaves. The peach and the almond, 
 Darwin thinks, have also come from a common 
 ancestral drupe, the peach being the developed 
 fruit, and the almond the seed. There are nearly 
 goo different varieties of apples, varying in the 
 most wonderful manner in size, colour, flavour, 
 texture, and shape, but all of them probably 
 derived from the little, sour, inedible Asiatic crab. 
 The many times ' double ' roses of our gardens 
 have come from the five-petalled wild-rose of the 
 
70 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 prairies. The cultivated varieties of viburnum 
 and hydrangea have showy corymbs of infertile 
 flowers only, but the wild forms from which the 
 domestic varieties have been derived have only 
 a single marginal row of showy infertile flowers 
 surrounding a mass of inconspicuous fertile flowers. 
 It has been due to their efforts to please men that 
 bananas, pineapples, and oranges have got into 
 the habit of neglecting to produce seeds. There 
 are certain species of grapes that are seedless, 
 also seedless sugar-cane, and a seedless apple has 
 just been announced by horticulturists. The 
 development of domesticated plants is only in its 
 infancy, and it is probably impossible even for the 
 most agile imagination to dream of the miracles 
 the horticulturist is destined to work in the ages 
 to come. There is every reason to believe that 
 seedless varieties of all our common fruits will 
 ultimately be produced, and that in size, flavour, 
 nutrient constituents, and appearance, they will be 
 developed into forms utterly different from exist- 
 ing varieties. Just within the last few years the 
 U.S. Department of Agriculture has developed a 
 cotton-plant immune to the bacterial diseases 
 of the soil, which had completely driven the 
 cotton-raising industry out of large districts of the 
 South. The cultivation of many of the cereals 
 has gone on so long, and has proceeded so far, 
 that their origin is lost in antiquity. 
 
 Whether or not it is possible for new varieties 
 and species to be evolved is a question, therefore, 
 which does not need to depend for reply wholly 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 71 
 
 upon theory. It is known to have taken place ; 
 and the process by which the different varieties of 
 domestic animals and plants have been evolved — 
 domestic selection — is not different in principle 
 from the process of natural selection, the chief 
 operation by which life in general, both plant and 
 animal, is assumed to have been evolved. 
 
 10. There are other reasons for a belief in 
 organic evolution, but the last one I shall mention 
 is the fact that the theory of organic evolution 
 harmonises with the known tendencies of the 
 universe as a whole. The organic kingdoms of 
 the earth — animals and plants — are as truly parts 
 of the terrestrial globe as the inorganic kingdom 
 is ; and as such they share in, and are actuated 
 by, the same great tendency or instinct as that 
 which actuates the whole. Nine-tenths of the 
 substance of all animals and plants is oxygen, 
 hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen — the very elements 
 which make up the entire ocean and air, and 
 enter largely into the composition of the contin- 
 ents. The human body, which has essentially 
 the same chemical composition as the bodies of 
 animals in general, is made up of four solids, five 
 gases, and seven metals — in all, sixteen elements 
 of the something like seventy which constitute 
 the entire planet. ' In the past, man appeared to 
 be a creature foreign to the earth, and placed 
 upon it as a transitory inhabitant by some incom- 
 prehensible power. The more perfect insight of 
 the present day sees man as a being whose 
 development has taken place in accordance with 
 
72 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 the same laws as those that have governed the 
 development of the earth and its entire organisa- 
 tion — a being not put upon the earth accidentally 
 by an arbitrary act. but produced in harmony 
 with the earth's nature, and belonging to it as do 
 the flowers and the fruits to the tree which bears 
 them.' Animals are not outside of, nor distinct 
 from, the universe, as one might suspect who has 
 listened much to the recital of tradition so long 
 accepted as science. They are more or less 
 detached portions of the planet earth which move 
 over its surfaces and through its fluids and 
 multiply, but which in their phenomena obey 
 the same laws of chemistry and physics as those 
 in accordance with which the rest of the uni- 
 verse acts. Animals are moulds through which 
 digressing matters from the soil, sea, and sky 
 pass on rounds of eternal itineracy. 
 
 Now, the earth as a planet is in process of 
 evolution. Not many things are more certain 
 than this. The earth has come out of fire. It 
 has grown to be what it is. Its mountains, 
 valleys, plains, seas, shores, islands, lakes, rivers, 
 and continents — these were not always here. 
 They have been evolved. Not only the earth, 
 but the entire family of spheres of which the 
 earth is a member — the solar system — are all 
 evolving. Mr. Spencer never did anything more 
 profound than when he demonstrated in his ' Law 
 and Cause of Progress ' the universal migration of 
 things from a condition of homogeneity toward a 
 condition of greater and greater heterogeneity. 
 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 73 
 
 The whole universe, or as much of it as can be 
 examined by terrestrial instruments, has probably 
 evolved out of the same primordial matters. The 
 organic part of the earth has evolved, therefore, 
 and is destined to continue to evolve, because it 
 is a part of a whole whose habit or ambition it is 
 to evolve. 
 
 The evidence is overwhelming. The theory of 
 organic evolution is sustained by a mass of facts 
 not less authoritative and convincing than that 
 which supports the Copernican theory of the 
 worlds. Evolution is, in fact, a doctrine so 
 apparent that it only needs to be honestly and 
 intelligently looked into to be accepted unre- 
 servedly. It is, indeed, more than a doctrine. It 
 is a known fact. It is a necessary effect of the 
 conditions known to exist among the animals and 
 plants of the earth. If beings vary among them- 
 selves generation after generation, if only the 
 fittest of each generation survive, and if the sur- 
 vivors tend to transmit to their offspring the 
 qualities of their superiority (and the animals and 
 plants of the earth are known to do continually 
 all of these things), then it follows with mathe- 
 matical certainty that evolution is going on, and 
 that it will continue to go on as long as these 
 conditions continue. It is inevitable. It could 
 not be otherwise. We would know that evolution 
 were going on among organisms where these con- 
 ditions existed, even though we had never ob- 
 served it. 
 
 The boldest and most enthusiastic opponents of 
 
74 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 evolution have always been those with the least 
 information about it. But the evidence is accu- 
 mulating so rapidly, and is being drawn up in such 
 unanswerable array, that, if it is not already the 
 case, it will not be many years before it will be an 
 intellectual reproach for anyone to discredit, or to 
 be known to have discredited, this splendid and 
 inspiring revelation. 
 
 X. The Genealogy of Animals. 
 
 Life originated in the sea, and for an immense 
 period of time after it commenced it was confined 
 to the place of its origin. The civilisations of the 
 earth were for many millions of years exclusively 
 aquatic. It has, indeed, been estimated that the 
 time required by the life process in getting out of 
 the water — that is, that the time consumed in 
 elaborating the first species of land animals — was 
 much longer than the time which has elapsed 
 since then. I presume that during a large part of 
 this early period it would have seemed to one 
 living at that time extremely doubtful whether 
 there would ever be on the earth any other kinds 
 of life than the aquatic. And if those who to-day 
 weave the fashionable fabrics of human philosophy, 
 and who know nothing about anything outside the 
 thin edge of the present, had been back there, 
 they would no doubt have declared confidently, as 
 they looked upon the naked continents and the 
 uninhabited air and the sea teeming with its 
 peculiar faunas, that life upon solids or in gases, 
 life anywhere, in fact, except in the sea, where it 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 75 
 
 had always existed, and to which alone it was 
 adapted, was absolutely, and would be forever, 
 impossible ; and that feathered fishes and fishes 
 with the power to run and skip, and especially 
 ' sharks ' competent to walk on one end and jabber 
 with the other, were unthinkable nonsense. Life 
 originated in the sea for the same reason that the 
 first of the series of so-called ' civilisations ' which 
 have appeared in human history sprang from the 
 alluvium of the Euphrates and the Nile, because 
 the conditions for bringing life into existence were 
 here the most favourable. The atmosphere was 
 incompetent to perform such a task as the invent- 
 ing oi protoplasm, and there was no land above the 
 oceans. 
 
 The first forms of life were one-celled — simple, 
 jelly-like dots of almost homogeneous plasm — the 
 protozoa. These primitive organisms were the 
 common grandparents of all beings. From them 
 evolved, through infinite travail and suffering, all 
 of the orders, families, species, and varieties of 
 animals that to-day live on the earth, and all 
 those that have in the past lived and passed 
 away. By the multiplication and specialisation 
 of cells, and the formation of cell aggregates, the 
 sponges, celenterates, and flat worms were de- 
 veloped from the protozoa.* The connecting links 
 between the one-celled and the many-celled animals 
 consist of a series of colonial forms of increasing 
 size and complexity, some of which may be 
 found in every roadside ditch and pool, while 
 
 * See ' Genealogy of Animals,' p. 331. 
 
76 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 others are extinct. The development of these 
 many-celled organisms (metazoa) from one-celled 
 organisms was a perfectly natural process, a 
 process which takes place in the initial evolutions 
 of every embryo. There is no more mystery 
 about it than there is about any other act of 
 association. All association is simply a matter of 
 ' business.' Many-celled organisms are colonies, 
 or societies, of more or less closely co-operating 
 one-celled organisms, and they have come into 
 existence in obedience to the same laws of economy 
 and advantage as have those more modern societies 
 of metazoa known as nations, communities, and 
 states, the organised bodies of men, ants, and 
 millionaires. 
 
 The sponges are the lowest of the many-celled 
 animals. They consist of irregular masses of 
 loosely associated cells, hopelessly anchored to 
 the sea-floor. They represent the social instinct 
 in embryo. The cells are but slightly specialised, 
 and each cell leads a more or less independent 
 existence. The sponge stands at about that stage 
 of social integration and intelligence represented 
 by those stupendous porifera which cover conti- 
 nents and constitute the ' social organisms ' of the 
 civilised world. The nutritive system of sponges 
 consists of countless pores opening from the sur- 
 face into a common canal within, through which 
 ever-waving cilia urge the alimental waters. In 
 the celenterates the cells arrange themselves in 
 the form of a cup with one large opening into and 
 from the vase-like stomach. The unsegmented 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS '^^ 
 
 worms are flat and sac-like, with bilateral sym- 
 metry and the power to move about, but not 
 tubular, as are the true worms. They are blood- 
 less, like the celenterates and sponges. 
 
 From the flat worms developed the annelid 
 worms, animals perforated by a food canal and 
 possessing a body cavity filled with blood sur- 
 rounding this canal. The body cavity is the space 
 between the walls of the body and the alimentary 
 canal, the cavity which in the higher animals 
 contains the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, etc. The 
 worms and all animals above them have this 
 cavity. The worms and all animals above them 
 also have, as an inheritance from the flat worms, 
 bodies with bilateral symmetry — that is, bodies 
 with two halves similar. This peculiarity was 
 probably acquired by the flat worms, and so 
 fastened upon all subsequently evolved species, as 
 a result of pure carelessness. It probably arose 
 out of the habit of using continually, or over and 
 over again, the same parts of the body as fore and 
 aft. It has been facetiously said that if it had not 
 been for this habit, so inadvertently acquired by 
 these humble beings so long, long ago, we would 
 not to-day be able to tell our right hand from our 
 left. In the worm is found the beginning of 
 that wonderful organ of co-ordination, the brain. 
 The brain is a modification of the skin. It may 
 weaken our regard for this imperial organ to know 
 that it is, in its morphology, akin to nails and 
 corns. But it will certainly add to our admiration 
 for the infinite labours of evolution to remember 
 
78 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 that the magnificent thinking apparatus of modern 
 philosophers was originally a small sensitive plate 
 developed down in the sea a hundred million years 
 ago on the dorsal wall of the mouths of primeval 
 worms. 
 
 From the worms developed all of the highest 
 four phyla of the animal kingdom — the echino- 
 derms, the mollusks, the arthropods, and the 
 chordate animals, the last of which were the 
 progenitors of the illustrious vertebrates. The 
 lowest of the mollusks are the snails, and from 
 these humble tenants of our ponds and shores 
 sprang the headless bivalves and the giant jawed 
 cuttles. The mollusks were for a long time after 
 their development the mailed monarchs of the 
 sea, and shared with the worms the dominion of 
 the primordial waters. But after the development 
 of the more active arthropods, especially the 
 crustaceans, the less agile worms and mollusks 
 rapidly declined. Existing worms and mollusks 
 are remnants of once powerful and populous 
 races. 
 
 From the worms also developed the arthropods, 
 the water-breathing crustaceans and the air- 
 breathing spiders and insects. The crustaceans 
 came early, away back in the gray of the Silurian 
 period, just about the time North America was 
 born. North America lay, a naked, V-shaped 
 infant, in the regions of Labrador and Canada. 
 The crustaceans rapidly superseded the mollusks 
 as rulers of the sea, attaining, in extreme species, 
 a length of four or five feet. The spiders and 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 79 
 
 insects came into existence toward the latter part 
 of the Silurian period,* probably contemporaneous, 
 or nearly so, with the appearance of land vegeta- 
 tion. The spiders and insects were the aborigines 
 of the land and air. They are the only races of 
 living beings, except the original inhabitants of 
 the sea, who ever invaded and settled an unoccu- 
 pied world. The earliest land fossils so far found 
 are the fossils of scorpions. But the existence of 
 a sting among the structural possessions of these 
 animals indicates that there were already others 
 who contended with them for supremacy in the 
 new world. The first insects were the masticating 
 insects, insects such as cockroaches, crickets, grass- 
 hoppers, dragon-flies, and beetles. They are found 
 abundantly in the Devonian and Carboniferous 
 rocks. The licking insects (bees) and the pricking 
 insects (flies and bugs) appeared first in the 
 
 * The following are the divisions and subdivisions of 
 geological history : 
 
 (Pleistocene period. 
 Pliocene „ 
 
 Miocene „ 
 
 Oligocene „ 
 Eocene „ 
 
 r Cretaceous period. 
 4. Mesozoic Era (Secondary) - j Jurassic „ 
 
 vTriassic „ 
 
 /Permian period. 
 Carboniferous period. 
 
 3. Paleozoic Era (Primary) - -! gihlrian " " 
 
 Ordovician „ 
 
 V Cambrian „ 
 
 2. Proterozoic Era - - - Algonkian period. 
 I. Archeozoic Era. 
 
8o THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Mesozoic Era, and the sipping insects (butter- 
 flies) in the Cenozoic. The flower-loving insects 
 (the bees and butterflies) came into the world at 
 the same time as did the flowers. The wings of 
 insects may be modifications of the gills used by 
 insect young in respiration during their aquatic 
 existence. They are, hence, very different in 
 origin from the wings of birds, which are the 
 modified fore-legs of reptiles. 
 
 The most important class of animals arising out 
 of the worms, on account of their distinguished 
 offspring, were the hypothetical cord animals. 
 The only existing species allied to these animals 
 is the amphioxus, a strange, unpromising-looking 
 creature, half worm and half fish, found in the 
 beach sands of many seas. It has white blood and 
 a tubular heart. It is without either head or 
 limbs, and looks very much like a long semi- 
 transparent leaf, tapering at both ends. But it 
 has two unmistakable prophecies of the vertebrate 
 anatomy : a cartilaginous rod, pointed at both 
 ends, extending along the back, and above this, 
 and parallel to it, a cord of nerve matter. These 
 are the same positions occupied by the spinal 
 column and spinal cord in all true vertebrates. 
 That the amphioxus is a genuine relative of the 
 ancestor of the vertebrates is also shown by the 
 fact that these simple forms of column and cord 
 possessed by amphioxus are precisely the forms 
 assumed by the spinal column and spinal cord in 
 the embryos of all vertebrates, including man. 
 
 From these quasi-vertebrates developed the fishes 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 8i 
 
 — first (after the scaleless, limbless lampreys) the 
 sharks with spiny scales and cartilaginous skeleton, 
 and after these the lung fishes and the bony fishes, 
 with flat, horny scales and skeletons of bone. 
 From the beginning of the Devonian age, when 
 fishes first came into prominence, till the rise of 
 the great reptiles in the Triassic time, fishes were 
 the dominant life of the sea. In the fishes first 
 appeared jaws, a sympathetic nervous system, red 
 blood, backbone, and the characteristic two pairs 
 of limbs of vertebrates. 
 
 The lung fishes (Dipneusta), a small order of 
 strange salamander-like creatures which live in- 
 geniously on the borderland between the liquid 
 and the land, may be looked upon as physiological, 
 if not morphological, links between the fishes and 
 the frogs. They combine the characters of both 
 fishes and frogs, and zoologists have been tempted 
 to make a separate class of them, and place them 
 between the two classes to which they are related. 
 They are like fishes in having scales, fins, per- 
 manent gills, and a fish-like shape and skeleton. 
 They resemble frogs in having lungs, nostrils, an 
 incipiently three-chambered heart, a pulmonary 
 circulation, and frog-like skin glands. There are 
 three genera with several species. One genus 
 (Neoceratodus) is found in two or three small 
 rivers of Queensland, Australia ; another (Protop- 
 terus) lives in the Gambia and other rivers of 
 Africa; and the third (Lepidosiren) inhabits the 
 swamps of the Amazon region. They all breathe 
 ordinarily by means of gills, like true fishes, but 
 
 6 
 
82 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 have the habit of coming frequently to the surface 
 and inhahng air. The air-bladder acts as an 
 incipient lung in supplementing respiration by gills. 
 They all live in regions where a dry season regularly 
 converts the watercourses into beds of sand and 
 mud. During the season of drought these strange 
 animals build for themselves a cocoon or nest of 
 mud and leaves. This cocoon is lined with mucus, 
 and provided with a lid through which air is 
 admitted. Here they lie in this capsule through- 
 out the hot southern summer, from August to 
 December, breathing air by means of their lungs 
 and living upon the stored-up fat of their tails, 
 until the return of the wet season, when they 
 again live in the rivers and breathe water in true 
 piscatorial fashion. These capsules have often 
 been carried to Europe, and opened 3,000 miles 
 from their place of construction without harming 
 the life within. 
 
 Here, in these eccentric denizens of the southern 
 world, we find the beginnings of a grand trans- 
 formation — a transformation in both structure and 
 function, a transformation made necessary by the 
 transition from life in the water to life in the air, 
 a transformation which reaches its maturity in the 
 higher air-breathing vertebrates, where the simple 
 air-sac of the fish becomes a pair of lobed and 
 elaborately sacculated lungs, performing almost 
 exclusively the function of respiration, and the 
 gills change into parts of the ears and lower jaw. 
 
 The air-bladder of ordinary fishes, which is used 
 chiefly as a hydrostatic organ to enable the fish 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 83 
 
 to rise and fall in the water, is probably the 
 degenerated lung of the lung fishes. 
 
 From the lung fishes or allied forms developed 
 the amphibians, the well-known fish quadrupeds 
 of our bogs and brooks. The amphibians are 
 genuine connectives — living links between the life 
 of the sea and the life of the land. In early life 
 they are fishes, with gills and two-chambered 
 hearts. In later life they are air-breathing quad- 
 rupeds, with legs and lungs and three-chambered 
 hearts. Here is evolution, plenty of it, and of the 
 most tangible character. And it takes place right 
 before the eyes. The transformation from the fish 
 to the frog is, however, no more wonderful than 
 the embryonic transformations of other vertebrates. 
 It is simply more apparent, because it can be 
 seen. The lungs of amphibians and the lower 
 reptiles are simple sacks opening by a very short 
 passage into the mouth. Some amphibians, as the 
 axolotl of Mexican lakes, ordinarily retain their 
 gills through life, but may be induced to develop 
 lungs and adapt themselves to terrestrial life by 
 being kept out of the water. Others, as the newts, 
 which ordinarily develop lungs, may be compelled 
 to retain their gills through life by being forced to 
 remain uninterruptedly in the water. The black 
 salamander, inhabiting droughty regions of the 
 Alps, brings forth its young bearing lungs, and 
 only a pair at a time. But if the young are pre- 
 maturely removed from the body of the mother 
 and placed in the water, they develop gills in the 
 ordinary way. These are remarkable instances of 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 elasticity in the presence of a varying environ- 
 ment. 
 
 In the amphibians the characteristic five-toed or 
 five-fingered foot, which normally forms the ex- 
 tremities of the limbs of all vertebrates except 
 fishes, is first met -with. It vi^as this pentadactyl 
 peculiarity of the frog, inherited by men and women 
 through the reptiles and mammals, that gave rise 
 to the decimal system of numbers and other un- 
 handy facts in human life. The decimal system 
 arose out of the practice of early men performing 
 their calculations on their fingers. This method 
 of calculating is still used by primitive peoples all 
 over the world. The sum of the digits of the two 
 hands came, in the course of arithmetical evolu- 
 tion, to be used as a unit, and from this simple 
 beginning grew up the complicated system of tens 
 found among civilised peoples. It has all come 
 about as a result of amphibian initiative. Our 
 very arithmetics have been predetermined by the 
 anatomical peculiarities of the frog's foot. If these 
 unthinking foreordainers of human affairs had had 
 four or six toes on each foot instead of five, man 
 would no doubt have inherited them just as cheer- 
 fully as the number he did inherit, and the civilised 
 world would in this case be to-day using in all of 
 its mathematical activities a system of eights or 
 twelves instead of a system of tens. A system 
 of eights or twelves would be much superior in 
 flexibility to the existing system ; for eight is 
 a cube, and its half and double are squares ; 
 and twelve can be divided by two, three, four, 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 85 
 
 and six, while ten is divisible by two and five 
 only. 
 
 How helpless human beings are — in fact, how 
 helpless all beings are ! How hopelessly dependent 
 we are upon the past, and how impossible it is to 
 be really original ! What the future will be depends 
 upon what the present is, for the future will grow 
 out of, and inherit, the present. What the present 
 is depends upon what the past was, for the present 
 has grown out of, and inherited, the past. And 
 what the past was depends upon a remoter past 
 from which it evolved, and so on. There is no 
 end anywhere of dependence, either forward or 
 backward. Every fact, from an idea to a sun, is 
 a contingent link in an eternal chain. 
 
 From the amphibians (probably from extinct 
 forms, not from living) there arose the highest 
 three classes of vertebrates — the true reptiles, the 
 birds, and the mammals — all of whom have lungs 
 and breathe air from the beginning to the end of 
 their days. Gills, as organs of breathing, disappear 
 forever, being changed, as has been said, into 
 parts of the organs of mastication and hearing. In 
 the reptiles first appear those organs which in the 
 highest races overflow on occasions of tenderness 
 and grief, the tear glands. These organs are, 
 however, in our cold-blooded antecedents, organs 
 of ocular lubrication rather than of weeping. 
 There are but four small orders of existing reptiles 
 — snakes, turtles, lizards, and crocodilians. These 
 are the pygmean descendants of a mighty line, the 
 last of a dynasty which during the greater part of 
 
86 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 the Mesozoic ages was represented by the most 
 immense and powerful monsters that have ever 
 lived upon the earth. Mesozoic civilisation was 
 pre-eminently saurian. Reptiles were supreme 
 everywhere — on sea and land and in the air. Their 
 rulership of the world was not so bloody and 
 masterful as man's, but quite as remorseless. 
 Imagine an aristocracy made up of pterosaurs 
 (flying reptiles), with teeth, and measuring 20 feet 
 between wing - tips ; great plesiosaurs (serpent 
 reptiles) and ichthyosaurs (fish reptiles), enormous 
 bandits of the seas; and dinosaurs and atlanto- 
 saurs, giant land lizards, 30 feet high and from 
 50 to 100 feet in length. A government of demagogs 
 is bad enough, as king-ridden mankind well know, 
 but dragons would be worse, if possible. The 
 atlantosaurs were the largest animals that have 
 ever walked upon the earth. They were huge 
 plant-eaters inhabiting North America. It has 
 been surmised that one of these behemoths * may 
 have consumed a whole tree for breakfast.' It was 
 the mighty saurians of the Mesozoic time who 
 brought into everlasting subordination the pisca- 
 torial civilisation of the Devonian and carboniferous 
 ages. 
 
 Toward the latter part of the Reptilian Age, 
 and somewhere along about the time of the ap- 
 pearance of hard-wood forests, came the birds, 
 those beautiful and emotional beings who, in spite 
 of human destructiveness, continue to fill our 
 groves and gardens with the miracles of beauty 
 and song. The bird is a ' glorified reptile.' How 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 87 
 
 the ' slow, cold-blooded, scaly saurian ever became 
 transformed into the quick, hot-blooded, feathered 
 bird, the joy of creation,' is a considerable mys- 
 tery, yet we know no reason for believing that the 
 transformation did not take place. Although in 
 their external appearance and mode of life birds 
 and reptiles differ so widely from each other, yet, 
 in their internal structure and embryology, they 
 are so much alike that one of the brightest 
 anatomists that has ever lived (Huxley) united 
 them both into a single class under the name 
 Sauropsida. It might naturally be supposed that 
 the birds are descendants of the flying reptiles, 
 the pterosaurs. But this may not be true. The 
 pterosaurs were structurally much further removed 
 from the birds than were certain extinct terrestrial 
 reptiles. The fact that birds and pterosaurs both 
 had wings has really nothing to do with the case. 
 For the wings of reptiles, we almost know, were 
 not homologous with the wings of birds. The 
 bird's vnng is a feathered fore-leg ; the wing of the 
 reptile was an expanded skin stretching from the 
 much- elongated last finger backwards to the hind- 
 leg and tail. Wings, it may be remarked in 
 passing, have had at least four different and 
 distinct beginnings in the animal kingdom, repre- 
 sented by the bats, the birds, the reptiles, and the 
 insects. This does not include the parachutes 
 of the so-called flying squirrels, lemurs, lizards, 
 phalangers, and fishes. 
 
 The first birds had teeth and vertebrated tails. 
 The archeopteryx, which is the earliest toothed 
 
88 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 bird whose remains have yet been found, was 
 about the size of a crow. It had thirty-two teeth 
 and twenty caudal vertebrae. Two specimens 
 of it have been found in the Jurassic slates of 
 Bavaria. One of these fossils is in the British 
 Museum, and the other in the Museum of Berlin. 
 Other toothed birds have been found fossil by 
 Dr. Mudge in the cretaceous chalk of North 
 America. These last had short, fan tails like 
 existing birds. 
 
 From the toothed birds developed the beaked 
 birds — the keel-breasted birds (the group to which 
 most existing birds belong) and the birds with 
 unkeeled breasts, i.e., the ostrich-like birds. The 
 ostrich-like birds are runners. They have rudi- 
 mentary wings, and the keel of the breast-bone, 
 which in the keel-breasted birds acts as a stay 
 for the attachment of the wing muscles, is lacking. 
 The ostrich-like birds are probably degenerate 
 flyers, the flying apparatus having become obsolete 
 through disuse. The feathers of birds are gene- 
 rally supposed to be the modified scales of 
 reptiles. 
 
 The most brilliant offspring of the reptiles were 
 the mammals, animals capable of a wider distribu- 
 tion over the face of the earth than the cold- 
 blooded reptiles, on account of their hair and their 
 warm blood. Cold-blooded animals of great size 
 are able to inhabit but a small zone of the existing 
 earth's surface — the torrid belt. They cannot 
 house themselves during the seasons of cold, as 
 men can ; nor escape to the tropics on the wings 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 89 
 
 of the wind, as do the birds ; nor bury themselves 
 in subaqueous mud, as do the frogs, snakes, 
 and crustaceans. During the Mesozoic period, 
 when cold - blooded reptiles of gigantic size 
 flourished over a wide area of the earth's surface, 
 the planet was far warmer than now. Animals, 
 therefore, like the mammals (or birds), capable of 
 maintaining a fixed temperature regardless of the 
 thermal fluctuations of the surrounding media, 
 are the only animals of large size and power 
 capable of uninterrupted existence over the 
 greater part of the surface of the existing earth. 
 The pre-eminent life of the Cenozoic time was 
 mammalian. But the decline and fall of the 
 saurian power was not wholly due to the rise of 
 the more dynamic mammals. It was in part due, 
 no doubt, to adverse conditions of climate, and 
 also to the fact that mammals and birds guard 
 their eggs, and saurians do not. 
 
 The lowest of the mammals are the monotremes, 
 animals which blend in a marvellous manner the 
 characteristics of birds, reptiles, and mammals. 
 Only two families of these old-fashioned creatures 
 are left, the echidna and the duck-bill (ornitho- 
 rhynchus), both of them found on or near that 
 museum of biological antiquities, Australia. They 
 are covered with hair and suckle their young like 
 other mammals, but they have only the rudiments 
 of milk glands, and they lay eggs with large yolks 
 from a cloaca, like the reptiles and birds. The 
 duck-bill hides its eggs in the ground, but the 
 echidna hatches its eggs in a small external 
 
go THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 brooding pouch, periodically developed for this 
 purpose. The young of the monotremes feed on 
 the oily perspiration which exudes from the body of 
 the mother. The monotremes first appear in the 
 fossiliferous rocks of the Triassic Age. 
 
 From the monotreme-like mammals developed 
 the marsupial mammals, animals possessing a 
 purse-like pouch on the after part of the abdomen, 
 in which they carry their young. The young of 
 marsupials are born in an extremely immature 
 state, and are carried in this pouch in order to 
 complete their development. The young of the 
 kangaroo, an animal as large as a man, are only 
 about an inch in length when they are born. 
 They are carried for nine months after their birth 
 in the marsupium of the mother, firmly attached 
 to the maternal nipple. The marsupials came 
 into existence during the Jurassic Age, and 
 during the next age, the Cretaceous, they arose 
 to considerable power. During this latter age 
 they were found on every continent. But they 
 have been almost exterminated by their more 
 powerful descendants. 
 
 From the marsupials developed the placental 
 mammals, animals so called because their young 
 are developed within the parental body in associa- 
 tion with a peculiar nourishing organ called the 
 placenta. From the herbivorous marsupials de- 
 veloped the almost toothless edentates, the rodents, 
 or gnawing animals, the sirenians, the cetaceans, 
 and the hoofed animals, or ungulates. The 
 sirenians are fish-like animals with two flippers, 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 91 
 
 and are often called sea-cows. They resemble 
 whales in many respects, and are sometimes 
 classed with them. They are plant-eaters ex- 
 clusively, and are found grazing along the bottoms 
 of tropical estuaries and rivers. They have tiny 
 eyes, teeth fitted for grinding (not spike-like as in 
 the whales), and a strong affection for their young, 
 the mother, when pursued, often carrying her little 
 one under her flippers. An immense sirenian, 
 known as Steller's manatee, was discovered on 
 the Behring Islands, along the Kamschatka coast, 
 in 1741. Twenty-seven years afterwards not one 
 of them was left, all having been murdered by the 
 Russian sailors. The sirenians are probably de- 
 generate forms of land quadrupeds, having lost 
 their hind-limbs and developed the fish-like shape 
 in adapting themselves to aquatic conditions. 
 They appear first in the Eocene Age. 
 
 Among the most interesting derivatives of the 
 herbivorous marsupials, because the most aberrant, 
 are the whales. They are true mammals — have 
 warm blood, breathe the air with lungs, and suckle 
 their young like other mammals. But, like the 
 sirenians, they live in the surface of the waters, 
 and have flippers and a fish-like tail and form. 
 They differ from the sirenians, however, in being 
 carnivorous, in having inguinal instead of pectoral 
 milk glands, and in being structurally less like 
 quadrupeds. They probably degenerated from 
 land quadrupeds during the Jurassic period, and, 
 owing to their longer residence in the waters, have 
 become further removed from the quadrupedal 
 
92 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 type than the sirenians. Whales have two limbs, 
 the hind-limbs having disappeared as a result of 
 the pre-eminent development of the tail. The 
 tails of whales and sirenians are flattened horizon- 
 tally, not vertically, as in fishes. 
 
 Out of generalised forms of hoofed animals now 
 extinct developed the odd -toed and even -toed 
 races of existing ungulates. The original ungu- 
 lates had five hoofs on each foot, and were highly 
 generalised in their structure. From these original 
 five-toed forms have arisen the variously hoofed 
 and variously structured tribes of existing ungu- 
 lates : the five-toed elephant, the four-toed tapir 
 and hippopotamus, the three-toed rhinoceros, the 
 two -toed camel, sheep, swine, deer, antelope, 
 giraffe, and ox, and the one-toed horse and zebra. 
 The carnivorous branch of the placental animals 
 came from the carnivorous branch of the mar- 
 supials. From early forms of carnivorous pla- 
 centals developed the ape-like lemurs and those 
 generalised forms of rapacious animals from which 
 arose the insect-eaters, the bats, and the true 
 carnivora. The seals represent a by-development 
 from the main line of the carnivora, a third defec- 
 tion, and a comparatively recent one, from land 
 faunas. Seals live at the meeting of the land and 
 the waters rather than in or on the waters, as do 
 the cetaceans and sirenians. They have retained 
 their fur and their four limbs, but have almost lost 
 their power of land locomotion by the conversion 
 of their feet into flippers. The two front-limbs of 
 seals are the only ones used as ordinary limbs are 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 93 
 
 used. The hind-limbs in most seals stretch per- 
 manently out behind, the webbed digits spreading 
 out fan-shaped on either side of the stumpy tail, 
 and constituting a rowing apparatus functionally 
 homologous with the tail of fishes and whales. 
 According to Jordan, the fur seals and the hair 
 seals are descended from different families of land 
 carnivora, the former probably from the bears, 
 and the latter from the cats. 
 
 The lemurs are of especial interest to human 
 beings, because in them are found the first startling 
 approximation in looks and structure to the 
 ' human form divine.' The lemurs are monkey- 
 like creatures living in trees, but differ enough 
 from true monkeys to be often placed in an order 
 by themselves. Their milk glands are abdominal 
 instead of pectoral, as in the monkeys, and the 
 second digit of each hand and foot ends in a claw. 
 The most of them live in Madagascar. They are 
 generally nocturnal in their habits, although some 
 species are diurnal. They appear first in the 
 Eocene rocks, and Haeckel thinks they may have 
 developed from opossum-like marsupials in the 
 late Cretaceous or early Eocene Age. 
 
 From lemurs or from some other similar sort of 
 semi-apes developed the true apes — the flat-nosed 
 (platyrhine) apes of the New World and the 
 narrow-nosed (catarhine) apes of the Old World. 
 There is considerable difference between the New 
 World apes and those of the Old World. The 
 differences between the two classes is, in fact, so 
 striking that they are thought by some to have 
 
94 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 developed independently of each other from 
 distinct species of semi-apes. The apes of the 
 New World have flat noses, and the nostrils are 
 far apart and open in front of the nose, never 
 below. The Old World apes have narrow noses, 
 the nostrils being close together and opening 
 downwards as in man. The tail of (nearly) all 
 New World apes is prehensile, being used regularly 
 as a fifth limb, while among Old World apes the 
 tail is never so used. The Old World apes all 
 have the same number and kinds of teeth as man 
 has, while the New World apes (excepting the 
 Brazilian marmosets) have an additional premolar 
 in each half-jaw, making thirty-six in all. The 
 catarhine apes are, therefore, structurally much 
 nearer to man than their platyrhine cousins. All 
 tailed apes probably sprang originally from a 
 single stirp of semi-apes, and spread over the 
 earth at a time when the eastern and western 
 land masses of the southern hemisphere were con- 
 nected with each other. The earliest remains of 
 apes appear in the Miocene Age. 
 
 From the Old World tailed apes were developed 
 the tailless, man-like, or anthropoid apes — the 
 gorillas and chimpanzees of Africa, and the orangs 
 and gibbons of Asia and the East Indies. The an- 
 thropoids arose from the tailed apes by the loss of 
 the tail, the thinning of the hairy covering, the 
 enlargement of the fore-brain, and by structural 
 adaptations to a more nearly vertical position. 
 No remains of anthropoids are found earlier than 
 the Pliocene Age. 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 95 
 
 The man-like apes are the nearest living rela- 
 tives of the human races. It is not probable that 
 man has been derived directly from any of the exist- 
 ing races of man-like apes. For no one of them in 
 all particulars of its structure stands closer to him 
 than the rest. The orang approaches closest to 
 man in the formation of the brain, the chimpanzee 
 in the shape of the spine and in certain character- 
 istics of the skull, the gorilla in the development 
 of the feet and in size, and the gibbon in the 
 formation of the throat and teeth. The earliest 
 human races probably sprang from man-like races 
 of apes now extinct, who lived in southern Asia 
 or in Africa during the Pliocene Age (possibly as 
 early as the Miocene), and who combined in their 
 structures the various man-like characters pos- 
 sessed by existing anthropoids. 
 
 The earliest races of men were speechless — the 
 ape-like ' Alali ' — beings, living wholly upon the 
 ground and walking upon their hind-limbs, but 
 without more than the mere rudiments of lan- 
 guage. The vertical position led to a much 
 greater development of the posterior parts, espe- 
 cially of the muscles of the back and the calves 
 of the leg. The great toe, which in the ape is 
 opposable, lost its opposability, or all except traces 
 of it, after the abandonment of arboreal life. It 
 must have been a sight fit to stir the soul of the 
 most leathern, these children of the night, with 
 low brows, stooping gait, and ape-like faces, armed 
 with rude clubs, clothed in natural hair, and 
 wandering about in droves without law, fire, or 
 
96 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 understanding, hiding in thickets and in the holes 
 of the earth, feeding on roots and fruits, and con- 
 tending doubtfully with the species around them 
 for food and existence. 
 
 From the ' Alali ' — the speechless ape-men — we 
 may imagine the true men to have evolved — talk- 
 ing men, men with erect posture and mature 
 brain and larynx, the woolly-haired ulotrichi and 
 the 'straight-haired lissotrichi. There are four 
 existing species of woolly-haired men : the Papuans 
 of New Guinea and Melanesia, and the Hotten- 
 tots, Caffres, and Negroes of southern, equatorial, 
 and north central Africa respectively. They all 
 have long heads, slanting teeth, very dark skin, 
 and black, bushy hair, each individual hair in 
 cross-section being flat or oval in shape. In the 
 straight-haired races the skin is much fairer than 
 in the woolly-haired races, being seldom darker than 
 brown, and each individual hair in cross-section is 
 round like the cross-section of a cylinder. The 
 principal species of straight-haired men are the 
 sea-roving Malays of the East Indies and the 
 Pacific, the round-faced Mongols of eastern and 
 northern Asia, the aboriginal Americans of the 
 western hemisphere, and the incomparable Aryans, 
 including the ancient Greeks and Romans and the 
 modern peoples of India, Persia, and Europe. 
 
 Man is to-day the pre-eminent animal of the 
 planet. The successive ascendancies of the Worm, 
 the Mollusk, the Crustacean, the Fish, the Reptile, 
 and the Mammal, are followed triumphantly by 
 the ascendancy of the Children of the Ape. 
 
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 97 
 
 A large part of the life of the earth has 
 remained steadfastly where it was cradled, beneath 
 the waves. But more restless portions have left 
 the sea and crept forth upon the land, or swarmed 
 into the air. One migration, the most numerous, 
 is represented by the insects. Another, the most 
 enterprising, was the amphibian. After ages of 
 evolution the amphibian branch divided. One 
 bfanch acquired wings and sailed off into the air. 
 The other divided and subdivided. One of these 
 subdivisions entered the forests, climbed and 
 clambered among the trees, acquired perpendicu- 
 larity and hands, descended and walked upon the 
 soil, invented agriculture, built cities and states, 
 and imagined itself immortal. Human society is 
 but the van — the hither terminus — of an evolu- 
 tional process which had its beginning away back 
 in the protoplasm of primeval waters. There is 
 not a form that creeps beneath the sea but can 
 claim kinship with the eagle. The philosopher is 
 the remote posterity of the meek and lowly 
 amoeba. 
 
 XL Conclusion. 
 
 The resemblances, homologies, and metamor- 
 phoses existing everywhere among animal forms 
 are, therefore, evidence of the most logical con- 
 sanguinities. It is all so perfectly plain. The 
 structures of organic beings have come about as a 
 result of the action and reaction of environment 
 upon these structures. Every being — and not 
 only every being, but every species, the whole 
 
 7 
 
98 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 organic world — has come to be what it is as a 
 result of the incessant hammerings of its surround- 
 ings, the hammerings not only of the present, but 
 of the long-stretching past. By surroundings is 
 meant, of course, the rest of the universe. Those 
 animals belonging to the same stock resemble each 
 other because they have been subjected to the 
 same experiences, the same series of selections. 
 They have lain on the same great anvil, and felt 
 the down-comings of the same sledge. The simi- 
 larities among animal forms in general indicate 
 relationships, just as the similarities among the 
 races of men indicate racial consanguinities. All 
 men belong to the human species because they 
 are all fundamentally alike. But there are differ- 
 ences in the character of the hair, in the colour of 
 the skin, in the conformation of the skull, and in 
 the structure of the language, among the different 
 varieties of the species, indicating striking variety 
 in relationship and origin. An eminent biologist 
 has said that if Negroes and Caucasians were 
 snails they would be classed as entirely distinct 
 species of animals. Whether, as is thought by 
 some, the woolly-haired races are the descendants 
 of the African anthropoids, and the straight- 
 haired varieties are the posterity of the orangs 
 and gibbons, we may never know positively. But 
 we do know that these two great branches of 
 mankind must have different genealogies, extend- 
 ing to a remote antiquity, and that the varieties 
 belonging to each great group sustain to each 
 other the relations of a common kinship. English- 
 
CONCLUSION 99 
 
 men look like each other, act like each other, and 
 speak the same language. So do Frenchmen and 
 Swedes and Chinese. Every people is peculiar. 
 This is not the result of accident or agreement, 
 but the result of law. Mongolians do not all have 
 short heads, yellow faces, slanting eyes, and promi- 
 nent malars because they have agreed to have 
 them, but as a result of a common pedigree. 
 Similarity of structure implies commonalty of 
 origin, and commonalty of origin means consan- 
 guinity. 
 
 And this is true whether you contemplate the 
 featural resemblances of brothers and sisters of 
 the same human parent, or those more funda- 
 mental characteristics which distinguish species, 
 orders, and sub-kingdoms. All animals are com- 
 posed of protoplasm, which is a compound of 
 clay, because all animals are descended from the 
 same first parents, protoplasmic organisms evolved 
 out of the elemental ooze. All vertebrates have 
 nerve-filled backbones with two pairs of ventrally 
 branching limbs, because the original ancestors of 
 the vertebrates had nerve-filled backbones with 
 two pairs of ventrally branching limbs. Insects 
 individually evolve from worms because worms 
 are their phylogenetic fathers and mothers. Man 
 has hands and a vertical spine, and walks on his 
 hind-limbs, not because he was fashioned in the 
 image of a god, but because his ancestors lived 
 among the trees. The habit of using the posterior 
 limbs for locomotion, and the anterior for pre- 
 hension, and the resulting perpendicular, are 
 
 7—2 
 
100 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 
 
 peculiarities developed by our simian ancestors 
 wholly on account of the incentives to such 
 structure and posture afforded by '^oreal life. 
 These peculiarities would not likely have been 
 acquired by quadrupeds living upon and taking 
 their food from a perfectly level and treeless plain. 
 If there had been no forests on the earth, there- 
 fore, there would have been no incentive to the 
 perpendicular, and the ' human form divine ' would 
 have been inconceivably different from what it is 
 to-day. And if fishes had had three serial pairs 
 of Hmbs instead of two, and their posterity had 
 inherited them, as they certainly would have had 
 the foresight to do if they had had the opportunity, 
 the highest animals on the earth to-day, the 
 ' paragons of creation,' would probably be two- 
 handed quadrupeds (centaurs) instead of two- 
 handed bipeds. And much more efficient and 
 ideal individuals they would have been in every 
 way than the rickety, peculiar, unsubstantial 
 plantigrades who, by their talent to talk, have 
 become the masters of the universe, and, by their 
 imaginations, ' divine.' 
 
 Kinship is universal. The orders, families, 
 species, and races of the animal kingdom are the 
 branches of a gigantic arbour. Every individual is 
 a cell, every species is a tissue, and every order is 
 an organ in the great surging, suffering, palpitat- 
 ing process. Man is simply one portion of the 
 immense enterprise. He is as veritably an animal 
 as the insect that drinks its little fill from his 
 veins, the ox he goads, or the wild-fox that flees 
 
CONCLUSION loi 
 
 before his bellowings. Man is not a god, nor in 
 any imminent danger of becoming one. He is not 
 a celestial star-babe dropped down among mundane 
 matters for a time and endowed with wing possi- 
 bilities and the anatomy of a deity. He is a 
 mammal of the order of primates, not so lament- 
 able when we think of the hyena and the serpent, 
 but an exceedingly discouraging vertebrate com- 
 pared with what he ought to be. He has come 
 up from the worm and the quadruped. His 
 relatives dwell on the prairies and in the fields, 
 forests, and waves. He shares the honours and 
 partakes of the infirmities of all his kindred. He 
 walks on his hind-limbs like the ape ; he eats 
 herbage and suckles his young like the ox ; he 
 slays his fellows and fills himself with their blood 
 like the crocodile and the tiger ; he grows old and 
 dies, and turns to banqueting worms, like all that 
 come from the elemental loins. He cannot exceed 
 the winds like the hound, nor dissolve his image 
 in the mid-day blue like the eagle. He has not the 
 courage of the gorilla, the magnificence of the 
 steed, nor the plaintive innocence of the ring-dove. 
 Poor, pitiful, glory-hunting hideful ! Born into a 
 universe which he creates when he comes into it, 
 and clinging, like all his kindred, to a clod that 
 knows him not, he drives on in the preposterous 
 storm of the atoms, as helpless to fashion his fate 
 as the sleet that pelts him, and lost absolutely in 
 the somnambulism of his own being. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 (i) Hartmann : Anthropoid Apes ; New York, 1901, 
 
 (2) QUATREFAGES : The Human Species ; New York, 
 
 1898. 
 
 (3) Tylor : Anthropology; New York, 1899. 
 
 (4) Haeckel : History of Creation, 2 vols. ; New York, 
 
 1896. 
 
 (5) Haeckel: The Riddle of the Universe; New York, 
 
 1901. 
 
 (6) Huxley : Man's Place in Nature ; New York, 1883. 
 
 (7) Jordan : Footnotes of Evolution ; New York, 1898. 
 
 (8) Darwin : Descent of Man, 2nd edit. ; London, 1874. 
 
 (9) Drummond : Ascent of Man; New York, 1894. 
 
 (10) Thompson: Outlines of Zoology, 3rd edit. ; Edinburgh, 
 
 1899. 
 
 (11) Huxley : On the Origin of Species, lecture iv. 
 
THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE CONFLICT OF SCIENCE AND TRADITION - I05 
 
 II. EVIDENCES OF PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION - - IIO 
 
 III. THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW - - - 1 46 
 
 IV. THE ELEMENTS OF HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN 
 
 MIND COMPARED - - - - 1 96 
 
 V. CONCLUSION . - . . . 232 
 
 103 
 
' I SAW, deep in the eyes of the animals, the human soul 
 look out upon me. 
 
 ' I saw where it was born down deep under feathers and 
 fur, or condemned for awhile to roam four-footed among the 
 brambles. I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner, 
 and swore that I would be faithful. 
 
 ' Thee, my brother and sister, I see and mistake not. Do 
 not be afraid. Dwelling thus and thus for awhile, fulfilling 
 thy appointed time — thou too shalt come to thyself at last. 
 
 ' Thy half-warm horns and long tongue lapping round my 
 wrist do not conceal thy humanity any more than the learned 
 talk of the pedant conceals his — for all thou art dumb we 
 have words and plenty between us. ' — EDWARD Carpenter. 
 
 104 
 
THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 I. The Conflict of Science and Tradition. 
 
 The doctrine that on mankind's account all other 
 beings came into existence, and that non-human 
 beings are mere hunks of matter devoid of all 
 psychic qualities found in man, is a doctrine 
 about as sagacious as the old geocentric theory 
 of the universe. Conceit is a distinctly human 
 emotion. No other animal has it. But it has 
 been lavished upon man with a generosity suffi- 
 cient to compensate for its total absence from the 
 rest of the universe. Man has always overesti- 
 mated himself. In whatever age or province of 
 the world you look down on the human imagina- 
 tion, you find it industriously digging disparities 
 and establishing gulfs. Man, according to him- 
 self, has had great difficulty many times in the 
 history of the world in escaping the divine. Ac- 
 cording to the facts, he has only in recent bio- 
 logical times and after great labour and uncertainty 
 abandoned his tail and his all-fours. According 
 to himself, man was made ' in the image of his 
 maker,' and has been endowed with powers and 
 
 105 
 
io5 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 properties peculiarly his own. According to the 
 facts, he has come into the world in a manner 
 identical with that of all other animals, and has 
 been endowed with like nature and destiny. Man 
 has never manifested a warmer or more indehcate 
 enthusiasm than the enthusiasm with which he 
 has appreciated himself. And with the same 
 ardour with which he has praised himself he has 
 maligned and misrepresented others. Man has 
 set himself up as the supreme judge and executive 
 of the world, and he has not hesitated to award to 
 himself the lion's share of everything. He has 
 ransacked his fancy for adjectives with which to 
 praise himself, and driven his inventive faculties 
 to the verge of distraction in search of justification 
 for his crimes upon those around him. Every 
 individual bent on deeds of darkness first seeks in 
 his own mind justification for his purposed sins. 
 And it is a caustic comment on the character of 
 human conviction that no enthusiastic criminal — 
 from the marauder of continents to the kitchen 
 pilferer— ever yet sought unsuccessfully at the 
 court of his conscience for a sinful permit. It 
 was an easy matter, therefore, for man — aided as 
 he was by such an experienced imagination — to 
 convince himself that all other animals were made 
 for him, that they were made without feeling or 
 intelligence, and that hence he was justified in 
 using in any way he chose the conveniences so 
 generously provided by an eccentric providence. 
 
 But Darwin has lived. Beings have come into 
 the world, we now know, through the operation of 
 
THE CONFLICT OF SCIENCE T07 
 
 natural law. Man is not different from the rest. 
 The story of Eden is a fabrication, bequeathed to 
 us by our well-meaning but dimly-lighted ancestors. 
 There has been no more miracle in the origin of 
 the human species than in the origin of any other 
 species. And there is no more miracle in the origin 
 of a species than there is in the birth of a molecule 
 or in the breaking of a tired wave on the beach. 
 Man was not made in the image of the hypothetical 
 creator of heaven and earth, but in the image of 
 the ape. Man is not a fallen god, but a pro- 
 moted reptile. The beings around him are not 
 conveniences, but cousins. Instead of stretching 
 away to the stars, man's pedigree slinks down into 
 the sea. Horrible revelation ! Frightful anti- 
 thesis ! Instead of celestial genesis and a ' fall ' 
 — long and doleful promotion. Instead of elysian 
 gardens and romance — the slime. Instead of a 
 god with royal nostrils miraculously animating an 
 immortal duplicate — a little lounging cellule, too 
 small to be seen and too senseless to distinguish 
 between midnight and noon. But the situation is 
 not half so horrible as it looks to be to those who 
 see only the skin of things. Is it not better, after 
 all, to be the honourable outcome of a straight- 
 forward evolution than the offspring of flunky- 
 loving celestials ? Are the illustrious children of 
 the ape less glorious than the sycophants of 
 irrational theological systems ? Darwin dealt in 
 his quiet way some malicious blows to human 
 conceit, but he also bequeathed to a misguided 
 world the elements of its ultimate redemption. 
 
io8 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 The supposed psychical gulf between human 
 and non-human beings has no more existence, 
 outside the flamboyant imagination of man, than 
 has the once-supposed physical gulf. It is pure 
 fiction. The supposition is a relic of the rapidly 
 dwindling vanity of anthropocentricism, and is 
 perpetuated from age to age by human selfishness 
 and conceit. It has no foundation either in 
 science or in common-sense. Man strives to 
 lessen his guilt by the laudation of himself and 
 the disparagement and degradation of his victims. 
 Like the ostrich, who, pursued by death, impro- 
 vises an imaginary escape by plunging its head 
 into the desert, so man, pursued by the vengeful 
 correctives of his own conscience, fabricates a 
 fictitious innocence by the calumniation of those 
 upon whom he battens. But such excuses cannot 
 much longer hold out against the rising conscious- 
 ness of kinship. Psychology, like all other sciences, 
 is rapidly ceasing to attend exclusively to human 
 phenomena. It is lifting up its eyes and looking 
 about ; it is preparing to become comparative. 
 It has come to realise that the mind of man is but 
 a single shoot of a something which ramifies the 
 entire animal world, and that in order to under- 
 stand its subject it is necessary for it to familiarise 
 itself with the whole field of phenomenon. The 
 soul of man did not commence to be in the savage. 
 It commenced to be in the worm, whose life man 
 grinds out with his heel, and in the bivalve that 
 Bounders in his broth. The roots of conscious- 
 ness are in the sea. Side by side with physical 
 
THE CONFLICT OF SCIENCE 109 
 
 evolution has gone on psychical evolution ; side 
 by side vi^ith the evolution of organs and tissues 
 has gone on the evolution of intellect, sensibility, 
 and will. Human nature and human mind are 
 no more sui generis than are human anatomy and 
 physiology. The same considerations that prove 
 that man's material organism is the cumulative 
 result of long evolution proclaim that human 
 mind, the immaterial concomitant of the material 
 organism, is also the cumulative result of long 
 evolution. 
 
 We might just as well recognise facts first as 
 last, for they will have to be recognised some time. 
 Truths are not put down by inhospitality — they 
 are simply put off. The universe has a policy, a 
 program. We may close our eyes to the facts 
 around us, hoping in this way to compel them to 
 pass away or be forgotten. But they do not pass 
 away, nor will they be forgotten. They simply 
 become invisible. They will live on and present 
 themselves to other minds or ages or climes more 
 hospitable or honest than our own. The only 
 proper attitude of mind to assume toward the 
 various doctrines existing among men is the 
 attitude of perfect willingness to believe anything 
 — anything that appeals to us as being reasonable 
 and right. The great majority of men, however, 
 are intellectual solids — unable to move and un- 
 willing to think. They have certain beliefs to which 
 they are determined to hold on, and everything that 
 does not fit in with these behefs is rejected as a 
 matter of course. 
 
THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Evidences of Psychical Evolution. 
 
 hat mind has evolved, and that there is a 
 ;hical kinship, an actual consanguinity of 
 :ngs and ideas, among all the forms of animal 
 is proved incontestably by the following facts : 
 , The evolution of mind is implied by the fact 
 :he evolution of structures. ' I hold,' says 
 nanes, in the introduction to his great vi^ork 
 ' Mental Evolution,' ' that, if the doctrine of 
 inic evolution is accepted, it carries with it, 
 L necessary corollary, the doctrine of mental 
 ution.' It makes no difference what theory 
 adopt regarding the essential natures of the 
 sical and the psychical — whether we agree with 
 materialist that mind is an attribute of matter, 
 I the idealist that matter is a creation of mind, 
 I the monist that mind and body are only 
 rent aspects of the same central entity, or 
 1 the dualist that body and soul are two distinct 
 
 temporarily dependent existences — we must 
 ny case recognise the fact, which is perceived 
 ill, that there is an ever-faithful parallel he- 
 rn the neural and psychical phenomena of 
 y organism. And if the elements which 
 r into and make up the physical structure of 
 
 have been derived from, and determined by, 
 eding forms of hfe, the elements which enter 
 
 and make up the psychical counterpart of 
 physical have also, without any doubt, been 
 rited from, and determined by, ancestral life 
 
 IS. 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION iii 
 
 2. Closely allied to the foregoing reason for a 
 belief in the evolution of mind is that derived from 
 a comparative survey of the nervous system in 
 man and other animals. In man, mind is closely 
 associated with a certain tissue or system of 
 tissues — nerve tissue or the nervous system. That 
 mind is correlated with nerve structure, and that 
 mental anatomy may be learned from a study of 
 the anatomy of the nervous system, especially of 
 the brain, is the basic postulate of the science of 
 physiological psychology. Now, nerve cells exist 
 in all animals above the sponge, and a compara- 
 tively well-developed nervous system is found even 
 among many of the invertebrates, as the higher 
 worms, crustaceans, insects, and mollusks. The 
 nervous system of invertebrates, though composed 
 of the same kind of tissue, is constructed accord- 
 ing to a somewhat different plan of architecture 
 from that of the vertebrates. But in all of the 
 great family of backboned animals the nervous 
 system is built on the same general plan as in 
 man, with a cerebro-spinal trunk extending from 
 the head along the back and motory and sensory 
 nerves ramifying to all parts of the body. There 
 is also a sympathetic nervous system in all animals 
 down as far as the insects. The brain, which is 
 the most important part of the nervous system, and 
 which has been called the 'organ of consciousness,' 
 presents throughout the animal kingdom, from 
 its beginning in the worms to man, a graduated 
 series of increasing complication proceeding out 
 of the same fundamental type. This is especially 
 
112 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 true of the vertebrates. Fishes, amphibians, 
 reptiles, birds, and mammals, all have in their 
 brains the same primary parts, the same five 
 fundamental divisions, as are found in the brain 
 of man. Hence, whatever may be thought about 
 the mental states of invertebrates, we have the 
 right, in the case of the vertebrate orders of life, 
 to infer, from the general similarity of their 
 nervous system to our own, that they have a 
 corresponding similarity to ourselves in mental 
 constitution and experience. 
 
 3. The evolution of mind is suggested by the 
 existence in the animal world of all grades of 
 intelligence, from almost mindless forms to forms 
 even exceeding in some respects the mental 
 attainments of men. The jelly-fish and the 
 philosopher are not mental aliens. They are 
 linked to each other by a continuous gradation of 
 intermediate intelligences. The existence of these 
 grades of mental development suggest psychical 
 evolution and kinship, just as the existence of like 
 grades of structural development suggest physical 
 evolution. 
 
 4. In the mental life of animals the same 
 factors of evolution exist as those by means of 
 which organic structures have been brought into 
 existence, and it is reasonable to suppose that the 
 operation of these factors have produced in the 
 mental world results analogous to those produced 
 by the operation of the same factors among organic 
 structures. 
 
 Men and other animals vary in their natures 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 113 
 
 and mental faculties quite as much as they do in 
 colour, size, and shape. It is commonly supposed 
 that the mental and temperamental variety existing 
 among individual men does not exist among indi- 
 vidual birds, quadrupeds, insects, etc. But a little 
 observation or reflection ought to be enough to 
 convince anyone that such a supposition belongs 
 to that batch of pre-Darwinian mistakes presented 
 to us by an over-generous past. We are not ac- 
 quainted with the inhabitants of our fields and 
 barn-yards. We are almost as ignorant of the 
 mental life and personality of these door-yard 
 neighbours and friends of ours as we would be if 
 they were the inhabitants of another continent. 
 That is why our obtuse minds lump them together 
 so indiscriminately — we do not know anything 
 about them. We never take the trouble, or think 
 it worth while, to get acquainted with them, 
 much less to study and know them. We have 
 grown up in the falsehood that they are altogether 
 different from what we are, and that it is really 
 not worth while to bother our gigantic heads 
 about them, except to use them when it comes 
 handy, or kick them to one side, or execute them, 
 when they get in the way. Everybody else looks 
 at the matter in about the same way, so we just 
 let it go at that. 
 
 There is a sameness about foreigners and other 
 classes of human beings with whom we are but 
 slightly, or not at all, acquainted, until we come 
 to know them and can discriminate one from 
 another, I remember once asking my sister, if 
 
114 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 her baby, which looked to me like all other 
 babies I had ever seen, were mixed up with a lot 
 of other babies of about the same age, whether 
 she could pick hers out from all the rest, and she 
 gave me an unmistakable affirmative by answering, 
 * What a foolish question !' 
 
 There is less variety among the individuals of 
 non-human races than among individual men, 
 just as there is less variety among individual 
 savages than among the members of a civilised 
 community. But there is mental diversity among 
 all beings, and we only need to whittle our obser- 
 vation a little to recognise the fact. You never 
 hear the keeper of a menagerie or any intelligent 
 associate of dogs, horses, birds, or insects say 
 there is no individuality among these animals. 
 Brehm, the great German naturalist, assures us 
 that each individual monkey of all those he kept 
 tame in Africa had its own peculiar temper and 
 disposition. And this is no more than what 
 everyone who knows anything about it knows to 
 be true of dogs, horses, cats, cattle, birds, and 
 even fishes and insects. Any intelligent dog- 
 fancier or pigeon-fancier can tell you the personal 
 peculiarities of every one of the fifty or a hundred 
 dogs or pigeons in his charge. He has watched 
 and studied them since they came into existence, 
 and through this continuous association he has 
 come to know them. He simply makes discrimina- 
 tions that are not made by the casual or superficial 
 observer. The Laplander knows and names each 
 reindeer in his herd, though to a stranger they are 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 115 
 
 all as much alike as the multitudes on an ant-hill. 
 The Peckhams of Milwaukee, those indefatigable 
 investigators of spiders and insects, are constantly 
 telling us of the wonderful individuality possessed 
 by these lowly lessees of our fields and gardens. 
 In their work on ' The Habits and Instincts of the 
 Solitary Wasps,' speaking of the ammophiles, these 
 authors say : ' In this species, as in every one that 
 we have studied, we have found a most interesting 
 variation among the different individuals, not only 
 in methods, but in character and intellect. While 
 one was beguiled from her hunting by every sorrel 
 blossom she passed, another stuck to her work 
 with indefatigable perseverance. While one stung 
 her caterpillars so carelessly and made her nest in 
 so shiftless a way that her young could survive 
 only through some lucky chance, another devoted 
 herself to these duties not only with conscientious 
 earnestness, but with an apparent craving after 
 artistic perfection that was touching to see.' The 
 variation in the mental phenomena of animals, 
 including man, is partly innate, and partly the 
 result of environment or education. 
 
 Animals not only vary in their mental qualities, 
 but they also inherit these variations, just as they 
 do physical properties and peculiarities. Evidence 
 of this is furnished by every new being that 
 comes into the world. Insanity runs in fami- 
 lies, and so does genius and criminality. Even 
 the most trifling idiosyncrasies are often trans- 
 mitted, not only by men, but also by dogs, horses, 
 and other animals. Such qualities of mind as 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 courage, fidelity, good and bad temper, intelligence, 
 timidity, special tastes and aptitudes, are cer- 
 tainly transmitted in all the higher orders of 
 animal life. 
 
 Animals are also selected, are enabled to survive 
 in the struggle for life quite as much through the 
 possession by them of certain mental qualities as 
 on account of their physical characters. Whether 
 the selections are made by nature or by man, they 
 are not determined by the physical facts of size, 
 strength, speed, and the like, more than by cunning, 
 courage, sagacity, skill, industry, devotion, ferocity, 
 tractability, and other mental properties. The 
 fittest survive, and the fittest may be the most 
 timid or analytic as well as the most powerful. 
 No better illustration of this truth can be found 
 than that furnished by man himself. Man is by 
 nature a comparatively feeble animal. He is 
 neither large nor powerful. Yet he has been 
 selected to prosper over all other animals because 
 of his ingenuity, sympathy, and art. The great 
 feeling and civilisation of higher men have been 
 built up by slow accretion due to the operation of 
 the law of survival extending over vast measures 
 of time. Creeds and instincts, governments and 
 impulses, forms of thought and forms of expres- 
 sion, have struggled and survived just as have 
 cells and species. A struggle for existence is 
 constantly going on, as Max Miiller has pointed 
 out, even among the words and grammatical 
 forms of every language. The better, shorter, 
 easier forms are constantly gaining the ascendancy, 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 117 
 
 and the longer and more cumbrous expressions 
 grow obsolete. 
 
 If, therefore, the higher types of mind have not 
 come into existence as have the higher types of 
 structure, through evolution from simpler and 
 more generalised forms, it has not been due to 
 the absence of the factors necessary for bringing 
 about this evolution. 
 
 5. The presumption created by the existence of 
 the factors of psychic evolution is strengthened by 
 the facts of artificial selection. We know mind 
 can evolve, for it has done so in many cases. The 
 races of domesticated animals, the races whom 
 man has exploited and preyed upon during the 
 past several thousand years, have, many of them, 
 been completely changed in character and intelli- 
 gence through human selection. Old instincts 
 have been wiped out and new ones implanted. In 
 many instances the psychology has been not only 
 revolutionised, but remade. 
 
 Take, for instance, the dog. The dog is a 
 reformed bandit. It is a revised wolf or jackal. 
 It has been completely transformed by human 
 selection ; indeed, it may be said that the dog 
 in the last ten or fifteen thousand years has 
 made greater advances in sagacity and civilisation 
 than any other animal, scarcely even excepting 
 man. Man has made wonderful strides along 
 purely intellectual lines, but in the improvement 
 of his emotions he has not been so successful. 
 The rapid development of the dog in feeling and 
 intelligence has no doubt been due to the fact that 
 
ii8 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 his utility to man has always depended largely on 
 his good sense and fidelity, and man has persis- 
 tently emphasised these quahties in his selection. 
 Fierceness and distrust — two of the most promi- 
 nent traits in the psychology of the primitive dog 
 — have been entirely eradicated in the higher races 
 of dogs. There is not anywhere on the face of 
 the earth a more trustful, affectionate, and docile 
 being than this one-time cut-throat. Whether 
 the dog has been derived from the wolf or from 
 some wild canine race now extinct, or from several 
 distinct ancestors, he must have had originally a 
 fierce, distrustful, and barbaric nature, for all of 
 the undomesticated members of the dog family — 
 wolves, foxes, jackals, etc. — have natures of this 
 sort. 
 
 There are about 175 different races of domestic 
 dogs. They represent almost as great a range of 
 development as do the races of men. Some of 
 them are exceedingly primitive, while others are 
 highly intelligent and civilised. The Eskimo dogs 
 are really nothing but wolves that have been 
 trained to the service of man. They look like 
 wolves, and have the wolf psychology. They are 
 not able to bark, like ordinary dogs ; they howl 
 like wolves, and their ears stand up straight, like 
 the ears of all wild Canids. Some of the more 
 advanced of the canine races — like the sheep-dogs, 
 pointers, and St. Bernards — are animals of great 
 sympathy and sensibility. When educated, these 
 dogs are almost human in their impulses and in 
 their powers of discernment. In patience, vigi- 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION iig 
 
 lance, and devotion to duty, they are superior to 
 many men. At a word, or even a look, from its 
 master, the loyal collie will gather the sheep scat- 
 tered for miles around to the place designated, 
 and do it with such tact and expedition as to 
 command admiration. It has been said that if it 
 were not for this faithful and competent canine 
 the highlands of Scotland would be almost useless 
 for sheep-raising purposes, because of the greater 
 expense that would be entailed if men were em- 
 ployed. One collie will do the work of several 
 men, and will do it better, and the generous- 
 hearted creature pours out its services like water. 
 It requires no compensation except table refuse 
 and a straw bed. In South America sheep-dogs 
 are trained to act as shepherds and assume the 
 whole responsibility of tending the flock. ' It is a 
 common thing,' says Darwin, ' to meet a large 
 flock of sheep guarded by one or two dogs, at a 
 distance of some miles from any house or man.' 
 When the dogs get hungry, they come home for 
 food, but immediately return to the flock on being 
 fed. ' It is amusing,' remarks this writer, ' to 
 observe, when approaching a flock, how the dog 
 immediately advances barking, while the sheep 
 all close in his rear as around the oldest ram.' 
 
 Romanes relates an incident which well illus- 
 trates the high character and intelligence of the 
 dog and its wonderful devotion to a trust. ' It 
 was a Scotch collie. Her master was in the habit 
 of consigning sheep to her charge without super- 
 vision. On this particular occasion he remained 
 
120 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 behind or proceeded by another road. On arriving 
 at home late in the evening, he was astonished to 
 learn that his faithful animal had not made her 
 appearance with the drove. He immediately set 
 out in search of her. But on going out into the 
 streets, there she was coming with the drove, not 
 one missing, and, marvellous to relate, she was 
 carrying a young puppy in her mouth. She had 
 been taken in travail on the hills, and how the 
 poor creature had contrived to manage her drove 
 in her condition is beyond human calculation, for 
 her road lay through sheep all the way. Her 
 master's heart smote him when he saw what she 
 had suffered and effected. But she was nothing 
 daunted, and after depositing her young one in a 
 place of safety she again set out full speed for the 
 hills, and brought another and another, till she 
 brought the whole litter, one by one ; but the last 
 one was dead'(i). 
 
 What a wonderful transformation in canine 
 character ! The very beings whose blood the dog 
 once drank with ravenous thirst it now protects 
 with courage and fidelity. And this transforma- 
 tion in character is not due to education simply. 
 It is innate. Young dogs brought from Tierra 
 del Fuego or Australia, where the natives do not 
 keep such domestic animals as sheep, pigs, and 
 poultry, invariably have an incurable propensity 
 for attacking these animals. 
 
 The feeling of ownership possessed by so many 
 dogs is an entirely new element in canine char- 
 acter, a trait implanted wholly by human selection. 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 121 
 
 Bold and confident on his own premises, the dog 
 immediately becomes weak and apologetic when 
 placed in circumstances in which he feels he has 
 no rights. 
 
 The pointers and setters have been developed 
 as distinct breeds by human selection during the 
 past 150 or 200 years. 
 
 What is true of the dog is true also, to a large 
 extent, of the cat, cow, horse, sheep, goat, fowl, 
 and other domestic animals. Serene and peaceful 
 puss is the tranquillised descendant of the wild 
 cat of Egypt, one of the most untamable of all 
 animals. The migratory instinct, so strong in 
 wild water-fowl, is almost absent from our geese 
 and ducks, as is the fighting propensity (prominent 
 in the Indian jungle-bird) from most varieties of 
 the domesticated chicken. There are now as 
 many as a hundred different kinds of domesticated 
 animals, and there is scarcely one of these animals 
 that has not been profoundly changed in character 
 during the period of its domestication. There are 
 much greater changes in some races than in others. 
 Some races have been much longer in captivity 
 than others. And then, too, there is great differ- 
 ence in the degree of plasticity in different races, 
 the races of ancient origin being much more fixed 
 in their psychology than those of more recent 
 beginnings. In some races, too — as in the sheep 
 — the selections made by man have been made 
 primarily with reference to certain physical 
 qualities, and in these cases the mental qualities 
 have been only incidentally affected. In Poly- 
 
122 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 nesia, where it is selected for its flavour instead of 
 for its fleetness or intelligence, the dog is said to 
 be a very stupid animal. But in most cases of 
 domestication the changes wrought by selection 
 in the mental make-up of the race have been fully 
 as great as the changes in body, and in some 
 instances much greater. And the process by 
 which these great changes in psychology have 
 been effected is in principle identically the same 
 as that by which mental evolution in general is 
 assumed to have been brought about. 
 
 6. The evolution of mind in the animal world 
 in general is suggested by the fact that mind in 
 man has evolved. The rich, luminous intellect 
 of civilised man, with its art, science, law, litera- 
 ture, government, and morality, has been evolved 
 from the rude, raw, demon-haunted mind of the 
 savage. Evidence of this evolution is furnished 
 by the recorded facts of human history, by the 
 antiquarian collections of our museums, and by 
 a study of existing savages. 
 
 History everywhere has come out of the night, 
 out of the deep gloom of the unrecorded. But it 
 has not leaped forth like lightning out of the 
 darkness. It has dawned, night being succeeded 
 by the amorphous shadows of legend and tradition, 
 and these in turn by the attested events of true 
 history. Almost every civilised people can trace 
 back its genealogy to a time when it was repre- 
 sented on the earth by one or more tribes of 
 savage or half- savage ancestors. The Anglo- 
 Saxons go back to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 123 
 
 three semi-savage tribes who came to England 
 from the borderlands of the Baltic fourteen or 
 fifteen centuries ago. The French are the de- 
 scendants of the Gauls, who formed the scattered 
 population of warring and superstitious tribes 
 referred to by Julius Caesar in the opening lines 
 of his ' Commentaries.' The blue-eyed Germans 
 came from the Cimbri, the Goths, and the Vandals, 
 those bold, wild hordes who charged out of the 
 north to battle with the power of Rome. And all 
 of the Aryan races — English, German, Italian, 
 Scandinavian, Russian, Roman, Greek, and Persian 
 — trace their ancestry back, by means of common 
 languages and legends, to a time when they were 
 wandering tribes of nomads tenting somewhere 
 on the plains of transcaspian Asia. 
 
 In all our museums there are collections of the 
 relics of prehistoric peoples. These collections 
 consist of objects upon which men in distant ages 
 of the world have wrought — their weapons, orna- 
 ments, utensils, implements, and playthings — 
 which have been saved from the teeth of Time 
 by their durability. The character of the minds 
 which operated on these objects, which produced 
 and used them, may be inferred from the character 
 of the objects, just as the life and surroundings of 
 an ancient animal or plant may be inferred from 
 its fossil. These relics are of stone, bone, bronze, 
 and iron. They are found in almost every region 
 of the earth — all over Europe and its islands, in 
 western and central Asia, in China and Japan, in 
 Malay, Australia, and New Zealand, in the islands 
 
124 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 of the Pacific, and throughout the length and 
 breadth of America. They antedate human history 
 by thousands of years. They are the ruins of the 
 Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age of 
 mankind. In all of these remains there is evidence 
 of a slow but gradual improvement as we approach 
 the present. There are places on the earth where 
 the evolution of human implements, from the 
 rudest chipped stones to the comparatively finished 
 products of historic peoples, is epitomised in the 
 deposits of a few feet in depth. One of these 
 occurs at Chelles, a suburb of Paris, and was 
 made the subject of a paper by Professor Packard 
 in the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1902. 
 Here three distinct layers, containing human 
 remains entirely different in character from each 
 other, appear within a depth of 30 feet from the 
 surface. The lowest bed, a layer of pebbles and 
 sand, and probably preglacial in origin, contains 
 the famous Chellean ' axes,' rude almond-shaped 
 implements of chipped flint, and used by these 
 ancient inhabitants by being held in the hand. 
 In this bed are also found the bones of the straight- 
 tusked elephant, cave-bear, big-nosed rhinoceros, 
 and other species now extinct. The next bed is 
 the interglacial, and contains implements entirely 
 different from the one below it, among which are 
 skin-scrapers and lance-points. The animal re- 
 mains of this bed are also different from those 
 found in the bed below, and include animals like 
 the musk-ox and the reindeer, which were probably 
 driven to this southern clime from more northern 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 125 
 
 regions by the excessive cold of the time. The 
 third bed, which lies just below the surface soils, 
 contains polished stone axes and other remains of 
 human industry cotemporaneous with the Swiss 
 lake-dwellers. From the swamps and loams are 
 sometimes dug up the remains of Gallo-Roman 
 civilisations — Gallic coins, serpentine axes, and 
 bronzes of the time of the Antonines. 
 
 No one can fully realise the vast advance that 
 has been made by the human mind until he has 
 looked upon a savage — has seen the savage in his 
 native haunts attacking the problems of his daily 
 life, and has tasted of his philosophy and disposi- 
 tion. The savage is the ancestor of all higher men. 
 When we look upon the savage, we look upon the 
 infancy of the human world. All of the laws, 
 languages, sciences, governments, religions, and 
 philosophies of civilised man, or nearly all of them 
 at any rate, are the exfoliated laws, languages, 
 sciences, governments, religions, and philosophies 
 of savages. It is impossible to understand the 
 laws of civilised societies without a knowledge of 
 the laws of savage societies. The same thing is 
 true of government, religion, and philosophy — 
 and of human nature itself. Human nature as 
 exhibited by civilised men and women — I mean 
 men and women with a veneering of civility, not 
 really civilised folks, for there are none of them 
 on the earth — is a perpetual enigma unless it is 
 illumined by restrospection, by a comparative 
 study of human nature, by a study of human 
 nature as seen in more and more primitive men 
 
126 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 and women. The mind of the savage, as com- 
 pared with that of civiHsed man, is exceedingly 
 primitive. The picture drawn by Gilbraith of the 
 North American Sioux is a typical picture of 
 savage life and character. Gilbraith lived among 
 these tribes for several years, and was thoroughly 
 acquainted with them. He says : 
 
 ' They are bigoted, barbarous, and exceedingly 
 superstitious. They regard most of the vices as 
 virtues. Theft, arson, rape, and murder are re- 
 garded by them as the means of distinction. The 
 young Indian is taught from childhood to regard 
 killing as the highest of virtues. In their dances 
 and at their feasts, the warriors recite their deeds 
 of theft, pillage, and slaughter as precious things ; 
 and the highest, indeed the only, ambition of the 
 young brave is to secure " the feather," which is 
 but the record of his having murdered, or partici- 
 pated in the murder of, some human being — 
 whether man, woman, «r child, it is im- 
 material' (19). 
 
 'Conscience,' says Burton, 'does not exist in 
 East Africa, and " repentance " simply expresses 
 regret for missed opportunities for crime. Robbery 
 makes an honorable man ; and murder, the more 
 atrocious the crime the better, makes the hero ' (2). 
 
 Many things appear natural and self-evident to 
 the savage which seem to us actually revolting. 
 When the Fuegians are hard pressed by want, 
 they kill their old women for food rather than 
 their dogs, saying : ' Old women no use ; dogs 
 kill otters.' 'What!' said a negro to Burton, 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 127 
 
 ' am I to starve while my sister has children 
 whom she can sell ?' 
 
 Lubbock, in his great work on ' The Origin of 
 Civilisation,' cites hundreds of instances of savage 
 rudeness and simplicity which seem almost in- 
 credible to one accustomed all his life to types of 
 human character such as are found in Europe and 
 America. For instance, ' when the natives of the 
 Lower Murray first saw pack-oxen, some of them 
 were frightened and took them for demons with 
 spears on their heads, while others thought they 
 were the wives of the settlers, because they carried 
 the baggage.' Speaking of the wild men in the 
 interior of Borneo, this writer says : ' They live 
 absolutely in a state of nature, neither cultivating 
 the ground nor living in huts. They eat neither 
 rice nor salt, and do not associate with each 
 other, but rove about the woods like wild beasts. 
 The sexes meet in the jungle. When the children 
 are old enough to shift for themselves, they usually 
 separate, neither one afterwards thinking of the 
 other. At night they sleep under some large 
 tree whose branches hang low. They fasten the 
 children to the branches in a kind of swing, and 
 build a fire around the tree to protect them from 
 snakes and wild beasts. The poor creatures are 
 looked on and treated by the other Dyaks as wild 
 beasts.' Lubbock sums up his conclusions on the 
 morality of savages in the following pathetic 
 acknowledgment : ' I do not remember a single 
 instance in which a savage is recorded as having 
 shown any symptoms of remorse ; and almost the 
 
128 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 only case I can call to mind in which a man 
 belonging to one of the lower races has accounted 
 for an act by saying explicitly that it was right, 
 was when Mr. Hunt asked a young Figian why 
 he had killed his mother ' (3). 
 
 A few pages further on, the same author adds, 
 regarding the deplorable state of morality among 
 savages : ' That there should be races of men so 
 deficient in moral feeling was altogether opposed 
 to the preconceived ideas with which I com- 
 menced the study of savage life, and I have 
 arrived at the conviction by slow degrees, and 
 even with reluctance. I have, however, been 
 forced to this conclusion, not only by the direct 
 statements of travellers, but also by the general 
 tenor of their remarks, and especially by the 
 remarkable absence of repentance and remorse 
 among the lowest races of men.' Among ourselves 
 the words used to distinguish right and wrong are 
 metaphors. Right originally meant ' straight,' and 
 wrong meant 'twisted.' Language existed, there- 
 fore, before morality ; for if moral ideas had 
 preceded language, there would have been original 
 words to stand for them. ReHgion, according to 
 Lubbock, has no moral aspect or influence except 
 among the more advanced races of men. 'The 
 deities of savages are evil, not good ; they may be 
 forced into compliance with the wishes of man ; 
 they generally delight in bloody, and often require 
 human, sacrifices ; they are mortal, not immortal ; 
 they are to be approached by dances rather than 
 by prayers ; and often approve what we call vice 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 129 
 
 rather than what we esteem as virtue. In fact, 
 the so-called religion of the lower races of man- 
 kind bears somewhat the same relation to religion 
 in its higher forms as astrology does to astronomy 
 or alchemy to chemistry ' (3). 
 
 Savages have few general ideas of any kind, as 
 is evidenced by the almost total absence among 
 them of words denoting general ideas. Many savage 
 races cannot comprehend numbers greater than 
 five or six, and are unable to make the simplest 
 mathematical computations without using the 
 fingers. The languages of savages are extremely 
 rude, words being freely pieced out with panto- 
 mime. Savages talk with difficulty in the dark, 
 because of their great reliance on gesture in con- 
 versation. The rich vocabularies of the languages 
 of Europe and America have grown up step by 
 step with the evolution of European and American 
 mind. Every language is an evolution. The 
 languages of many primitive peoples lack the verb 
 to be entirely, and all nouns are proper nouns. 
 Words are often little more than grunts or clucks, 
 and are without the euphony and articulation found 
 in the languages of the civilised. Darwin says 
 that the language of the Fuegians sounds like a 
 man clearing his throat. Not only every language, 
 but every word, both in its form and meaning, 
 is in process of evolution. Spirit, for instance, 
 originally meant 'blov/ing,' understanding meant 
 ' getting beneath,' and development the physical act 
 of 'unfolding.' Words are continually drifting 
 from their original meanings under the stress of 
 
 9 
 
130 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 incessant use, as ships drag their anchors in a 
 gale. Those words that are exposed to common 
 use undergo the most rapid changes, while words 
 sheltered from the rush of human affairs, like 
 harboured ships, hold to their moorings forever. 
 Let, for instance, once meant ' hinder ' ; now it 
 means ' allow.' Bisect, on the other hand, a 
 word of rare and technical use, has remained 
 unaltered in significance for twenty centuries. 
 
 Even our alphabet has been evolved. The 
 twenty-six symbols composing it have been eroded 
 into the peculiar forms in which they appear at 
 present by the various peoples through whose hands 
 they have come to us. The originals were picto- 
 graphs such as are still found on the aged monu- 
 ments of earth's earliest civilisations. The English 
 got their alphabet from the Romans, who obtained 
 it, along with almost everything else they had, 
 from the Greeks. The Greeks received it from the 
 Phenicians, and the Phenicians from the papyrus 
 writers of Egypt, who in turn procured it from 
 those hieroglyph chiselers who carved their curious 
 literatures on the granite tombs of the Nile in the 
 remotest dawn of human history. A, the first 
 letter of our alphabet, is a figure which has been 
 evolved, as the result of long wear and tear, from 
 the picture of an eagle; B was originally the 
 picture of a crane ; C represents a throne ; D a 
 hand ; F an asp ; H a sieve ; K a bowl ; L a 
 lioness ; M an owl ; N a water-line ; R a mouth ; 
 S a garden ; T a lassoo ; X a chairback ; and Z 
 a duck. 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 131 
 
 The psychology of civihsed man, though derived 
 from that of the savage, and hence resembhng it 
 fundamentally, is, nevertheless, very different from 
 it, both in character and in what it contains. 
 The mind of the savage is rude, unresourceful, 
 vicious, and childlike, while that of the civilised 
 man or woman may be overflowing with wisdom 
 and benignity. This gulf has not been covered 
 by a stride, but by the slow operation of the 
 same laws of Inheritance, Variation, and Selec- 
 tion by which all progress has been brought 
 about. 
 
 7. Degeneration is a necessary part of the pro- 
 cess of organic evolution. All progress, whether 
 anatomical, intellectual, or social, takes place 
 through selection, and selection means the pining 
 and ultimate passing away of that which is left. In 
 individual evolution it is organs, ideas, and traits 
 of character that are eliminated, and in social 
 evolution it is customs and institutions. One of 
 the reasons given in the preceding chapter for 
 the belief in the evolution of structures is the 
 existence in man and other animals of vestigial 
 organs, organs which in lower forms of life are 
 useful, but which in higher forms are represented 
 by useless or even injurious remnants. Similar 
 remnants are found in the psychology of man and 
 other animals. These vestiges of mind are not so 
 easily recognised as the vestiges of structure, 
 but they are everywhere. We find them in the 
 antiquated instincts of man and the domestic 
 animals, in the silent letters and worn-out words 
 
 9—2 
 
132 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 of languages, and in the emaciated remains of 
 abandoned beliefs and institutions. 
 
 The hunting and fishing instinct of civilised 
 man is a vestigial instinct, normal in the savage, 
 but without either sense or decency among men 
 devoted to industrial pursuits. The savage hunts 
 and fishes because he is hungry, never for pastime ; 
 civilised men and women do so because they are 
 too mechanical to assort their impulses. Civilised 
 man is a mongrel, a cross between a barbarian 
 and a god. His psychology is a compound of the 
 jungle and the sky. In their loftier moments, 
 many men are able to obscure the cruder facts of 
 their origin and to put into temporary operation 
 those more splendid processes of mind which 
 characterise their ideals. But even the most civil- 
 ised are forever haunted by the returning ghosts 
 of departed propensities — propensities which grew 
 up in ages of hate, which are now out-of-date, but 
 which in the trying tedium of daily life come 
 back and usurp the high places in human nature. 
 Revenge, hate, cruelty, pugnacity, selfishness, 
 vanity, and the like, are all more or less vestigial 
 among men who have entered seriously on the 
 life of altruism. Like the vermiform appendix 
 and the human tail, these old obsolete parts of the 
 human mind are destined, in the ripening of the 
 ages, to waste away and disappear through disuse. 
 
 The practice of the dog of turning round two or 
 three times before lying down is in response to an 
 instinct which was no doubt beneficial to it in its 
 wild life, when it was wont to make its bed in the 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 133 
 
 grasses, but which is now a pure waste of time. 
 Darwin records it as a fact, that he has himself 
 seen a simple-minded dog turn round twenty times 
 before lying down. The sheep-killing mania, 
 which sometimes comes over dogs when three or 
 four of them get together and become actuated by 
 the ' mob ' spirit, is a vestige of the old instinct of 
 the carnivore which centuries of domestication 
 have not yet quite erased. Goodness, if too 
 prolonged, becomes irksome to dogs for the same 
 reason that it does to men. Dogs have come 
 from savages just as men have, and, while the 
 civilised nature of the dog is more constitutional 
 than that of civilised man, the old deposed instincts 
 mount to the throne once in awhile, and the faith- 
 ful collie is for the time being a wolf again. The 
 instinct of domestic sheep to imitate their leader 
 in leaping over obstacles is another probable 
 survival of wild life. If a bar or other obstacle 
 be placed where the leader of a flock of sheep is 
 compelled to leap over it, and the obstacle is then 
 removed, the entire band of followers will leap at 
 the same place regardless of the fact that the 
 obstruction is no longer there. No other animals 
 do this. The instinct is probably a survival of 
 wild life, when these animals, pursued by their 
 enemies over chasms and precipices, were com- 
 pelled to imitate in the flight those in front of 
 them in order to live. Darwin thinks the donkey 
 shows its aboriginal desert nature in its aversion 
 for crossing the smallest stream, and its relish for 
 rolling in the dust. The same aversion for every- 
 
134 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 thing aquatic exists also in the cameh Quails kept 
 in captivity, I am told, persist in scratching at 
 the pan when they are feeding, just as they would 
 need to do, and were accustomed to do, among the 
 leaves and grasses of the groves. The restlessness 
 of cage-birds and domestic fowls at migrating 
 time, the mimic dipping and sporting of ducks 
 when confined to a terrestrial habitat, the grave 
 marshalling of geese by the chief gander of the 
 band, the ferocity of cows, ewes, and the females 
 of other domestic animals during the first few 
 days of motherhood, the hunting instinct of dogs 
 kept as shepherds and pets, the squatting of 
 young pigs when suddenly alarmed — all of these 
 are vestigial instincts, functional in the wild state, 
 but now useless and absurd. 
 
 The silent letters and superannuated words and 
 phrases found everywhere in literature are the 
 vestigial parts of language. Every silent letter 
 was originally sounded, and every obsolete word 
 was at one time used. In the French word, temps, 
 for instance, which means 'time,' neither the ^ 
 nor the s is sounded. But in the Latin word 
 tempus, from which the French word is derived, 
 all of the letters are sounded. 
 
 Man has been defined as a creature of habit. 
 As he has done a thing once, or as his ancestors 
 have done a thing, so he does it again. By 
 precept and example he transmits to each new 
 generation the customs, beliefs, and points of 
 view which he has invented. Social changes take 
 place with extreme moderation. The drowsy ages 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 135 
 
 take plenty of time to get anywhere. Civilisation 
 is lazy, deliberate, unimpassioned. It loafs and 
 hesitates. It holds on to the past. Living civilisa- 
 tions always drag behind them a trail of traditions 
 from dead civilisations. Religions and philosophies 
 change, and creeds and governments flow into 
 strange and undreamed-of forms ; but their person- 
 alities survive, their souls live on, their remnants, 
 transmitted as traditions from generation to 
 generation, defy the meddlings of innovators. 
 Hence in every society there are forms and cere- 
 monies, laws and customs, games and symbols, 
 etc., which have been completely diverted from 
 their original purposes, or which have become 
 so reduced in importance as to be of no use. 
 Spencer has shown that the forms of salutation in 
 vogue among civilised societies are the vestiges of 
 primitive ceremonial used to denote submission. 
 The May Day festivals with which the opening 
 spring is usually hailed are the much-modified 
 survivals of pagan festivals in honour of plant and 
 animal fecundity. Superstition and folklore are 
 vestigial opinions. The gorgeous Easter egg is a 
 survival of a dawn myth older than the Pyramids, 
 and our Christmas dinner is a reminiscence of a 
 cannibal carnival celebrating the turning back 
 of the sun at the winter solstice (Brinton). In 
 the English government, where democracy has 
 in recent centuries made such inroads on the 
 monarchy, there are numerous examples of vesti- 
 gial institutions — institutions which continue to 
 exist purely because they have existed in the past, 
 
136 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 but which were functional a few centuries ago. 
 The supreme office itself is one of these. The 
 King represents the petered-out tail-end of a privi- 
 lege which in the time of the early Stuarts was 
 almost unlimited. Similar vestiges exist in the 
 United States, where the national spirit during 
 the last century and a half has so completely 
 wiped out colonialism. Such are the Town 
 Meetings of Boston and of New Haven. The 
 earliest form of human marriage was marriage by 
 capture. The man stole the woman and carried her 
 away by force. This form of marriage was in the 
 course of evolution succeeded by marriage through 
 purchase. A man anxious to become a husband 
 could do so by paying to the father a stipulated 
 amount of cash or cattle for his daughter. This 
 second form of marriage finally evolved into mar- 
 riage arranged by direct and peaceful negotiation 
 between the prospective husband and wife. This 
 is the form most commonly employed at the 
 present time among the more advanced societies 
 of men. But in the ceremonies which surround 
 the nuptial event among civilised peoples survive 
 vestiges of many of the facts associated with 
 aboriginal marriages. A marriage in high life is 
 a sort of epitome of the evolution of the institu- 
 tion. The coyness and hesitancy of the woman 
 in accepting the offers of her proposed spouse are 
 the lineal descendants of the original reluctance 
 of her savage sisters. The wedding-ring is the 
 old token accepted by the woman when she 
 gave her pledge of bondage. The coming of the 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 137 
 
 groom with his aids to the marriage is a figura- 
 tive marauding expedition. The honeymoon is 
 the abduction. And the charivari and missile- 
 throwing indulged in by friends and relatives on 
 the departure of the wedded twain is a good- 
 humoured counterfeit of the armed protest made 
 by relatives of old when a bride-snatcher came 
 among them (4). 
 
 The vestiges found everywhere in the mental 
 and social phenomena of man and other animals 
 have arisen as necessary facts in the process of 
 mental evolution. They are the vermiform appen- 
 dices of the mind. 
 
 8. One of the strongest reasons for a belief in 
 the physical evolution of animal species is that 
 furnished by individual evolution. Each individual 
 animal recapitulates in a wonderful manner the 
 phylogenesis of its species. Now, it is extremely 
 significant that a similar parallel exists in the 
 case of mental evolution. Each individual mind 
 ascends through a series of mental faculties which 
 epitomises in a remarkable manner the psycho- 
 genesis of the animal kingdom. 
 
 The human child is not born with a full-grown 
 mind any more than with a full-grown body. It 
 grows. It exfoliates. It ripens with the years. 
 It begins in infancy at the zero-point, and in 
 manhood or womanhood may blaze with genius 
 and philanthropy. 
 
 But the mind of the child not only unfolds : it 
 unfolds in a certain order, the more complex 
 parts and the more civilised emotions invariably 
 
138 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 appearing last. The initial powers of the new- 
 born babe are those of sensation and perception. 
 The babe cannot think. It has no feeling of 
 fear, no affection, no sympathy, and no shame. 
 It can see, and hear, and taste, and feel pain 
 and satisfaction — and these are about all. Even 
 these are vague and confused. In a week the 
 perceptions are more sharp and vivid, more 
 distinct and orderly. Memory arises. Memory 
 is the power of reproducing past impressions. At 
 three weeks the emotions begin to sprout. The 
 first to make their appearance are fear and 
 surprise. When the babe is seven weeks old the 
 social affections show themselves, and the simplest 
 acts of association are performed. At the age of 
 twelve weeks jealousy and anger may be expected, 
 together with simple exhibitions of association 
 by similarity. At fourteen weeks affection and 
 reason dawn. Sympathy germinates at about the 
 age of five months ; pride and resentment ger- 
 minate at eight months ; grief, hate, and benevo- 
 lence at ten months ; and shame and remorse at 
 fifteen months. 
 
 Now, the remarkable thing about this is that 
 this is the order, or very much like the order, in 
 which mind in the animal kingdom as a whole 
 has apparently evolved. The lower orders of 
 animal life have none of the higher emotions and 
 none of the more complicated processes of mind. 
 There is no shame in the reptile, no dissimulation 
 in the fish, no sympathy in the moUusk, and no 
 memory in the sponge. Memory dawns in the 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 139 
 
 echinoderms, or somewhere near the radiate stage 
 of development, and fear and surprise in the 
 worms. Pugnacity makes its appearance in the 
 insects, imagination in the spiders, and jealousy 
 in the fishes. Pride, emulation, and resentment 
 originate in the birds ; grief and hate in the 
 carnivora ; shame and remorse among dogs and 
 monkeys; and superstition in the savage (i). 
 
 It is also an important fact bearing on the 
 general problem of evolution, that the civilised 
 child, from about the age of one on, is a sort of 
 synopsis, rude but unmistakable, of the historic 
 evolution of the human race. The child is a 
 savage. It has the emotions of the savage, the 
 savage's conceptions of the world, and the desires, 
 pastimes, and ambitions of the savage. It hates 
 work, and takes delight in hunting, fishing, fight- 
 ing, and loafing, like other savages. The hero of 
 the child is the bully, just as the demigod of primi- 
 tive man is a blood-letting Caesar or Achilles. 
 The children of the civilised are savages — some 
 more so than others — and if they ever become 
 civilised — some do, and some do not — they do so 
 through a process of rectification and selection 
 similar to that through which the Aryan races 
 have passed during the ages of human history. 
 
 There is a similar evolution in the young of 
 other animals, especially of the higher animals. 
 Each individual begins in a perfectly mindless 
 form, and grows mentally as it develops physically. 
 The young puppy has a very different thinking 
 and feeling apparatus from the grown-up mastiff. 
 
140 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 It is controlled almost exclusively by sense and 
 instinct. It is devoid of common-sense, and 
 divides its time impartially betvi'een play and 
 sleep. It is easily frightened, and cries at every 
 little thing. It has the rollicking, awkward, 
 irresponsible personality of a boy of six. About 
 the same thing is true of kittens, colts, calves, 
 bear cubs, the whelps of wolves, and other young 
 quadrupeds. A kitten will chase shadows, try to 
 catch flies crawling on the other side of a window- 
 pane, sit and watch in wonder the moving objects 
 about it, and do many other things which it never 
 thinks of doing when it has grown to be a wise 
 and sophisticated puss trained in the ways of 
 the world about it. Doghood, cathood, and 
 horsehood, like manhood and womanhood, are 
 the ripened products of long processes of growth 
 and exfoliation. 
 
 The parallel is, of course, imperfect. There are 
 many abbreviations, many breaks and ambiguities, 
 in the summary presented by the individual mind 
 of the evolution of the race. And, in the present 
 state of psychogeny, only the barest outline can be 
 traced. But enough is known to render the fact 
 unquestionable. 
 
 g. If human mind has been evolved, it is logical 
 to expect to find in other animals, especially in 
 those more closely resembling ourselves in struc- 
 ture, mind elements similar to those we find in 
 ourselves.* And this is precisely what we do find. 
 
 * This topic is more fully presented in section IV. of this 
 chapter. 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 141 
 
 The same great trunk impulses that animate men 
 animate also those more rudimentary but not less 
 real individuals below and around men. The 
 great primary facts of sex, of self-preservation, of 
 pleasure and pain, of life and death, of egoism and 
 altruism, of motherhood, of alimentation, etc. — 
 all of these are found everywhere, down almost to 
 the very threshold of organic life. And they are 
 the antecedents of the same great tendencies as 
 those that control the lives of men. It is often 
 supposed by the superficial that the facts of sex 
 and alimentation, which are so prominent in other 
 animals, have been relegated to a very subordinate 
 place in the nature of man. But nothing could 
 be much farther from the truth. It has been said 
 that there are only two things that will induce the 
 typical African or Australian to undergo prolonged 
 labour — hunger and the sex appetite. It is probable 
 that men — not only primitive men, but the most 
 evolved races, including even poets and philoso- 
 phers — will do more desperate and idiotic things 
 and undergo more trying experiences when 
 actuated by the sex impulse than from the effects 
 of any other impulse in human nature. This 
 impulse is especially overmastering in races like 
 the Italian and Spanish, and has been mentioned 
 by ethnologists as a probable factor in the deteri- 
 oration of these races. The sentiments of love, 
 marital affection, and family life control mankind 
 more completely than any other motives. And 
 next to these comes hunger. Let anyone who 
 imagines that only the non-human creatures are 
 
142 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 carnal observe with what uniformity almost every 
 function in both savage and civilised life gravitates 
 toward eating and drinking. If it is a picnic, 
 a convention, a national holiday, a Christmas 
 celebration, a meeting of a fraternal society, a 
 thanksgiving ceremony, or what not, eating is one 
 of the main things, and the one exercise into 
 which four-fifths of those present probably enter 
 with the greatest enthusiasm. 
 
 The human soul is the blossom, not the 
 beginning, of psychic evolution. Mother - love 
 compassionated infancy long before a babe came 
 from the stricken loins of woman. The inhabitants 
 of the earth had been seeking pleasure and seeking 
 to avoid pain, and seeking ever with the same sad 
 futility, long before man with his retinue of puny 
 philosophies strutted upon the scene. Hate 
 poisoned the cisterns of the sea and dropped its 
 pollutions through the steaming spaces ages before 
 there was malice among men. Altruism is older 
 than the mountains, and selfishness hardened the 
 living heart before the continents were lifted. 
 There was wonder in the woods and in the wild 
 heart of the fastnesses before there were wailings 
 in synagogues and genuflections about altar piles. 
 The frogs, crickets, and birds had been singing love 
 a thousand generations and more when the first 
 amoroso knelt in dulcet descant to a beribboned 
 Venus. Human nature is not an article of divine 
 manufacture, any more than is the human form. 
 It came out of the breast of the bird, out of the 
 soul of the quadruped. The human heart does 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 143 
 
 not draw back from the mysterious dissolutions of 
 death more earnestly than does the hare that flees 
 before resounding packs or the wild-fowl that 
 reddens the reeds with its flounderings. Bower- 
 birds build their nestside resorts, decorate them 
 with gay feathers, and surround them with grounds 
 ornamented with bright stones and shells, for 
 identically the same reason as human beings 
 design drawing-rooms, hang them with tapestries, 
 and surround them with ornamented lawns. The 
 scarlet waistcoat of the robin and the flaming 
 dresses of tanagers and humming-birds, which 
 seem, as they flash through the forest aisles, like 
 shafts of cardinal-fire, serve the same vanities and 
 minister to the same instincts as the plumage of 
 the dandy and the tints and gewgaws of gorgeous 
 dames. Art is largely a manifestation of sex, and 
 it is about as old and about as persistent as this 
 venerable impulse. How did Darwin's dog know 
 his master on his master's return from a five-years' 
 trip around the world ? Just as the boy remembers 
 where the strawberries grow and the philosopher 
 recalls his facts — by that power of the brain to 
 retain and to reproduce past impressions. Why 
 does the thinker search his soul for new theories 
 and the spaces for new stars ? For the same 
 reason that the child asks questions and the 
 monkey picks to pieces its toys. What is reason ? 
 A habit of wise men — an expedient of ants — a 
 mania the fools of all ages are free from. All 
 of the activities of men, however imposing or 
 peculiar, are but elaborations in one way or 
 
144 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 another of the humble doings of the animalcule, 
 whose home is a water-drop and whose existence 
 can be discovered by human senses only by the 
 aid of instruments. 
 
 10. Mind has evolved because the universe has 
 evolved. Whether mind is a part of the universe, 
 or all of it, or only an attribute of it, it is, in any 
 case, inextricably mixed up with it. And, since the 
 universe as a whole has evolved, it is improbable 
 that any part of it or anything pertaining to it 
 has remained impassive to the general tendency. 
 There are no solids. Nothing stands. The whole 
 universe is in a state of fluidity. Even the 
 ' eternal hills,' the ' unchanging continents,' and 
 the ' everlasting stars,' are flowing, flowing ever, 
 slowly but ceaselessly, from form to form. So 
 is mind. Indeed, if there is anywhere in the folds 
 of creation a being such as the one whom man 
 has long accused of having brought the universe 
 into existence, we may rest assured that even he 
 is not sitting passively apart from the enormous 
 enterprise which he has himself inaugurated. 
 
 The evidence is conclusive. The evolution of 
 mind is supported by a series of facts not less 
 incontrovertible and convincing than that by 
 which physical evolution is established. The 
 data of mental evolution are not quite so definite 
 and plentiful as those of physical evolution. But 
 this is due to the greater intangibility of mental 
 phenomena and to the backward condition of the 
 psychological sciences, especially of comparative 
 psychology. Mental phenomena are always more 
 
PSYCHICAL EVOLUTION 145 
 
 difficult to deal with than material phenomena, 
 and hence are always more tardily attended to in 
 the application of any theory. But taking every- 
 thing into account, including the close connection 
 between physical and psychical phenomena, it 
 may be asserted that it is not more certain that 
 the physical structure of man has been derived 
 from sub-human forms of life than it is that the 
 human mind has also been similarly derived. 
 
 Man is the adult of long evolution. The human 
 soul has ancestors and consanguinities just as the 
 body has. It is just as reasonable to suppose 
 that the human physiology, with its definitely 
 elaborated tissues, organs, and systems, is unrelated 
 to the physiology of vertebrates in general, and 
 through vertebrate physiology to the physiology 
 of invertebrates, as to suppose that the states 
 and impulses constituting human nature and con- 
 sciousness began to exist in the anthropic type of 
 anatomy and are unrelated to the states and im- 
 pulses of vertebrate consciousness in general, and 
 through vertebrate consciousness to those remoter 
 types of sentiency lying away at the threshold 
 of organic life. Human psychology is a part of 
 universal psychology. It has been evolved. It 
 has been evolved according to the same laws of 
 heredity and adaptation as have physiological 
 structures. And it is just as impossible to under- 
 stand human nature and psychology unaided by 
 those wider prospects of universal psychology as 
 it is to understand the facts of human physiology 
 unaided by analogous universalisations, 
 
 10 
 
146 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 III. The Common-sense View. 
 
 But it is not necessary to be learned in 
 Darwinian science in order to know that non- 
 human beings have souls. Just the ordinary 
 observation of them in their daily lives about us 
 — in their comings and goings and doings — is 
 sufficient to convince any person of discernment 
 that they are beings with joys and sorrows, desires 
 and capabilities, similar to our own. No human 
 being with a conscientious desire to learn the 
 truth can associate intimately day after day with 
 these people — associate with them as he himself 
 would desire to be associated with in order to 
 be interpreted, without presumption or reserve, 
 in a kind, honest, straightforward, magnanimous 
 manner; make them his friends and really enter 
 into their inmost lives — without realising that 
 they are almost unknown by human beings, that 
 they are constantly and criminally misunderstood, 
 and that they are in reality beings actuated by 
 substantially the same impulses and terrorised by 
 approximately the same experiences as we our- 
 selves. They eat and sleep, seek pleasure and try 
 to avoid pain, cling valorously to life, experience 
 health and disease, get seasick, suffer hunger and 
 thirst, co-operate with each other, build homes, 
 reproduce themselves, love and provide for their 
 children, feeding, defending, and educating them, 
 contend against enemies, contract habits, remem- 
 ber and forget, learn from experience, have friends 
 and favourites and pastimes, appreciate kindness. 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 147 
 
 commit crimes, dream dreams, cry out in distress, 
 are aifected by alcohol, opium, strychnine, and 
 other drugs, see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, are 
 industrious, provident and cleanly, have languages, 
 risk their lives for others, manifest ingenuity, 
 individuality, fidelity, affection, gratitude, heroism, 
 sorrow, sexuality, self-control, fear, love, hate, 
 pride, suspicion, jealousy, joy, reason, resent- 
 ment, selfishness, curiosity, memory, imagination, 
 remorse — all of these things, and scores of others, 
 the same as human beings do. 
 
 The anthropoid races have the same emotions 
 and the same ways of expressing those emotions 
 as human beings have. They laugh in joy, whine 
 in distress, shed tears, pout and apologise, and get 
 angry when they are laughed at. They protrude 
 their lips when sulky or pouting, stare with wide- 
 open eyes in astonishment, and look downcast 
 when melancholy or insulted. When they laugh, 
 they draw back the corners of their mouth and 
 expose their teeth, their eyes sparkle, their lower 
 eyelids wrinkle, and they utter chuckling sounds, 
 just as human beings do (5). They have strong 
 sympathy for their sick and wounded, and manifest 
 toward their friends, and especially toward the 
 members of their own family, a devotion scarcely 
 equalled among the lowest races of mankind. 
 They use rude tools, such as clubs and sticks, and 
 resort to cunning and deliberation to accomplish 
 their ends. The orang, when pursued, will throw 
 sticks at his pursuers, and when wounded, and 
 the wound does not prove instantly fatal, will 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 sometimes press his hand upon the wound or 
 apply grass and leaves to stop the flow of blood. 
 The children of anthropoids wrestle with each 
 other, and chase and throw each other, just as do 
 the juveniles of human households. The gorilla, 
 chimpanzee, and orang all build for themselves 
 lodges made of broken boughs and leaves in which 
 to sleep at night. These lodges, rude though they 
 are, are not inferior to the habitations of many 
 primitive men. The Puris, who live naked in the 
 depths of the Brazilian forests, do not even have 
 huts to live in, only screens made by setting up 
 huge palm-leaves against a cross-pole (5). Some 
 of the African tribes are said to live largely in 
 caves and the crevices of rocks. This is the case 
 with many primitive men. According to a writer 
 in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute 
 of Great Britain and Ireland (January, 1902), 
 ' common forms of dwelling among the wild tribes 
 of the Malay Peninsula are rock-shelters (some- 
 times caves, but more commonly natural recesses 
 under overhanging ledges) and leaf-shelters, which 
 are sometimes formed on the ground and some- 
 times in the branches of trees. The simplest 
 form of these leaf-shelters consists of a single 
 palm-leaf planted in the ground to afford the 
 wanderer some slight shelter for the night.' 
 
 When they sleep, the anthropoids sometimes lie 
 stretched out, man-like, on their backs, and some- 
 times they lie on their side with their hand under 
 their head for a pillow. The orang retires about 
 five or six o'clock in the evening, and does not rise 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 149 
 
 until the morning sun has dissipated the mists of 
 the forest. The gorilla and chimpanzee seem to 
 mate for life. The former lives, as a rule, in 
 single families, each family consisting of a male 
 and a female and their children. During the day 
 this primitive family roams through the forests of 
 equatorial Africa in search of food. They live on 
 fruits and nuts and the tender shoots and leaves 
 of plants. They are especially fond of sugar-cane, 
 which they eat in small-boy fashion by chewing 
 and discarding the juiceless pulp. Among the 
 foods of the gorilla is a walnut-like nut which it 
 cracks with stones. As evening comes on, the 
 head of the family selects a sleeping-place for the 
 night. This is usually some low tree with a 
 dense growth at the top, and protected as much as 
 possible by higher trees from the chilly night 
 wind. Here, on a bed of broken branches and 
 leaves, the mother and little ones^ go to sleep, 
 while the father devotedly crouches at the foot of 
 the tree, with his back against the trunk to guard 
 his family from leopards and other nocturnal 
 cut-throats who eat apes (7). When the weather 
 is stormy, they cover themselves with broad 
 pandanus leaves to keep off the rain. Koppenfels 
 relates an incident of a gorilla family which makes 
 one think of things he sometimes sees among men. 
 The family consisted of the parents and two 
 children. It was meal-time. The head of the 
 family reposed majestically on the ground, while 
 the wife and children hustled for fruits for him 
 in a near-by tree. If they were not sufficiently 
 
150 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 nimble about it, or if they were so wanton as to 
 take a bite themselves, the paterfamilias growled 
 and gave them a cuff on the head (7). Notwith- 
 standing the sensational tales of the ferocity of 
 this being, the gorilla never attacks anyone at 
 any time unless he is molested (7). He much 
 prefers to attend to his own business. But if he 
 is not allowed to do so, if he is attacked, he 
 is as fearless as a machine. He approaches his 
 antagonist walking upright and beating his breast 
 with his fists. He presents one of the most 
 terrifying of all spectacles, as, with gleaming 
 eyes, hair erect, and resounding yells, he bears 
 down on the object of his resentment. The 
 natives fear the gorilla more than they fear any 
 other animal. 
 
 The chimpanzee in his native wilds lives in 
 small tribes consisting of a few families each. 
 Like the gorilla, it passes the most of its time on 
 the ground, going among the trees only for food 
 or sleep. It builds a sleeping-place at night in 
 the trees, as in the case of the gorilla. Brehm, 
 who brought up a number of chimpanzees in his 
 own home as comrades and playmates of his 
 children, and who studied them and associated 
 with them for years, says: 'The chimpanzee is 
 not only one of the cleverest of all creatures, but 
 a being capable of deliberation and judgment. 
 Everything he does is done consciously and 
 deliberately. He looks upon all other animals, 
 except man, as very inferior to himself. He 
 treats children entirely different from grown-up 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 151 
 
 people. The latter he respects; the former he 
 looks upon as comrades and equals. He is not 
 merely inquisitive: he is greedy for knowledge. 
 He can draw conclusions, can reason from one 
 thing to another, and apply the results of experi- 
 ence to new circumstances. He is cunning, even 
 wily, has flashes of humour, indulges in practical 
 jokes, manifests moods, and is entertained in one 
 company and bored in another. He is self-willed 
 but not stubborn, good-natured but not wanting 
 in independence. He expresses his emotions like 
 a human being. In sickness he behaves like one 
 in despair, distorts his face, groans, stamps, and 
 tears his hair. He learns very easily whatever is 
 taught him, as, for instance, to sit upright at 
 table, to eat with knife and fork and spoon, to 
 drink from a glass or cup, to stir the sugar in his 
 tea, to use a napkin, to wear clothes, to sleep in 
 a bed, and so on. Exceedingly appreciative of 
 every caress, he is equally sensitive to blame and 
 unkindness. He is capable of deep gratitude, and 
 he expresses it by shaking hands or kissing with- 
 out being asked to do so. He behaves toward 
 infants with touching tenderness. The behaviour 
 of a sick and suffering chimpanzee is most pathetic. 
 Begging piteously, almost humanly, he looks into 
 his master's face, receives every attempt to help 
 him with warm thanks, and soon looks upon his 
 physician as a benefactor, holding out his arm to 
 him, stretching out his tongue whenever told, and 
 even doing so of his own accord after a few 
 visits from his physician. He swallows medicines 
 
152 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 readily, and even submits to surgical operations — 
 in short, behaves very like a human patient in 
 similar circumstances. As his end approaches, 
 he becomes more gentle, and the nobler traits of 
 his character stand out prominently ' (8). 
 
 The New York Herald, in its issue of July 2, 
 igoi, contained an account of the death of Charle- 
 magne, a chimpanzee who died a short time before 
 at Grenoble, France. This anthropoid at the 
 time of his death was the most popular inhabitant 
 of the town. His popularity was due to his 
 good-nature and intelligence, and especially to the 
 fact that a few years before his death he had saved 
 a child from drowning in a well. The ape saw 
 the child fall, and without a moment's hesitation 
 climbed down the rope used for the buckets, seized 
 the child, and climbed out again by the same rope 
 by which he had descended. The people of the 
 town thought so much of him that they followed 
 his remains to the grave, and the municipal council 
 voted to erect a bronze statue to his memory. 
 
 A heartless hunter — maybe one of those assassins 
 who fill the wilds with widows and orphans in the 
 name of Science — tells of the murder of a mother 
 chimpanzee and her baby in Africa. The mother 
 was high up in a tree with her little one in her 
 arms. She watched intently, and with signs of 
 the greatest anxiety, the hunter as he moved about 
 beneath, and when he took aim at her the poor 
 doomed thing motioned to him with her hand 
 precisely in the manner of a human being, to have 
 him desist and go away. 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 153 
 
 According to Emin Pasha, who was for a 
 number of years Governor of an Egyptian pro- 
 vince on the Upper Nile, and whom Stanley made 
 his last expedition to ' rescue,' chimpanzees some- 
 times make use of fire. He told Stanley that, 
 when a tribe of chimpanzees who resided in a 
 forest near his camp came at night to get fruit 
 from the orchards, they always came bearing 
 torches to light them on their way. ' If I had not 
 seen it with my own eyes,' he declares, ' I never 
 could have believed that these beings have the 
 power of making fire' (g). This same authority 
 relates that on one occasion a band of chimpanzees 
 descended upon his camp and carried off a drum. 
 The marauders went away in great glee, beating 
 the drum as they retreated. He says he heard 
 them several times after that, at night, beating 
 their drum, in the forest. 
 
 The monkeys are little inferior to the man-like 
 races in their intelligence and in the general simi- 
 larity of their feelings and instincts to those of 
 men. Monkeys live in tribes, and at the head of 
 each tribe is an old male chief who has won 
 his place by his strength, courage, and ability. 
 Monkeys have excellent memories and keen ob- 
 servation, and are able to recognise their friends 
 in a crowd even after long absences. They are 
 proverbially imitative, have a strong desire for 
 knowledge, and are exceedingly sensitive and 
 sympathetic in their natures. Sympathy and 
 curiosity, the two most prominent traits in simian 
 psychology, are, significantly, the two most impor- 
 
154 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 tant facts in the psychology of man. Sympathy and 
 curiosity lie at the foundation of human civilisa- 
 tion, sympathy at the foundation of morals, and 
 curiosity of invention and science. The monkey 
 whose diary appears in the closing pages of 
 Romanes' * Animal Intelligence ' was possessed of 
 an almost ravenous desire to know. He spent 
 hour after hour in exploration, examining with 
 the indomitable patience of a scientist everything 
 that came within the bounds of his little horizon. 
 And when he had found out any new thing, he was 
 as delighted over it as a boy who has solved a 
 hard problem, repeating the experiment over and 
 over until it was thoroughly familiar to him. 
 Among the many things he discovered for himself 
 was the use of the lever and the screw. Monkeys 
 are the most affectionate of all animals excepting 
 dogs and men. This affection reaches its culmina- 
 tion, as among men, in the love of the mother for 
 her child. The mother monkey's little one is the 
 object of her constant care and affection. She 
 nurses and bathes it, licks it and cleans its coat, 
 and folds it in her arms and rocks it as if to lull 
 it to sleep, just as human mammas do. She 
 divides every bite with her little one, but does not 
 hesitate to chastise it with slaps and pinches when 
 it is rude. The monkey child is generally very 
 obedient, obedient enough for an example to 
 many a human youngster. 
 
 ' Very touching,' says Brehm, from whom many 
 of the foregoing facts are gleaned, ' is the conduct 
 of the mother when her baby is obviously suffer- 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 155 
 
 ing. And if it dies she is in despair. For hours, 
 and even for days, she carries the little corpse 
 about with her, refuses all food, sits indifferently 
 in the same spot, and often literally pines to 
 death' (8). 
 
 Orphan monkeys, according to Brehm, are often 
 adopted by the tribe, and carefully looked after by 
 the other monkeys, both male and female. The 
 great mass of human beings, who know about as 
 much about the real emotional life of monkeys 
 as wooden Indians do, are inclined to pass over 
 lightly all displays of feeling by these people of 
 the trees. But the poet knows, and the prophet 
 knows, and the world will one day understand, 
 that in the gentle bosoms of these wild woodland 
 mothers glow the antecedents of the same impulses 
 as those that cast that blessed radiance over the 
 lost paradise of our own sweet' childhood. The 
 mother monkey who gathered green leaves as she 
 fled from limb to limb, and frantically stuffed them 
 into the wound of her dying baby in order to 
 stanch the cruel rush of blood from its side, all 
 the while uttering the most pitiful cries and 
 casting reproachful glances at her human enemy, 
 until she fell with her darling in her arms and a 
 bullet in her heart, had in her simian soul just as 
 genuine mother-love, and love just as sacred, as 
 that which burns in the breast of woman. 
 
 The affection of monkeys is not confined to the 
 love of the mother for her child, but exists among 
 the different members of the same tribe, and extends 
 even to human beings, especially to those who 
 
156 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 make any pretensions to do to them as they would 
 themselves be done by. The monkey kept by 
 Romanes, already referred to, became so attached 
 to his master that he went into the wildest 
 demonstrations of joy whenever his master, after 
 an absence, came into the room. Standing on 
 his hind-legs at the full length of his chain, and 
 reaching out both hands as far as he could reach, 
 he screamed with all his might. His joy was so 
 hysterical that it was impossible to carry on any 
 kind of conversation until he had been folded in 
 his master's arms, when he immediately grew 
 quiet. 
 
 ' After I took this monkey back to the Zoological 
 Gardens,' says Romanes, 'and up to the time of 
 his death, he remembered me as well as the day 
 he was returned. I visited the monkey-house 
 about once a month, and whenever I approached 
 his cage he saw me with astounding quickness — 
 indeed, generally before I saw him — and ran to 
 the bars, through which he thrust both hands with 
 every expression of joy. When I went away he 
 always followed me to the extreme end of the 
 cage, and stood there watching me as long as I 
 remained in sight.' 
 
 The following account of the attachment of a 
 male monkey for his murdered consort is a pitiful 
 tale of human inhumanity and of simian tender- 
 ness and devotion : 
 
 ' A member of a shooting-party killed a female 
 monkey, and carried her body to his tent under a 
 banyan-tree. The tent was soon surrounded by 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 157 
 
 forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise 
 and threatened to attack the aggressor. When 
 he presented his fowling-piece, the fearful effects 
 of which they had just witnessed, and appeared 
 perfectly to understand, they retreated. The 
 leader of the troop, however, stood his ground, 
 threatening and chattering furiously. At last, 
 finding threats of no avail, the broken-hearted 
 creature came to the door of the tent and began a 
 lamentable moaning, and by the most expressive 
 signs seemed to beg for the dead body of his 
 beloved. It was given to him. He took it 
 sorrowfully in his arms and bore it away to his 
 expecting companions (10). 
 
 The chattering of monkeys is not, as is vulgarly 
 supposed, meaningless vocalisation. It is language. 
 It is meaningless to human ears for the same 
 reason that the chattering of Frenchmen is mean- 
 ingless to Americans — because human beings are 
 foreigners. The conversation of monkeys is to 
 convey thought. Every species that thinks and 
 feels has means for conveying its thoughts and 
 feelings, and the means for this exchange, whether 
 it be sounds, symbols, gestures, or grimaces, is 
 language. As Wundt somewhere says : ' If 
 psychologists of to-day, ignoring all that an 
 animal can express through gestures and sounds, 
 limit the possession of language to human beings, 
 such a conclusion is scarcely less absurd than that 
 of many philosophers of antiquity who regarded 
 the languages of barbarous nations as animal 
 cries.' Mr. Garner, who has so long and so 
 
158 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 sympathetically associated with monkeys, has 
 been able to translate a number of their words 
 and to enter into slight communication with them. 
 Among the words he has been able to understand 
 are the words for 'alarm,' 'good- will,' 'listen,' 
 ' food,' ' drink,' ' monkey,' and ' fruit.' According 
 to him, the simian tongue has about eight or nine 
 sounds which may be changed by modulation into 
 three or four times that number, and each 
 different species or kind has its own peculiar 
 tongue slightly shaded into dialects. There may 
 be more discriminating students than Garner, but 
 few certainly who have approached their favourite 
 problem with more feeling and humanity. Every 
 one should read his beautiful book on ' The Speech 
 of Monkeys.' ' Among the little captives of the 
 simian race,' says he tenderly, in closing his 
 chapter on the emotional character of these 
 people, ' I have many little friends to whom I am 
 attached, and whose devotion to me is as warm 
 and sincere, so far as I can see, as that of any 
 human being. I must confess that I cannot 
 discern in what intrinsic way the love they have 
 for me differs from my own for them ; nor can I 
 see in what respect their love is less divine than is 
 my own.' 
 
 Dogs are distinguished for their great intelli- 
 gence, the pre-eminence of the sense of smell, 
 fidelity to duty, nobleness of nature, patience, 
 courage, and affection. In all of these particulars 
 many individual dogs are superior to whole races 
 of men. Dogs are more sensitive to physical 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 159 
 
 suffering than savages, and will cry piteously from 
 slight wounds or other injuries. Dogs of high life 
 have genuine feelings of dignity and self-respect, 
 and are easily wounded in their sensibilities. 
 Such dogs have considerable sense of propriety, 
 and suffer, like sensitive children, from disappro- 
 bation. Romanes had a dog that was so sensitive 
 that he resented insult, and so sympathetic that 
 he always fought in defence of other dogs when 
 they were punished or attacked. When out 
 driving with his master, this dog always caught 
 hold of his master's sleeve every time the horse 
 was touched with a whip (10). Romanes also 
 tells of a Scotch terrier who, having grown old 
 and useless, and been supplanted by a younger 
 dog. Jack, became painfully jealous, and imitated 
 his rival in everything that he did, even to ridicu- 
 lous details, in order to retain the attentions of 
 the household. When Jack was tenderly caressed, 
 the old dog would watch for a time, and then 
 burst out whining as if in the deepest distress (10). 
 Dogs communicate their ideas to each other and 
 to human beings, generally by means of sounds 
 and gestures. They growl in anger, yelp in eager- 
 ness, howl in despair, bark in joy or warning, bay 
 in wonder, wail in bitterness and pain, whine in 
 supplication, and prostrate themselves in sub- 
 mission or apology. It has been said that there 
 never was a man who possessed the stateliness of 
 a St. Bernard, the unerring sagacity of the collie, 
 or the courage and tenacity of the bulldog. The 
 vainest dandy is not more delicate in his ways 
 
i6o THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 than the Italian greyhound, nor more soft and 
 affectionate than the Blenheim. Many a deed of 
 heroism has been done by dogs which would, if 
 done by men, have been honoured by the Order of 
 the Victoria Cross. The St. Bernards belonging 
 to the monks on the passes between Switzerland 
 and Italy are especially celebrated for their 
 devotion to the business of saving human hfe. 
 They often lose their own lives in their efforts 
 to rescue travellers baffled and overcome by 
 storm. One particularly sagacious individual, 
 who lost his life in this way some 3'ears ago, wore 
 a medal stating that he had been the means of 
 saving twenty-two human lives. In devotion the 
 dog is superior to all other animals, not even 
 excepting man. ' How could one get relief from 
 the endless dissimulation, falsity, and malice of 
 mankind,' exclaimed Schopenhauer in one of his 
 inspired moments, ' if there were no dogs into 
 whose honest faces he could look without distrust?' 
 A dog will follow a handful of rags wrapped 
 around a homeless beggar, day after day, through 
 heat and cold and storm and starvation, just as 
 faithfully as he will follow the purple of a king. 
 The dog who stood over the lifeless body of his 
 master, grieving for recognition and starting at 
 every flutter of his garments, till he himself died 
 of starvation, had in his faithful breast a nobler 
 heart than that which beats in the bosom of most 
 men. And the devotion of Greyfriars Bobby, 
 who every night for twelve years, in all kinds of 
 weather, slept on his master's grave, was well 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW i6i 
 
 worthy the marble tribute which to-day stands in 
 Edinburgh to his memory. There has never been 
 recorded in the history of the world an instance 
 of more extravagant trust and devotion than that 
 told of the canine companion of a certain vivi- 
 sector, which licked the hand of his master while 
 undergoing the crime of being cut to pieces. 
 Such deeds of self-sacrifice remind one of the 
 tales told of imaginary saints. But they are the 
 deeds of only dogs — of beings whom half the 
 world look upon with indifference and contempt, 
 and whom the other half would feel, if they came 
 within reach, under the strictest obligations to 
 kick. 
 
 ' When some proud son of man returns to earth, 
 Unknown to glory but upheld by birth, 
 The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe. 
 And storied urns record who rests below ; 
 When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, 
 Not what he was, but what he should have been ; 
 But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend. 
 The first to welcome, foremost to defend, 
 Whose honest heart is still his master's own. 
 Who labours, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone, 
 Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth — 
 Denied in heaven the soul he had on earth.' 
 
 I am not one of those who regard the evidence 
 for the post-mortem existence of the human soul 
 as being either abundant or conclusive. But of 
 one thing I am positive, and that is, that there 
 are the same grounds precisely for believing in the 
 immortality of the bird and the quadruped as there 
 are for the belief in human immortality. And it 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 is delightful to find great thinkers like Haeckel, 
 great biologists and philosophers, holding the 
 same conviction. Haeckel is the giant of the 
 Germans, and in his brilliant book ' The Riddle 
 of the Universe ' appears this rather poetical para- 
 graph : ' I once knevi' an old head-forester, who, 
 being left a widower and without children at an 
 early age, had lived alone for more than thirty 
 years in a noble forest of East Prussia. His only 
 companions were one or two servants, with whom 
 he exchanged merely a few necessary words, and a 
 great pack of different kinds of dogs, with whom 
 he lived in perfect psychic communion. Through 
 many years of training this keen observer and 
 friend of nature had penetrated deep into the indi- 
 vidual souls of his dogs, and he was as convinced 
 of their personal immortality as he was of his own. 
 Some of his most intelligent dogs were, in his 
 impartial estimation, at a higher stage of psychic 
 development than his old stupid maid and his 
 rough and wrinkled man-servant. Any unpre- 
 judiced observer who will study the psychic 
 phenomena of a fine dog for a year, and follow 
 attentively the processes of its thought, judgment, 
 and reason, will have to admit that it has just as 
 valid a claim to immortality as man himself.' 
 
 Fido was a shaggy terrier who lived years ago 
 in the old home on the farm by the beautiful brook. 
 He was one of the very first acquaintances the 
 writer of these lines made on coming into exist- 
 ence. In his earher years, before age had dimmed 
 his mind and rheumatism had fastened upon him. 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 163 
 
 he was an exceedingly agreeable and clever canine, 
 active in all the affairs of the farm. He knew the 
 old homestead by heart, and he took about as 
 much interest in having everything go right as 
 anybody — more, perhaps, even than we boys did. 
 He chased the pigs out of the orchard without 
 being asked to do so, and guarded the house at 
 night with the vigilance of a hired watchman. He 
 seemed to realise the demands of everyday situa- 
 tions about as well as any of us. He could dis- 
 tinguish between neighbours who were accustomed 
 to come on the premises and strangers who were 
 not. He always knew when company came, for 
 he invariably attempted to profit by the fact. He 
 had been taught early the propriety of keeping in 
 the background when his tyrants were feeding, 
 and ordinarily on such occasions he slept dutifully 
 by the kitchen stove. But just as sure as a guest 
 sat at table, Fido would turn up, and, tapping the 
 visitor gently to get his attention, would sit up 
 perfectly straight, with his paws pendent and a 
 peculiar grin on his face, in expectation of a 
 morsel. Dear old Fido ! How much he thought 
 of all of us ! And how meagerly, as I know now, 
 were his matchless love and services requited ! 
 On Sundays sometimes the human members of 
 the household would go away and stay all day, 
 and Fido and the cat would be left alone to get 
 along the best way they could. He knew as well 
 as any of us when these days came around, and 
 he dreaded them. I suppose he had learned from 
 experience to associate cessation of farm work and 
 
 II — 2 
 
i64 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 peculiar preparations with a day alone. The long, 
 lonely hours probably affected him somewhat as 
 they do a human being who is compelled to stay 
 alone all day with nothing to do. But what a 
 welcome he gave us in the evening when we came 
 back ! This was indubitable evidence of his lone- 
 liness. The first familiar object we would see in 
 the evening, on coming in sight of home, was 
 faithful Fido, sitting out in the road on the hill 
 above the house — sitting straight up in that 
 peculiar way of his — watching and waiting for 
 our home-coming. He knew, or seemed to know, 
 the direction firom which to expect us, and was 
 able to recognise us a long way off. The years 
 have been many, and Fido's dust has long been 
 scattered by'the gusts over the farms of north-west 
 Missouri ; but now, in fancy, I can see this faithful 
 creature bounding down the road in the sunset to 
 meet us, as he used to do in the golden long-ago, 
 leaping and smiling and wagging his tail, and 
 wriggling and barking in a perfect ecstasy of 
 gladness. 
 
 Well, I know Fido could feel and think, that 
 he loved and feared and longed and dreaded and 
 dreamed and hated and grieved and sympathised 
 and reasoned and rejoiced — in short, that he was 
 moved by about the same passions and considera- 
 tions as human beings usually are. He gave the 
 same evidence of it precisely as a human being 
 does. 
 
 The dog is the oldest of human associates. 
 Long before the historical period the dog was 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 165 
 
 domesticated in Europe, Asia, and Africa. No 
 race of men is too primitive to be without the dog. 
 The bones of the dog are found in the middens 
 of the Baltic, and rude representations of it are 
 chiseled on the oldest monuments of Egypt and 
 Assyria. The dog was the servant of man away 
 in paleolithic times, when the mastodon was on 
 earth, and man was a naked troglodyte, and 
 Europe extended westward to the Azores. And 
 he has been a faithful friend, a tireless ally, and 
 an enthusiastic slave of a thankless and inhuman 
 master ever since. 
 
 Birds are pre-eminently emotional and artistic. 
 This is shown by their fondness for singing, their 
 fine dress, their pining for their dead, their dainty 
 architecture, their pretty forms and manners of 
 life, their joyousness, and their love for their 
 young. Birds are the most beautiful and engaging 
 of all terrestrial beings. Endowed with the power 
 of flight, eminently active, light-hearted and free, 
 attired in all the colours of the rainbow, and with 
 voices of unrivalled richness and melody, birds are 
 the admiration and envy of all of those that dwell 
 on the earth. Birds possess naturally and in mar- 
 vellous perfection that power of locomotion which 
 has been so long sought for by slow-shuffling man. 
 Birds are also incomparable musicians, no other 
 animals, not even men, approaching them in the 
 surpassing brilliancy and sweetness of their song. 
 No human musician in high-sounding hall can 
 equal the artless lay of the wild bird ringing melo- 
 diously through the leafy colonnades of the woods. 
 
i66 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Like men, birds sing chiefly of love ; but they also 
 sing for pastime or pleasure. Their singing is 
 sweetest during the season of courtship, and attains 
 its highest development in the males. Birds are 
 ardent lovers. To win their brides, the males 
 contend with each other, and display their charms 
 of plumage and song with the wildness of human 
 Romeos. 
 
 The song of birds is generally acquired by in- 
 heritance from the species, but is sometimes bor- 
 rowed by imitation from other birds, or even from 
 other animals. Birds taken from their species 
 when young, before they have heard their native 
 song, sing generally the song of their kind, but it 
 is likely to be interspersed with notes and phrases 
 from the birds around them. Birds thus isolated 
 have been known to adopt entirely the song of 
 their surroundings. Olive Thorne Miller vouches 
 for the fact that an English sparrow she once 
 knew grew up in company with a canary, and 
 came in time to sing the song of its more talented 
 companion to perfection. It must have been a 
 Shakspere of a bird, however, to have soared so 
 high above the excruciating accomplishments of 
 the generality of its species. 
 
 The songs of birds can be set to music just as 
 the melodies of men can. The songs of several 
 birds were published in the American Naturalist a 
 few years ago. And Winchell, the well-known 
 English student of birds, has written a clever 
 book on the ' Cries and Call-notes of Wild Birds,' 
 in which he prints the calls and songs of most of 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 167 
 
 the native birds of England. According to this 
 writer, who has perhaps studied the music of birds 
 more critically than anyone else, the song of the 
 nightingale, when printed in the notation of 
 ordinary human music, is like a piano solo. It 
 is made up of a score or so of different strains, 
 with trills and crescendos, and all executed in so 
 inimitable a manner that it is unrecognisable when 
 repeated on a musical instrument or the human 
 voice. One of these strains, curiously enough, is 
 identical with the song of a certain bush-warbler 
 of western Canada— as if the English vocalist had 
 plagiarised the song of its humbler cousin in com- 
 piling its incomparable repertoire. The song of 
 the mocking-bird is a magnificent medley, made 
 up of the calls, trills, twitters, warbles, warnings, 
 and love-songs, of a score or more of other birds. 
 I have heard this bird along the Solomon and 
 Arkansas valleys repeat in the most perfect manner 
 the notes and songs of the pewee, purple martin, 
 kingbird, flicker, blue jay, catbird, canary, crow, 
 English sparrow, red-headed woodpecker, quail, 
 cardinal, cuckoo, robin, red-wings, grackle, meadow- 
 lark, night-hawk, whip-poor-will, besides many 
 other calls and notes, perhaps of birds I did not 
 know. In the case of some of these birds the 
 mocker made all of the different sounds of each 
 bird. The song of the mocking-bird is delivered 
 at any time, day or night, and generally in a state 
 of high ecstasy and excitement, the performer 
 flying from tree to tree and from house-top to 
 barn-top, occasionally throwing himself into the 
 
i68 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 air in the most absurd manner, and all the time 
 pouring forth such a stream of melody that one 
 would think all the birds in the neighbourhood 
 had suddenly come together and let loose in a 
 grand festival of song. 
 
 According to Chapman, many of the notes of 
 birds are language notes rather than sounds ex- 
 pressive of sentiment. Of the robin this well- 
 known student of birds says : ' The song and 
 call-notes of this bird, while familiar to everyone, 
 are in reality understood by no one, and offer 
 excellent subjects for the student of bird language. 
 Its notes express interrogation, suspicion, alarm, 
 and caution, and it signals to its companions to 
 take wing. Indeed, few of our birds have a more 
 extended vocabulary.' Winchell says that the 
 common English sparrow has as many as seven 
 different notes, which it uses to express the 
 thoughts and feelings passing through its rather 
 active but not very highly honoured head : (i) The 
 common note of address of the male to the female; 
 (2) a note of alarm used by both male and female 
 adults, but never by the young ; (3) an emphatic 
 alarm note, always uttered by sentinels when a 
 hawk is near or when a man approaches with a 
 gun ; (4) the note of the female when surrounded 
 by several noisy and contending male rivals; 
 (5) an autumn cry uttered by the iirst one of the 
 company perceiving danger and flying up from 
 the hedges and fields — never uttered by young, 
 but by adults of both sexes ; (5) the love note of 
 both male and female, used mostly by the female, 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 169 
 
 and generally with a fluttering or shaking accom- 
 paniment of her wings ; (7) a curious note some- 
 times heard in London — meaning not well under- 
 stood, but supposed to be a sort of chuckle or 
 sign of contentment. Each one of these several 
 different notes may be used to stand for various 
 ideas depending on the circumstances by being 
 given different emphasis and inflection, just as in 
 the languages of many primitive races of men a 
 small vocabulary of words is used to stand for a 
 much larger number of ideas by being pronounced 
 differently. In the Chinese language, for instance, 
 the words are increased to three or four times the 
 original number by modulation ; but the same 
 thing is observed in all languages, both human 
 and non-human. Verbal poverty is pieced out 
 by verbal variation. We say ac'-cent or ac-cent', 
 depending on whether we wish to express the idea 
 of a noun or a verb. 
 
 The memory of birds is well developed. Many 
 of them remember the very grove or meadow, and 
 even the very knot-hole or bush, in which they 
 built their nest the season before, although in the 
 meantime they have journeyed over lands and 
 seas and sojourned thousands of miles away. 
 Every year, for several seasons past, in late summer 
 and early fall, after the nesting-time is over and 
 the young ones are all grown, the purple martins 
 have gathered in large numbers about the Field 
 Columbian Museum, in Jackson Park, Chicago. 
 They stay here for a few weeks, foraging the sur- 
 rounding air for insects by day, and sleeping on 
 
170 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 the great dome of the Museum by night, finally- 
 flying away to be seen no more in such numbers 
 till next year. These birds, many of them any- 
 way, must remember from one yeaS: to another 
 this annual assembly here by the big waters, else 
 why would they come together at this particular 
 spot from all over the country ? I have no doubt 
 that some of them, having sojourned here year 
 after year for some time, remember well the great 
 ugly building where they meet, and are more or 
 less familiar with the surrounding locality from 
 having searched it so often. I wonder what led 
 to the establishing of the custom in the first place. 
 Customs do not fall from the skies. And what 
 advantage is there in the practice ? What are 
 they up to as they chirp and wheel in the air, and 
 flutter up the slopes and sail down again, and 
 perch on the pinnacles and twitter ? Maybe it is 
 a sort of Saratoga for, them, where they all come 
 together ostensibly to dip their bills in the blue 
 waves, but where sons swell in their new feathers, 
 and sly mammas find prospects for unmarketable 
 misses. 
 
 A parrot has been known to remember the voice 
 of its mistress after an absence of a year and a 
 half — a very remarkable feat even for the grey 
 matter of a bird. A flock of geese mentioned by 
 Romanes showed their knowledge of the arrival 
 of market-day, which came every two weeks, by 
 assembling regularly on such days, early in the 
 morning, in front of the town inn where the 
 market was held, to pick up the corn. They never 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 171 
 
 came on the wrong day; and on one occasion, 
 when the market was omitted on account of a 
 holiday, here came the unfaihng fowls cackling 
 and shouting as usual in merry anticipation of 
 their fortnightly feast, but ignorant of the national 
 necessities which had doomed them to be disap- 
 pointed (10). 
 
 Parrots remember and call for their absent 
 friends, and mumble phrases in their dreams 
 which have been taught to them. These gifted 
 birds learn long poems by heart, and sing songs 
 with considerable art. A parrot belonging to the 
 canon of the Cathedral of Salzburg was given 
 instruction regularly two hours every day for ten 
 years, from 1830 to 1840. The bird became very 
 proficient in speech and exceedingly intelligent. 
 It took part in conversations, whistled tunes, 
 and was able to sing a number of popular songs, 
 among them an entire aria from Flotow's opera 
 of 'Martha' (11). 
 
 Educated birds though, like educated dogs, 
 horses, cats, mice, men, and everything else, are 
 very different beings from the uneducated. Culti- 
 vation is a key that unlocks all sorts of miracles. 
 Cats are cultivated tigers ; and the richest grains 
 that ripen in the fields of men, and the loveliest 
 flowers that blow, are only educated weeds. Even 
 the flea may be taught to exchange leaping for 
 walking, to draw a tiny wagon, to ride on the 
 seat, to fire a toy cannon, and do many other 
 feats. 
 
 There is one family of birds in which the 
 
172 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 superior size, gorgeousness, and vivacity, usual to 
 the males, are found in the other sex, the females 
 being the larger and more brightly coloured — the 
 Phalarope family. Indeed, the members of this 
 small family not only reverse the usual arrange- 
 ment of the sexual characters of birds, but com- 
 pletely upset many of the most cherished tradi- 
 tions of the avian household. The female does the 
 wooing, and takes the lead in selecting the nest 
 site. And while she lays the eggs, the privilege of 
 incubation she hands over magnanimously to her 
 dull-coloured mate. 
 
 Birds have a keen observation and a good deal 
 of that invaluable faculty known as common- 
 sense. It is wonderful how quickly they learn to 
 avoid telegraph-wires when these invisible but 
 deadly gossamers are first stretched across a 
 country, and how unerringly they keep at safe 
 distances when hunted with firearms. An ex- 
 perienced crow can tell a cane from a gun-barrel 
 almost as far as he can see it. 
 
 Nearly all birds build nests of some kind in 
 which to cradle their eggs and young. The 
 cow-bird and cuckoo (European), however, are 
 exceptions. These birds have the rather human 
 practice of turning their cares and labours over to 
 somebody else. They are loafers and parasites. 
 They lay their eggs secretly in the nests of other 
 birds, where their eggs are hatched and their 
 young cared for by an alien mother. I have seen 
 a mother song-sparrow hustling about among the 
 shrubs and grasses for an hour at a time almost, 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 173 
 
 gathering food for a young cow-bird nearly twice 
 as big as she was, while her foundling sat 
 phlegmatically at the foot of a tree chirping and 
 fluttering its wings, and acting as a thankless and 
 apparently bottomless receptacle for the morsel 
 after morsel laboriously harvested for it by its 
 tireless little foster-mother. Sand-martins and 
 kingfishers burrow in the earth and rear their 
 broods in subterranean cradles ; gulls and game- 
 birds build on the ground; the flamingoes and 
 barn-swallows build mud nests ; the woodpeckers 
 mine holes in trees ; doves and eagles make plat- 
 forms of sticks ; the tailor-bird bastes living leaves 
 together ; the social weavers construct great straw 
 roofs covering the top of a tree, and build their 
 nests on the limbs beneath ; most singing birds 
 build daintily-lined baskets, and swing them in 
 trees and bushes. 
 
 It is often said that all the birds of a species 
 build their nests in precisely the same way, and 
 that, while men change and improve their dwelling- 
 places from generation to generation, birds build 
 their abodes in the same old way, just as their 
 ancestors built theirs centuries and centuries ago. 
 This is a favourite thought with the fogies, with 
 those who change not in their thinking from the 
 ways hacked out for them centuries and centuries 
 ago. Birds are like men. Some of them — some 
 races and some individuals — are much more given 
 to initiative than others. There is as wide a 
 difference between the hang-bird and the auk in 
 the construction of their domiciles as between the 
 
174 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 millionaire and the savage. And the hang-bird has 
 come by her home-making art through centuries 
 of improvement, just as the millionaire has arrived 
 at his. It is believed by ornithologists that the 
 first nests of birds were the niches of rocks or 
 simple hollows scooped in the sand and soil, such 
 as are still seen among the more primitive bird 
 races, and that from these aboriginal beginnings 
 have come, through ages of evolution, the elaborate 
 creations of the cotton-bird, weaver-bird, tailor- 
 bird, oven-bird, the baya-sparrow, the finches, and 
 the orioles. The savage who lives unmolested 
 generation after generation in the same land and 
 country builds his simple hut in just the same 
 way as his ancestors built theirs, and thinks the 
 same things his ancestors thought a thousand 
 years before him. Sir Samuel Baker, in a paper 
 on ' The Races of the Nile Basin,' points out that 
 each tribe of men in eastern Africa, like each 
 species of bird, has its own peculiar style of hut, 
 and that the huts of the various tribes are as 
 constant in their types as are the nests of 
 birds. The same thing is true of their head- 
 dresses as of their huts ; and this fixed character 
 exists also in their languages, customs, and re- 
 ligions. It is only some races of men that are 
 given to growth and fluidity, and only some men 
 of these special races. 
 
 Right in our own country, among the remote 
 mountain recesses of Appalachia, surrounded on 
 all sides by the most wonderful development, 
 material and intellectual, the world has ever seen, 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 175 
 
 lives a race of rude mountain folk almost as 
 aboriginal in their ways and views of life, and as 
 unaffected by civilisation, as if they were in the 
 heart of Africa. They live huddled together in 
 one-room log-cabins without windows or floors, 
 eat bacon and cornmeal, carry on almost constant 
 wars, and execute the deputies of civilisation who 
 happen to stray into their illicit dominions, just 
 as they have done from the time these mountain 
 silences were first broken by them 150 or 200 
 years ago. 
 
 Birds, as a rule, use a great deal of care and 
 thought in the location of their nests. After they 
 have selected a certain grove or field as the one 
 best suited to their purposes, or as the one around 
 which cluster the happiest memories, it usually 
 requires several days of flying and peeping about, 
 of spying and exploration, before the exact spot 
 for the precious domicile is finally settled upon. 
 It is a delicate matter for many birds, for security 
 from sun, storm, and enemies must all be taken 
 into account. Old birds, as has been frequently 
 observed, build better nests and select more clever 
 locations for their nests than the young and 
 inexperienced. The nest-building habits of many 
 birds are known to have changed during the past 
 few hundred years. The American house-swallow 
 did most certainly not build under the eaves of 
 human houses 300 years ago, nor did the hair-bird 
 ine her nest with horsehair as she invariably 
 does now. The fact that wrens, swifts, and 
 martins now build almost altogether in boxes and 
 
176 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 chimneys shows that birds are able and willing to 
 adapt themselves to new conditions. The chimney- 
 swift and purple martin, it is said, still cling to 
 their aboriginal custom of rearing their young in 
 hollow trees in the unsettled parts of America. The 
 indomitable house-sparrow builds its nest almost 
 anywhere, from knot-holes and tin cans to electric- 
 light globes and tree-tops. Its original dwelling 
 was probably an arboreal affair, like that of other 
 sparrows, and different nesting-places have been 
 adopted as a result of its association with man. 
 Not only in its architecture, but in several other 
 ways,'this bird has departed from the traditions of 
 its tribe. The Fringillidse (the sparrow family 
 of birds) are seed-eaters, both in structure and 
 practice. But the house-sparrow, since it left the 
 fields and groves to become a gamin on human 
 streets, has learned to eat almost anything, and 
 one thing, too, about as cheerfully as another. 
 The varied habits of this bird are probably due to 
 its natural elasticity in the first place, supple- 
 mented by the unsettling influences of its rather 
 kaleidoscopic experiences during the past few 
 hundred years. 
 
 The fear of birds for man is an acquired trait 
 due to ages of persecution. If man would treat 
 birds kindly, they would act toward him as they 
 do toward any other friendly animal. When 
 unfrequented islands are first visited by man, the 
 birds are found to be perfectly fearless of him, 
 flying about him, feeding from his hand, and 
 manifesting no more timidity than if he were a 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 177 
 
 big-hearted bird himself. Darwin states that, 
 when he stopped at the Galapagos Islands on his 
 famous trip around the world in the Beagle, he 
 found the birds there so tame that he could push 
 them from the branches of the trees with his gun- 
 barrel. Professor Cutting, of the State University 
 of Iowa, in an article in the Popular Science Monthly 
 for August, 1903, tells of the almost absolute 
 fearlessness of the birds on the island of Laysan, 
 an isolated atoll in the Pacific west of the Hawaian 
 Islands, which he visited during that summer. 
 The island swarms with bird life — petrels, alba- 
 trosses, and tropical birds of various kinds — and 
 these birds betray no more fear in the presence of 
 man than if he were a cow. The albatrosses were 
 so numerous and so indifferent to the presence of 
 man that it was necessary to shove them aside 
 with one's foot to keep from stepping on them 
 when one went for a walk along the sand-stretches 
 of the shore. Professor Cutting took photographs 
 of birds which literally posed for him in all sorts 
 of positions, and half-savage jackies amused them- 
 selves by going about and pulling the pretty tail 
 feathers from the tropical birds as they sat on 
 their nests. I have known of two cases where 
 persons, by going to the same place day after day 
 with food and kindness, have in the course of a 
 few weeks taught robins, sparrows, and other 
 birds, to lose all fear of them, so much so as to sit 
 on their shoulders and arms and eat out of their 
 hands. This is the spirit all birds would show all 
 the time toward their featherless lords if these 
 
 12 
 
178 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 featherless ones would only treat them with half 
 the consideration they merit. 
 
 The love of a bird for the treasures of her nest 
 is one of the most beautiful things of this world. 
 Mother-like, the parent bird will do anything 
 almost for the sake of her little ones. Who has 
 not seen the kildeer strive with all the tact of her 
 clever little soul to allure some big giant of a 
 human being, who has wandered into her neigh- 
 bourhood, away from her nest of precious young ? 
 Many a time as a boy on the farm I have followed 
 one of these birds limping and tumbling and 
 fluttering along on the ground a few feet ahead of 
 me, utterly disabled, as I supposed, but always 
 managing to keep just a little beyond the reach of 
 my eager hands. And when the artful mother 
 has led me far from the sacred spot where lay all 
 there was in this world to her, how triumphantly 
 she has lifted herself on her unharmed wings and, 
 to my utter astonishment, sailed away. The 
 partridge and the mourning-dove are, if possible, 
 even more artful in their acting than the kildeer. 
 After I became a large boy and had been told the 
 meaning of these exhibitions by parent birds, I 
 often followed the mourning-dove, thinking the 
 bird must be really wounded after all, so perfectly 
 did it pretend. But the cunning of the kildeer is 
 not confined to luring one away from the nest. 
 If by some accident one finds her nest (and the 
 nest is so cleverly concealed that, if it is discovered 
 at all, it will be by pure accident), the resourceful 
 mother is ready with other expedients to outwit 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 179 
 
 you. She watches you all the time from the 
 proper distance, and knows by your conduct the 
 moment you have found her nest. And before 
 you have even had time to admire the skill 
 displayed by the mother in blending so perfectly 
 her abode with its surroundings, a single peculiar 
 note from her has caused the whole nestful of 
 cuddling young ones to dart out of their cradle 
 and disappear among the surrounding clods as if 
 by magic. No amount of searching can find one 
 of them. They have vanished as effectually as if 
 they had evaporated. And it is enough to touch 
 the heart of the most indifferent to see the anxious 
 mother bird, as I have seen her from the cranny 
 of a neighbouring rock-pile, come back to her 
 nest and call her scattered children together again 
 after they have once dispersed at her command. 
 Circling around the nest two or three times to 
 assure herself that no one is nigh, she alights and 
 begins a low clucking sound like that of a hen 
 calling her brood. The little ones come out of their 
 hiding-places one after another as mysteriously 
 as they vanished. You can't see for the life of 
 you where they come from. They seem to just 
 emanate. And if one of them fails to come at her 
 call — for the devoted mother knows very well just 
 how many she has — she extends her search farther 
 out from her nest, looking all around and keeping 
 up that peculiar little cluck, until the half-scared- 
 to-death little slyboots finally comes creeping out 
 from his improvised snuggery somewhere. If a 
 kildeer's nest has once been found, and the mother 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 feels that it is in danger of future visits, she will 
 move her family at night to some other locality, 
 and it is practically impossible ever to find it 
 again. The family relations of the ring-dotterels 
 are said to be ' so charming and touching that 
 even hunters recoil from shooting a female sur- 
 rounded by her young ones.' 
 
 Human beings, true to their instinct never to 
 call into action their ability to think if they can 
 employ their faculty for nonsense instead, call this 
 love of the mother bird ' machinery.' But there 
 are some of us (and our numbers are increasing) 
 who are disposed to put off the adoption of this 
 conclusion until we go mad. The bird builds her 
 nest, weaving it of the rarest fibres. She hides it 
 in the copse or prudently hangs it far out on some 
 inaccessible bough. She lays her beautiful eggs, 
 and hatches them with the warmth and life of her 
 own breast. She tends her young, bringing them 
 food and drink, and watching /Dver them with a 
 tender and tireless vigilance. She protects them 
 in storm with her own little body, worries about 
 them when danger lurks, and dreams of them, no 
 doubt, as she rocks and sleeps under the silent 
 stars. She sings to them in the overflow of her 
 gladness and hope, and risks her very existence to 
 shield them from harm. She teaches them to fly, 
 to find their food, and to detect their enemies. 
 She is true to her mate, and her mate is true and 
 kind to her. As the days of summer shorten, and 
 the cool, long nights warn of approaching autumn, 
 she leads her children away from the old place, 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW i8i 
 
 she and her faithful mate, out into the wide old 
 world. And I say there is love in the heart of 
 that mother as truly as in the heart of woman, 
 and there are joy and genuineness and sorrow and 
 fidelity in that sylvan home more sacred than 
 may sometimes bloom in the cold mansions of 
 men. 
 
 Conjugal love is also very strong in many of 
 the feathered races, especially among those in 
 which the wedding is for successive seasons or 
 for life. The pining of love-birds for their dead 
 sweethearts is well known. The mandarin duck 
 is proverbial for its marital faithfulness, and a 
 pair of these fowls is carried by the Chinese in 
 their marriage processions as an emblem of con- 
 stancy. Many instances are recorded of birds, 
 after having been deprived of their mates, refusing 
 steadfastly the attentions of other birds, and even 
 sometimes separating themselves entirely from the 
 society of their kind. The following account of 
 the devotion of a widowed pigeon for her deceased 
 consort sounds like a tale of human woe : 
 
 ' A man set to watch a field much patronised 
 by pigeons shot an old male pigeon who had long 
 been an inhabitant of the farm. His mate, 
 around whom he had for many a year cooed, 
 whom he had nourished with his own crop and 
 had assisted in rearing numerous young ones, 
 immediately settled on the ground by his side. 
 She refused to leave him, and manifested her grief 
 in the most expressive manner. The labourer took 
 up the dead bird and hung it on a stake. The 
 
i82 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 widow still refused to forsake her husband, and 
 continued day after day slowly walking around the 
 stake on which his body hung. The kind-hearted 
 wife of the farmer heard of the matter, and went 
 to the relief of the stricken bird. On arriving at 
 the spot, she found the poor bird still watching at 
 the side of her dead, and making an occasional 
 effort to get to him. She was much spent with 
 her long fasting and grief. She had made a 
 circular beaten path around the corpse of her 
 companion ' (12). 
 
 And these are the beings whose bones men jest 
 over at their feasts, and brutes shoot for pastime 
 on human holidays. Much has been said of the 
 sorrow of birds for their deceased mates, but not 
 too much. For the avian soul may be smothered 
 by the gloom and loneliness that come upon the 
 heart, when the great light of love and com- 
 panionship has gone out, quite as completely as 
 the soul of a bereaved human. In not many 
 human homes where loved ones lie sick and dying 
 are felt the pangs of more genuine grief than those 
 sometimes suffered by birds when their friends 
 and companions are stricken in death. The follow- 
 ing incident, vouched for by Dr. FrankHn, who 
 observed it, is only one among many such instances 
 recorded in the literature on birds : 
 
 A pair of parrots had lived together on the most 
 loving terms for four years, when the female was 
 taken with a serious attack of gout. She grew 
 rapidly worse, and was soon so weak as to be 
 unable to leave her perch for food, when the male, 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 183 
 
 faithful and tender as a human spouse, took it 
 upon himself to carry food to her regularly in his 
 beak. ' He continued feeding her in this way for 
 four months, but the infirmities of his companion 
 increased day by day, until at last she was no 
 longer able to support herself on the perch. She 
 remained cowering down in the bottom of the 
 cage, making from time to time ineffectual efforts 
 to regain her perch. The male was always near 
 her, and did everything in his power to aid the 
 feeble efforts of his dear better-half. Seizing the 
 poor invalid by the beak or the upper part of her 
 wing, he tried his best to enable her to rise, and 
 repeated his efforts several times. His constancy, 
 his gestures, and his continued solicitude, all 
 showed in this affectionate bird the most ardent 
 desire to relieve the sufferings and assist the weak- 
 ness of his sinking companion. But the scene 
 became still more affecting when the female was 
 d5ang. Her unhappy consort moved about her 
 incessantly, his attentions and tender cares re- 
 doubled. He even tried to open her beak to give 
 some nourishment. He ran to her, and then 
 returned with a troubled and agitated look. At 
 intervals he uttered the most plaintive cries ; then, 
 with his eyes fixed on her, kept a mournful silence. 
 At length his companion breathed her last. From 
 that moment he pined away, and in the course of 
 a few weeks died ' (10). 
 
 Even the rough-looking ostrich has sensibility 
 enough to die of a broken heart, as was the case in 
 the Jardin des Plantes at Paris a few years ago. 
 
i84 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 There is many a heart with a slabless grave far 
 from the haunts of men, and many a tear in secret 
 brews that never wets the eye. 
 
 The individual who has never acquired the 
 enthusiasm for a knowledge of the birds and a 
 love for their presence and association has omitted 
 some of the richest emotions of life. ' The sight 
 of a bird or the sound of its voice is at all times 
 an event of such significance to me,' says Chap- 
 man, ' a source of such unfailing pleasure, that 
 when I go afield with those to whom birds are 
 strangers I am deeply impressed by the compara- 
 tive barrenness of their world, for they live in 
 ignorance of a great store of enjoyment that might 
 be theirs for the asking.' 
 
 ' I cannot love the man who does not love, 
 As men love light, the song of happy birds.' 
 
 I have seen a mother mouse in a moment of 
 peril flee from her home among the falling pieces 
 of a cord-wood pile, and disappear under the roots 
 of a neighbouring oak. I have seen her a little 
 later, recovered from her initial dismay, making 
 her way back again, clambering along among the 
 tangled timbers, stopping now and then to look 
 and listen, her eyes wild and anxious, and her 
 whole little body quaking with excitement. I 
 have seen her go among the ruins of her dwelling, 
 take a poor little squeaking young one in her 
 mouth, and hurry away with it to the gloomy 
 refuge in the roots of the oak. I have watched 
 her return again and again, each time taking in 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 185 
 
 her careful teeth the tiny body of a babe, until five 
 mouthfuls of precious pink were safely lodged 
 within the fortress of the oak. And I could as 
 soon believe that woman, when she saves her 
 children from some fearful harm, is a soulless 
 machine as think that that brave little wood- 
 mother, out there alone under the trees, snatching 
 her darlings from the jaws of death, was a heroine 
 without sense or feeling. That little hairy mother 
 with four feet and bead-like eyes loved her young 
 ones in just the same way and for just the same 
 reason as a human mother loves her young ones. 
 She looked upon her babies, in all probability, 
 with the same mother-love and tenderness as 
 a human mother looks upon hers, and felt in 
 miniature, with evil hovering above them, the 
 same consternation a woman feels when destruc- 
 tion reaches out after those that are nearest and 
 dearest. And when it was all over, when the good 
 angel of deliverance had finally spread its healing 
 white wings over that afilicted family, the heart of 
 that little rodent was doubtless soothed by the 
 same joy as that which, in the hour of deliverance, 
 calms the hearts of humankind. 
 
 Ants tend their fields, gather their harvests, 
 domesticate other insects, and keep slaves. They 
 help each other bear heavy burdens, extricate each 
 other from misfortune, speak to each other when 
 they meet, and bury their dead. They build roads 
 and bridges, and manifest wonderful engineering 
 skill in their construction. They even tunnel 
 under rivers. They go far from home, and find 
 
i86 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 their way back again. They inhabit towns, and 
 build splendid and spacious palaces. Each ant 
 knows every other citizen of its own town, and an 
 ant from any other town is immediately recognised 
 as a foreigner. Ants have their overseers of indus- 
 trial enterprises, and regular hours for work and 
 sleep. The ant is the most pugnacious of all 
 animals, and the most muscular compared with 
 its size. It will boldly attack the biggest creature 
 that walks if this creature invades its home It 
 will fasten its mandibles into an enemy, and allow 
 itself to be torn to pieces without relaxing its hold. 
 Among some savage tribes, certain species of ants 
 ire said to be used as surgeons. Infuriated ants are 
 illowed to fasten their mandibles on the opposite 
 sdges of a gash, and in this way the wound is 
 :losed. The ants are decapitated, and their bodi- 
 less heads with their relentless jaws serve as 
 stitches to the wound. Ants have holidays and 
 ithletic festivals. On such occasions they romp 
 md chase each other and play hide-and-seek like 
 ;hildren. They stand on their hind-legs, embrace 
 jach other with their fore-limbs, grasp each other 
 oy the feet or antennae, pull each other down the 
 jntrances to their towns, wrestle and roll over on 
 ;he sand, and so on — all in the friendliest manner, 
 [t is greatly to the credit of these little people that 
 10 observer has ever yet known them to become 
 io inventively helpless or so athletically hard up 
 IS to play slug-ball. Ants educate their young, 
 md practise the fundamental principles of human 
 states and societies. Forel, the great Swiss student 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 187 
 
 of ants, says that several hundred nests are some- 
 times united into a single confederation. Each 
 ant knows every other ant of the entire con- 
 federation, and they all take part in the common 
 defence. Haeckel says, speaking of social evolu- 
 tion in ants, that the aboriginal ants of the Chalk 
 Age had as little idea of the division of labour and 
 organisation of modern ant states as paleolithic 
 flint-chippers had of the complexity and organisa- 
 tion of twentieth-century civilisation. ' If we take 
 an ant's nest, we not only see that work of every 
 description — rearing of progeny, foraging, build- 
 ing, rearing of aphides, and so on — is performed 
 according to the principles of voluntary mutual 
 aid, but we must also recognise, with Forel, that 
 the fundamental feature of the life of many species 
 of ants is the obligation of every ant to share its 
 food, already swallowed and partly digested, with 
 every member of the community which may apply 
 for it. Two ants belonging to the same nest or 
 to the same confederation of nests will approach 
 each other, exchange a few movements with the 
 antennae, and if one of them is hungry or thirsty 
 — and especially if the other has its crop full — it 
 immediately asks for food. The individual thus 
 requested never refuses. It sets apart its man- 
 dibles, takes a proper position, and regurgitates a 
 drop of transparent fluid, which is licked up by 
 the hungry ant. Regurgitating food for others is 
 so prominent a feature in the life of the ants, and 
 it so constantly recurs both for feeding hungry 
 comrades and for feeding larvae, that Forel con- 
 
i88 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 siders the digestive tube of ants to consist of two 
 different parts, one of which — the posterior — is for 
 the special use of the individual, and the other — 
 the anterior part — is chiefly for the use of the 
 community. If an ant which has its crop full has 
 been selfish enough to refuse to feed a comrade, it 
 will be treated as an enemy. If the refusal has 
 been made while its kinsfolks were fighting with 
 some other species, they will fall upon the greedy 
 individual with greater vehemence even than upon 
 the enemies themselves. All this has been con- 
 firmed by the most accurate observations and 
 experiments ' (20). 
 
 Ants keep slaves. And the slaves, in some in- 
 stances, carry their masters about, feed them, 
 groom them, and attend to their every want, 
 just as human lackeys do helpless aristocrats. 
 In some species the institution of slavery is so 
 old that the physical structures of the masters 
 have been modified until the masters are phy- 
 sically unable to feed themselves, and will perish 
 from hunger, though surrounded by food, if they 
 are left to themselves. The brain of the ant, as 
 Darwin says, is one of the most wonderful bits 
 of matter in the universe. It is scarcely one- 
 fourth the size of the head of a pin, yet it is the 
 seat of the most astonishing wisdom and activity. 
 If human intelligence were as great, compared 
 with the mass of the human brain, as is the ant's, 
 man would be several hundred times as wise as he 
 is now, and would then probably not fall far short 
 of that state of erudition which the average man 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW i8g 
 
 imagines he already represents. Ants remember, 
 and a fact becomes impressed by repetition, show- 
 ing that the faculty of memory in ants is governed 
 by the same laws as is this faculty in man. Sir 
 John Lubbock found it necessary to teach his ants 
 the way by repeating the lesson where the way 
 was long or unusual. * Sensation, perception, and 
 association follow in the social insects, on the 
 whole, the same fundamental laws as in the verte- 
 brates, including ourselves. Furthermore, atten- 
 tion is surprisingly developed in insects ' (Forel). 
 Ants keep standing armies, make alliances, and 
 maraud neighbouring states. They have their 
 wars, civil and foreign, and their massacres and 
 enslavements of the conquered. But they have 
 never got so low yet, so far as anyone knows, as 
 to hypocritically prosecute their conquests in the 
 name of God and humanity. The battlefields of 
 ants resemble the carnage-plains of men, strewn 
 with ghastly corpses and covered with the head- 
 less and dying. And the accounts of their expedi- 
 tions — their going forth in regular columns, with 
 captains, scouts, and skirmish lines, their battles, 
 "and their return laden with plunder and captives 
 — read like the grisly tales of human history. 
 Ants perform, in short, about all the antics of 
 civilised man, except maltreating the females and 
 drinking gin. And shall we say their civilisation 
 is less real because it is miniature and because it 
 is carried on far below the Brobdingnagian con- 
 templations of man ? ' When we see an ant-hill 
 tenanted by thousands of industrious inhabitants, 
 
igo THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making 
 roads, guarding their home, gathering food, feeding 
 the young, tending their domestic animals, each 
 one fulfilling its duties industriously and without 
 confusion, it is difficult altogether to deny them 
 the gift of reason or to escape the conviction that 
 their mental powers differ from those of men not 
 so much in kind as in degree ' (Lubbock). 
 
 The industrious and gifted bee, with its wonder- 
 ful social system, in advance even of that of the 
 most enlightened societies of men ; the generous 
 horse, who thinks and feels so much more than 
 the clowns who maul him ever suspect ; the artful 
 spider, that confirmed waylayer lurking in his lair 
 of silk ; the soft and predaceous cat ; the timid- 
 hearted hare, poor hounded little dweller of the 
 fields and stream-sides ; the beautiful and vivacious 
 squirrel ; the lowly lady-bug ; the cautious fox ; 
 the irascible serpent, so cruelly misunderstood by 
 men ; the patient camel ; the scornful peafowl ; 
 the indomitable goat; the grave and vindictive 
 elephant ; the ingenious beaver, the woodman of 
 the primeval wilderness ; the lordly and polygamous 
 cock ; the maternal hen ; the wary trout, beset 
 everywhere by the villainous traps of impostors ; 
 the bride-like butterfly ; the delicate antelope and 
 deer; and the sturdy, incorruptible ox— all of 
 these beings have within them souls composed 
 primarily of the same elements as those that 
 compose the souls of men. 
 
 Ground-wasps have been observed to use tiny 
 stones as hammers in packing the dirt firmly over 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 191 
 
 their nests — a very remarkable act of intelligence, 
 since the use of tools is not common even among 
 the higher mammals (13). Fishes have been 
 taught to assemble at the ringing of a bell, and 
 toads and tortoises to come at the call of their 
 favourite friends. An alligator which was kept 
 tame for several years became so much attached 
 to its master that ' it followed him about the 
 house like a dog, scrambling up the stairs after 
 him, and showing much affection and docility.' 
 The favourite friend and companion of this 
 alligator was the cat ; and, whenever the cat 
 stretched herself on the floor in front of the fire, 
 the alligator would lie down beside her, with its 
 head on the cat, and go to sleep. ' When the cat 
 was absent, the alligator was restless, but it always 
 appeared happy when the cat was near it ' (12). 
 
 Wolves and foxes sometimes cooperate with 
 each other in their hunting expeditions, somewhat 
 as men do in theirs. One of their number will 
 crouch in ambush by the side of a road known to 
 be used by hares or other small animals, and leap 
 on the unsuspecting fugitives when driven that 
 way by others of the hunting band. Many animals 
 post sentinels when they eat or sleep or engage in 
 other hazardous undertakings, and these sentinels 
 show a good deal of discrimination in distinguish- 
 ing between animals that are friendly and those 
 that are not. Beavers not only build lodges to 
 live in, but also construct dams to keep the water 
 in which the villages are located at a certain height. 
 The outlet of these dams is carefully regulated, 
 
192 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 being regularly lessened and enlarged to suit the 
 supply of water in the stream. The trees used by 
 the beavers in their enterprises are felled by them 
 along the margins of the stream, and floated to 
 the place where they are used. In old com- 
 munities, where the supply of timber near the 
 stream has been exhausted, artificial canals are 
 cut by these indomitable engineers for use in the 
 transportation of their materials. These excava- 
 tions are made at a great cost of labour and for 
 the deliberate purpose of enabling the builders to 
 accomplish that which they could not accomplish 
 in any other way. ' In executing this purpose,' 
 says Romanes, ' there is sometimes displayed a 
 depth of engineering forethought over details of 
 structure required by the circumstances of special 
 localities which is even more astonishing than the 
 execution of the general idea' (lo). When, for 
 instance, a canal has been carried so far from the 
 original water-supply that, owing to the rising 
 ground, it cannot be continued without a very 
 great expenditure of effort in digging, a second 
 dam is built higher up-stream, and with water 
 drawn from this the canal is continued on at 
 a higher level. Sometimes a third dam is built 
 above the second, and the canal again continued 
 at a still higher level before the valuable timber of 
 the higher grounds is reached. These enterprising 
 rodents also carve sometimes enormous channels 
 across the necks of land formed by winding rivers, 
 to serve as cut-offs in travel and transportation. 
 And yet all of these things — all of the intelli- 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 193 
 
 gence, feeling, and ingenuity displayed by the 
 non-human races — are still lumped together by 
 belated psychologists under the head of ' instinct,' 
 by which is meant a blind, unconscious knack of 
 doing the right thing without in any way realising 
 what is being done or what it is being done for ! 
 The principle in accordance with which mind is 
 denied to non-human beings would, if carried to 
 its legitimate conclusions, make machines out of 
 all of us, and limit the possession of conscious 
 intelligence to the individual who promulgates 
 the theory. The attitude assumed by many 
 psychologists toward the mental faculties of 
 inferior races reminds one of Heine's interview 
 with the old lizard at Lucca. In the discussion 
 which ensued between the poet and the reptile, 
 the poet dropped the words, ' I think.' ' Think !' 
 snapped the lizard with a sharp, aristocratic tone 
 of profound contempt — ' think ! Which of you 
 thinks ? For 3,000 years, wise sir, I have investi- 
 gated the spiritual functions of animals, and I 
 have made men and apes the special objects of 
 my study. I have devoted myself to these queer 
 creatures with as great zeal and diligence as 
 Lyonnet to his caterpillars. And as the result of 
 my researches, I can assure you no man thinks. 
 Now and then something occurs to him, and 
 these accidentally occurring somethings he calls 
 thoughts, and the stringing of them together he 
 calls thinking. But you can take my word for it, 
 no man thinks — no philosopher thinks. And, so 
 far as philosophy is concerned, it is mere air and 
 
 13 
 
194 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 water, like pure vapours in the sky. There is, 
 in reality, only one true philosophy, and that 
 is engraven in eternal hieroglyphics on my own 
 tail ' (ii). 
 
 This attitude of the lordly saurian toward the 
 human race is a stinging burlesque on the anthro- 
 pocentric conceit which perverts all of man's views 
 of the other orders of life. 
 
 It is not contended that non-human beings are 
 psychically identical with human beings. The 
 races of men are not psychically identical with 
 each other. The difference between the intel- 
 lectual splendours of a Spencer evolving volumes 
 of the profoundest philosophy and the mind of an 
 Australian who cannot count six, or between the 
 understanding of an Edison, the wizard of the 
 electrical world, and that of the South Sea 
 islanders, who, when Captain Cook gave them 
 some English nails, planted them in the hope of 
 raising a new crop, is almost infinite. The lowest 
 races of men have neither superstition nor the 
 power of abstract thought as have the higher 
 races. They have a word for black stone, white 
 stone, and brown stone, but no word for stone; 
 for elm-tree, oak-tree, and the like, but no word 
 for tree. As Kingsley says, ' It is difficult to 
 believe that a dog does not form as clear an 
 abstract idea of a tree as these people do.' There 
 are human beings living in the forests of Asia, 
 Africa, and Australasia that wander about from 
 place to place in herds without chief, law, weapons, 
 or fixed habitations. They go naked, mate by 
 
THE COMMON-SENSE VIEW 195 
 
 chance, and climb trees like monkeys. Some of 
 these races know nothing of fire, religion, or a 
 moral world, chatter to each other like apes, and 
 live on such natural products as roots, fruits, 
 serpents, mice, ants, and honey. One of these 
 creatures, we are told, will lie flat on his front for 
 an hour by the runway'of a field-mouse, waiting 
 for a chance to snatch up the little creature when 
 it comes along and eat it. Dozens of such de- 
 graded races are mentioned by Buchner in his 
 ' Man : Past, Present, and Future,' and by Sir 
 John Lubbock in his ' Origin of Civilisation.' 
 
 Non-human beings have, as a rule, neither the 
 psychic variety nor the intensity of higher humans. 
 And it is not contended that in language, science, 
 and superstition they are capable of being com- 
 pared with the foremost few of civilised societies, 
 any more than savages, especially the lowest 
 savages, are capable of such comparison. But it 
 is maintained that the non-human races of the 
 earth are not the metallic and soulless lot of 
 fixtures they are vulgarly supposed to be ; that 
 they are just as real living beings, with just as 
 precious nerves and just as genuine feelings, rights, 
 heartaches, capabilities, and waywardnesses, as we 
 ourselves ; and that, since they are our own kith 
 and kindred, we have no right whatever, higher 
 than the right of main strength (which is the 
 right of devils), to assume them to be, and to 
 treat them as if they were, our natural and legiti- 
 mate prey. 
 
 13—2 
 
196 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 IV. The Elements of Human and Non-human 
 Mind Compared. 
 
 The analysis of human mind and the compari- 
 son of its elements or powers with the powers 
 of non-human mind corroborate the conclusions 
 already arrived at through observation and deduc- 
 tive inference. The chief powers of the mind of 
 man are sensation, memory, emotion, imagination, 
 voUtion, instinct, and reason. All of these faculties 
 are found in non-human beings, some of them 
 developed to a much higher degree than they are 
 in man, and some of them to a much lower. 
 
 Sensation is the effect produced on the mind 
 when a sense organ is affected in some way by 
 external stimuli. Sensation is the lumber of the 
 mind, the raw material out of which are elaborated 
 all other forms of consciousness. The chief species 
 of sensation are those of sight, sound, smell, taste, 
 and feeling. The original sense was feeling, and 
 out of this sense were evolved the other four. 
 The organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, and 
 tasting are therefore modifications of the skin, 
 which is the organ of original sense. The fact 
 that in all animals, down almost to the very 
 beginnings of life, sense organs exist, suggests that 
 sensation may be almost, if not quite, coextensive 
 with animal life. All mammals, birds, reptiles, 
 amphibians, and fishes have the same special sense 
 organs as man, and the organs of sight, sound, 
 taste, and smell occupy in all vertebrates the same 
 relative positions in the head. Birds see better 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 197 
 
 than any other animals, and carnivora smell 
 better. Ruminants see, hear, and smell with 
 great acuteness. Fishes also see and hear well ; 
 and the wings of the bat are so exceedingly sen- 
 sitive that it will move about blindfolded and with 
 ears stopped with cotton almost as unerringly as 
 when aided by sight and sound. Insects have 
 smell, sight, and taste well developed, as is shown 
 by their keen appreciation of the colours, perfumes, 
 and flavours of flowers. They also hear. Stridu- 
 lation proves this. Worms have eyes and ears, 
 and land-leeches scent the approach of their prey 
 at a long distance. The starfish and the medusa 
 respond to all the five classes of stimuli which 
 affect the five senses of man, and nervous sub- 
 stance is found in all animals above the sponge. 
 
 Memory is the power of retaining or recognising 
 past states of consciousness. The power to retain 
 impressions follows in origin close upon the power 
 to receive impressions. Memory is the historic 
 faculty of the mind — the power of the mind to 
 store up its experiences — and is found in nearly 
 all animals. The lowly limpet, whose world is a 
 seaside rock, will come back from its little roam- 
 ings time after time to the same rude lodge from 
 which it set out. Bees remember where they get 
 honey or sugar months afterwards, and when it is 
 necessary will sometimes go back to the old home 
 hive which they left the year before. Ants retrace 
 their steps after making long journeys from their 
 nest, and are able in some way to recognise their 
 friends after months of separation. The stickle- 
 
igS THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 back (fish) knows the way back to his nest, although 
 he has been absent several hours. Fishes return 
 and hatch their young year after year in the same 
 waters; birds come back to their old nesting- 
 places ; and horses remember their way along 
 devious roads over which they have not been for 
 years. Horses used in the delivery of milk, or in 
 other occupations in which they are accustomed 
 to travel daily over about the same route, come in 
 time to remember every alley, street, and stopping- 
 place of the whole round almost as accurately 
 as their drivers. Darwin's dog remembered and 
 obeyed him after an absence of five years. The 
 power of dogs, squirrels, and other animals of 
 remembering where they have long before cached 
 food is indeed wonderful. A squirrel will come 
 down out of a tree when the earth is covered to 
 a depth of several inches with lately fallen snow 
 and hop away, without the slightest hesitancy or 
 mistake, to the exact spot where it has months 
 before stored its mid-winter acorns. A lion has 
 been known to recognise its keeper after seven 
 years of separation, and an elephant obeyed all 
 his old words of command on being recaptured 
 after fifteen years of jungle life. The similarity of 
 memory in other animals to the same faculty in 
 man is shown by the fact that memory everywhere 
 is governed by the same laws. In all animals, 
 including man, memory is strengthened by repe- 
 tition — that is, impressions are always deepened 
 and confirmed by being made over and over. A 
 parrot or a raven masters a new sentence by 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 199 
 
 working at it and saying it over and over again, 
 just as a boy memorises his rules and catechisms. 
 Imagination is the picturing power of the mind. 
 In its lowest stages of manifestation it is akin to 
 memory. Imagination, however, in its higher 
 reaches, not only reimages previous impressions, 
 but combines them in new and original relations. 
 Imagination is displayed in dreams, images, de- 
 lusions, anticipation, and sympathy. It also fur- 
 nishes wings for speculation and reason. Spiders, 
 when they attach stones to their webs to steady 
 them during anticipated gales, probably exercise 
 imagination. The tame serpent which was carried 
 away from its master's house and found its way 
 back again, though the distance was one hundred 
 miles, no doubt carried in its imagination vivid 
 pictures of its old home (10). Cats, dogs, horses, 
 and other animals dream, and parrots talk in their 
 sleep. Horses and cattle sometimes stampede at 
 imaginary objects, and often distort real objects 
 into imaginary monsters. When a horse at night 
 takes firight at a big black stump by the roadside, 
 he no doubt imagines it to be some terrible creature 
 ready to eat him up if he should go near it, just 
 as a timid child does in the same circumstances. 
 There is a great difference in horses in this respect, 
 just as there is among children and men, some of 
 them taking fright at every unusual thing, while 
 others are more bold or stolid. The cat playing 
 with a ball of yarn converts it by means of its 
 imagination into an object of prey, just as a girl 
 converts a doll into a baby, or a boy changes a 
 
200 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 stick into a steed. Sympathy is the putting or 
 picturing of one's self in the place of another, and 
 by means of the imagination sharing or simulating 
 the psychic conditions of that other. This high 
 and holy exercise of the imagination is exhibited 
 by horses, cattle, dogs, deer, elephants, monkeys, 
 and birds — in fact, by nearly all animals as far 
 down as the fishes and insects. 
 
 Emotion is the stirring of the sensibilities by 
 way of the intellect or the imagination. Thfe 
 following emotions are found in non-human 
 beings : fear, surprise, affection, pugnacity, play, 
 pride, anger, jealousy, curiosity, sympathy, emula- 
 tion, resentment, appreciation of the beautiful, 
 grief, hate, cruelty, joy, benevolence, revenge, 
 shame, remorse, and appreciation of the ludicrous. 
 Excepting the emotions of conscience and religion, 
 which are really compounds, with fear as the main 
 ingredient, this list of non-human emotions is co- 
 extensive with the list of human emotions. Many 
 of these emotions germinate low down in the 
 animal kingdom, fear, anger, sexuality, and 
 jealousy all being found in fishes and in the 
 higher invertebrates. In the higher vertebrates 
 many of these emotions are almost as strong as 
 they are in men. Does anyone who has felt the 
 throbbing sides of a frightened puppy or hare 
 have any doubt that these creatures suffer the 
 keenest agony of fear ? Apes have been known to 
 fall down and faint when suddenly confronted by 
 a snake, so great is their instinctive horror of 
 serpents ; and gray parrots, which are extremely 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 201 
 
 nervous birds, have been known to drop from their 
 perch unconscious under the influence of great 
 fear (14). 
 
 The horse is, perhaps, of all animals, the one 
 which occasionally, gives itself over most com- 
 pletely to the emotion of fear, as everyone who 
 has witnessed the terrible abandon of a runaway 
 team can testify. Ants, fishes, birds, cats, dogs, 
 horses, monkeys, porpoises, and many other 
 animals play. Young kittens, colts, and puppies 
 enjoy a scuffle about as well as boys do. Pugnacity 
 originates among the spiders and insects, and is 
 highly developed in the ant, cock, and bulldog. 
 This emotion is strong in the males of nearly all 
 vertebrates. Anyone who has observed the vigi- 
 lance displayed by fishes in protecting their nests 
 can have little doubt that these comparatively 
 primitive beings possess pugnacity. I was one 
 evening floating in a boat by the edge of a Long 
 Island pond just over a village of perches. Each 
 nest was guarded by an assiduous male, who 
 hovered over it vigilantly, or darted this way and 
 that to drive off the piscatorial hoi polloi hanging 
 about the neighbourhood, ready to slip in at the 
 first opportunity and eat the eggs. Just to see 
 what would happen, I put my hand down into 
 the water and moved it slowly toward one of the 
 nests. To my surprise, the guardian of the nest, 
 instead of fleeing in alarm, proceeded to show 
 fight. It chased my hand away time after time, 
 and when the hand was not removed it would nip 
 it vigorously, not once simply, but two or three 
 
202 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 times if necessary, and each time with increasing 
 energy. It contended with the courage of a little 
 hero. I pushed it and jostled it about, and even 
 took it in my hand and Hfted it clear out of the 
 water. To my amazement, on getting back into 
 the water, it returned promptly to the attack. It 
 fought until it was really fagged, for its onsets 
 were at last much feebler than at first. I came 
 away after twenty minutes, leaving the little hero 
 in triumphant possession of his charge. 
 
 Among some species of monkeys several indi- 
 viduals will join together in overturning a stone 
 for the possible ants' eggs under it ; and, when a 
 burying beetle has found a dead mouse or bird, it 
 goes and gets its companions to help it in the 
 interment (20). Crows show benevolence by 
 feeding their blind and helpless companions, and 
 monkeys adopt the orphans of deceased members 
 of their tribe. Brehm saw two crows feeding in 
 a hollow tree a third crow which was wounded. 
 They had evidently been doing this for some time, 
 for the wound was several weeks old. Darwin 
 tells of a blind pelican which was fed upon fishes, 
 which were brought to it by its friends from a 
 distance of thirty miles (15). The devotion of 
 cedar-birds to each other and their kindness to all 
 birds in distress are well known to every student 
 of ornithology. Olive Thorne Miller tells of a 
 cedar-bird that raised a brood of young robins 
 that had been left orphans by the accidental 
 killing of the parents. Weddell saw more than 
 once during his journey to Bolivia that when a 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 203 
 
 herd of vicunas were closely pursued the strong 
 males covered the retreat of the weaker and less 
 swift members of the herd by lagging behind and 
 protecting them (20). 
 
 A remarkable instance of altruism which he 
 once saw exhibited by the king-crabs in a London 
 aquarium is mentioned by Kropotkin in his work 
 on ' Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution.' One of 
 these crabs had fallen on its back in a corner of 
 the tank. And for one of these great creatures, 
 with its saucepan carapace, to get on its back 
 is, even in favourable circumstances, a serious 
 matter. The seriousness was increased in this 
 instance by an iron bar, which hindered the 
 normal activities of the unfortunate crustacean. 
 ' Its comrades came to the rescue, and for one 
 hour's time I watched how they endeavoured to 
 help their fellow-prisoner. They came two at 
 once, pushed their friend from beneath, and after 
 strenuous efforts succeeded in lifting it upright. 
 But then the iron bar prevented them from achiev- 
 ing the work of rescue, and the crab again fell 
 heavily on its back. After many attempts, one of 
 the helpers went into the depth of the tank and 
 brought two other crabs, who began with fresh 
 forces the same pushing and lifting of their help- 
 less comrade. We stayed in the aquarium for 
 more than two hours, and, when leaving, came to 
 cast a glance upon the tank. The work of 
 attempted rescue still continued. Since I saw 
 that I cannot refuse credit to the observation 
 quoted by Dr. Erasmus Darwin that the common 
 
204 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 crab during the moulting season stations a sentinel, 
 an unmolted or hard-shelled individual, to prevent 
 marine enemies from injuring moulted individuals 
 in their unprotected state.' Walruses go to the 
 defence of a wounded comrade when summoned 
 by its cries for help. Romanes tells of a gander 
 who acted as a guardian to his blind consort, 
 taking her neck gently in his mouth and leading 
 her to the water when she wanted to take a swim, 
 and after allowing her to cruise for a time under 
 his guidance and care, conducting her back home 
 again in the sanie thoughtful manner. When 
 goslings were hatched, this remarkable gander 
 seemed to realise the inability of the mother to 
 look after them, for he took charge of them as if 
 they were his own, convoying them to the water- 
 side, and lifting them carefully out of the ruts 
 and pits with his bill whenever they got into 
 difficulty (lo). 
 
 The disposition to go to the aid of a fellow in 
 trouble is one of the most characteristic traits in 
 the psychology of the swine. A single squeal of 
 distress from even the scrawniest member of a 
 swine herd will bring down on the one who causes 
 this distress the hair-raising wrath of every porker 
 within hearing. This trait has been considerably 
 reduced by domestication, and in those varieties 
 in which degeneracy has gone farthest it scarcely 
 exists. But it is exceedingly strong in all wild 
 hogs. Animals as low in the scale of development 
 and as proverbially cold as snakes have been 
 known, when educated and treated with kindness, 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 205 
 
 to manifest considerable affection for their friends 
 and masters. Nearly all domestic animals display 
 a good deal of affection, not only to their young, 
 but to adult members of their own kind and to 
 their human masters. The devotion of the dog to 
 man is without a parallel anywhere. It has been 
 said that ' the dog is the only thing on this earth 
 that loves you more than he loves himself.' When 
 dogs become so much attached to their masters or 
 mistresses that they pine and die on being separated 
 from them, they show beyond any question that 
 they have feelings which, in intensity, are not 
 inferior to those possessed by the more highly 
 developed men and women. And this has hap- 
 pened time after time. 
 
 A pathetic story of love and of its tragic close 
 came last year out of the Maine woods. Two 
 moose, who had been tracked all day by a couple 
 of human tigers, were finally overtaken, when one 
 of them fell pierced by two rifle-balls. The 
 remaining moose, instead of dashing off into the 
 forest, stood still, lowered its head, and sniffed at 
 its fallen companion. Then, raising its antlers 
 high into the air, it bellowed loudly. As the cry 
 of the great creature echoed through the forest, it 
 also fell at the discharge ot the rifles. It was 
 found on examination afterwards that the first 
 moose was blind, and that the second one, which 
 had neglected to leave it for safety, was its pilot. 
 
 My father once owned a cow who contracted a 
 strong affection for my sister. This cow, who 
 showed on many occasions and in many ways her 
 
2o6 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 highly developed emotional nature, would scarcely 
 allow anyone else than my sister to milk her. She 
 always presented herself to my sister as soon as 
 she was let into the lot in order to be milked first, 
 and she was so jealous of this privilege that if it 
 were not accorded to her she would stand with 
 her head down and give vent to her unhappi- 
 ness in low moans. After she was milked she 
 would follow her human friend around from one 
 cow to another, in order to be as near her as 
 possible. She knew my sister's voice from that 
 of everyone else, and would always low a response 
 and come to her when called by name, even though 
 she were a quarter of a mile away in the pasture. 
 Romanes tells somewhere of a band of apes that 
 were being pursued by dogs when a young ape 
 was cut off from the rest and was about to be 
 killed by the dogs. The chief of the band, seeing 
 the peril of the young one, went deliberately back 
 and rescued it. 
 
 Many animals show that they possess a rudi- 
 mentary sense of humour by the pranks and 
 tricks which they play on each other and on 
 human beings. The monkey is the prince of non- 
 human jokers, but dogs, cats, horses, elephants, 
 and other animals have enough of this sense 
 to have books written about it. A monkey has 
 been observed to slyly pass his hand back of a 
 second monkey and tweak the tail of a third one, 
 and then composedly enjoy himself while the 
 resentment of the injured monkey expended itself 
 on the innocent middle one. Many monkeys 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 207 
 
 enjoy entertaining their friends with grimaces, by 
 carrying a cane, putting a tin dish on their heads, 
 or other droll antics. These intelligent animals 
 have a sufficiently high appreciation of the ludi- 
 crous to dislike ridicule. Like human beings, 
 they can't endure being laughed at, and get mad 
 if they are made the victims of a joke. Romanes' 
 monkey was one day asked to crack a nut for the 
 amusement of a visitor. The nut turned out to 
 be a bad one, and the melancholy look of disap- 
 pointment on the monkey's face caused the visitor 
 to laugh. The insulted monkey flew into a rage, 
 and hurled the nut at the offending scoffer, then 
 the hammer, and finally the coffee-pot which 
 simmered on the grate fire (10). Darwin tells of 
 a baboon in the Zoological Gardens of London 
 who always became infuriated every time his 
 keeper took out a letter or book and read aloud to 
 him. On one occasion when Darwin was present 
 the baboon became so furious that he bit his own 
 leg until it bled (15). 
 
 The emotion variously known as shame, regret, 
 repentance, and remorse, is not common among 
 the non-human races. It is found sometimes in 
 dogs and monkeys, and especially in educated 
 anthropoids. But this emotion is exceedingly 
 rare among savages, and is not at all universal 
 even among civilised societies of men. Some 
 animals manifest self-restraint, which is an ex- 
 ceedingly elite quality of mind, and one not so 
 common as it might be even among the higher 
 breeds of mankind. By restraint is meant the 
 
2o8 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 inhibition of a desire or instinct in the presence of 
 circumstances tending to render the desire or 
 instinct active — and this is obedience, and the 
 beginning of morahty. A dog that will not chase 
 a hare in the presence of his master may do so in 
 his absence. I taught my guinea-pigs to abstain 
 from certain food in their presence which they 
 wanted very much, and which they would have 
 eaten if they had not been educated to let it alone. 
 Sympathy is the most beautiful of all terrestrial 
 emotions. It is manifested, sometimes to an 
 exceedingly touching degree, by all the highest 
 races of animals. No other instances than those 
 already given can be mentioned here. It is suffi- 
 cient to say that the difference between the savage 
 — whose sympathies are so feeble that he has been 
 known to knock his own child's brains out for 
 dropping a basket, and who puts his aged parents 
 to death in order to avoid the burden of maintain- 
 ing them, and whose sympathies seldom extend 
 beyond his family or tribe — and civilised men and 
 women, who feel actual pain when in the presence 
 of those who suffer, and whose sympathies some- 
 times include all sentient creation, is much greater 
 than that between the savage and many non- 
 human animals. The frail, narrow, fantastic 
 character of human sympathy is the most mourn- 
 ful fact in human nature. ' Man's inhumanity to 
 man makes countless thousands mourn,' and his 
 inhumanity to not-men makes the planet a ball of 
 pain and terror. 
 
 Volition is the power of the mind to act execu- 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 209 
 
 tively. Or, perhaps, it is the resultant of the 
 impulses actuating a mind at any particular 
 instant. Whatever volition is, it is the same 
 thing in the insect as in the man. Non-human 
 beings have been observed to pause and deliberate 
 and to make wise and momentous decisions in 
 the tvfcfinkling of an eye. A chased hare will 
 decide to squat, to go straight ahead, or to do 
 something else which the emergency demands, 
 just as unmistakably as a human fugitive. In the 
 sense of being the power to act differently from 
 the manner in which a being actually does act, 
 there is no such thing as freewill. The will of the 
 worm is just as free as the will of the judge — not 
 in the sense that it is as varied in the directions 
 of its activity, but in the sense that the character 
 of its activities is determined inevitably by the 
 character of its antecedents. All will, whether 
 human or non-human, invariably acts in the 
 direction of the strongest motive, just as a stone 
 or a river invariably moves, if it moves at all, in 
 the direction of the strongest tendency or force. 
 It is impossible that this should be otherwise. 
 For, if the will in any case elects to overthrow 
 this fact by arbitrarily discarding a stronger 
 motive for a feebler, in the very motive of the 
 election are concealed elements which transform 
 the feebler motive into the stronger. All motion, 
 voluntary and involuntary — the motion of bullets, 
 beings, societies, and suns — takes place along the 
 lines of least arrest. Every being is compelled to 
 decide as he does decide and to act as he does act 
 
 14 
 
210 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 by the inherited tendencies of his own nature and 
 the tendencies of the environment in which he 
 exists. And if any being, after having passed 
 through life, were again placed back at the begin- 
 ning of life and endowed with the same nature as 
 before, and were acted upon through life by sur- 
 roundings identical with those he had previously 
 met, he would act — that is, he would exercise his 
 will — in precisely the same way in every particular 
 as he had previously done. To deny these things 
 is to assert that the conduct of living beings is 
 without law, and that psychology and sociology 
 are not sciences. 
 
 Non-human beings, all of the higher ones, have 
 the same brain and nervous apparatus as man, 
 and in their involuntary phenomena they closely 
 resemble human beings. Aim a pretended blow 
 near the eyes of a dog or a horse and it will wink 
 involuntarily, just as a human being does. Sever 
 the spinal cord of a man or a frog, and irritate 
 the feet of each, and they will each manifest the 
 same phenomena of reflex action, drawing their 
 feet away each time from the stimulus. 
 
 Instinct and reason are forms of intelligence. 
 Intelligence is the adaptation of acts to ends. 
 Intelligence is manifested by all organisms, both 
 plants and animals, and may be either conscious 
 or unconscious. Plant intelligence and reflex 
 action are forms of unconscious intelligence. Plant 
 intelligence, or the adaptation of acts to ends by 
 plants, is manifested by plants in the shifting of 
 their positions when in need of hght in order to 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 211 
 
 obtain as large a supply as possible of the essential 
 sunshine ; in devices, such as traps and flowers, 
 for utilising the juices and services of insects ; in 
 germinating and growing away from, instead of 
 toward, the centre of the earth ; in discriminating 
 between this and that kind of food ; and in a 
 thousand other ways. Plant intelligence is all 
 explicable in terms of chemistry and physics, and 
 is, so far as is known, unaccompanied by conscious- 
 ness. Reflex action is chemical affinity aided by 
 the co-ordinating powers of nerve tissue. The 
 vital processes of all animals, from the lowest to 
 the highest, and many other highly habitual and 
 highly essential operations, are carried on by reflex 
 action. Reflex action in animals, like plant intel- 
 ligence, is unconscious. 
 
 Instinct and reason are conscious. Instinct is 
 inherited intelligence — intelligence manifested in- 
 dependently of, and prior to, experience and 
 instruction. ' Instinct,' says Romanes, ' is reflex 
 action into which has been imported the element 
 of consciousness ' (i). It is exhibited by the babe 
 when it nurses the mother's breast ; by the chick 
 when it pecks its way out through the shell of the 
 egg ; by animals generally, including man, in their 
 solicitude for their young ; by the parent bird in 
 incubation ; and by all beings when they seek 
 food in obedience to the impulse of hunger. Our 
 conception of the mental processes of non-humans 
 is as yet very primitive, owing to our limited 
 means of information and the erroneous influence 
 on our judgments of traditional ways of thinking; 
 
 14 — 2 
 
212 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 and much that is attributed by us to instinct is 
 not instinct at all, but is acquired by the young 
 through education imparted by the elders. Parent 
 birds have often been seen teaching their young 
 ones to fly, and no doubt a good deal of the 
 migratory acumen manifested by birds is nothing 
 but custom and tradition handed down to each 
 younger generation by the old and experienced. 
 A large part of the knowledge of mankind (or 
 what passes for knowledge) consists of habits 
 and hobbies, customs and traditions, impressed 
 upon each new generation by the generation 
 which produced it. Each generation of men 
 seems to feel that whenever it creates a new 
 generation it has got to pile on to this new 
 generation all of the fool notions which have 
 been acquired from the past, amplified by its own 
 inventions. And when we come to know other 
 animals better, there is practically no doubt that 
 we shall find that a large part of what we now 
 call instinct and look upon as congenital will, on 
 closer and more rational examination, be found to 
 be nothing but the pedagogical effects of early 
 environment. Professor Poulton, of Oxford, who 
 has made many experiments on just-born birds, 
 says that young chicks learn to fear the hawk and 
 to interpret the oral warnings of the mother. 
 Cats teach their young to play with their prey 
 in that cruel manner so characteristic of all the 
 Felidas, as I have myself observed more than 
 once. A mother cat will carry a live mouse into 
 the presence of her kittens and lie down and play 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 213 
 
 with it, tossing it playfully into the air, poking it 
 with her paw when it does not move, and arresting 
 it when it starts to run away, the kittens all the 
 time looking on, but never once attempting to 
 take the mouse. After awhile the mother hands 
 the captive over to the kittens, who go through the 
 same performance one after another. After they 
 have practised on it until the unfortunate creature 
 is almost dead, the old cat will probably walk over 
 to where the mouse is and eat it up. The whole 
 thing is a school. The mouse is obviously not 
 intended as food for the young, but to be used 
 simply to impart instruction to them. 
 
 ' In popular writings and lectures some or all of 
 the following activities of ant-life are commonly 
 ascribed to instinct : The recognition of members 
 of the same nest ; powers of communication ; 
 keeping aphides for the sake of their sweet secre- 
 tions ; collection of aphid eggs in October, hatch- 
 ing them out in the nest, and taking them in the 
 spring to the daisies on which they feed, for 
 pasture ; slave-making and slave-keeping, which, 
 in some cases, is so ancient a habit that the 
 enslavers are unable even to feed themselves ; 
 keeping insects as beasts of burden — e.g., a kind 
 of plant-bug to carry leaves ; keeping beetles, etc., 
 as domestic pets ; habits of personal cleanliness — 
 one ant giving another a brush-up, and being 
 brushed up in return ; habits of play and recrea- 
 tion ; habits of burying their dead ; the storage of 
 grain and nipping the budding rootlet to prevent 
 further germination ; the habit of Texan ants of 
 
214 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 preparing a clearing around their nest, and, six 
 months later, harvesting the ant-rice — a kind of 
 grass of which they are particularly fond — even 
 seeking and sowing the grain which shall yield the 
 harvest ; the collection by other ants of grass to 
 manure the soil, on which there grows a species 
 of fungus upon which they feed ; the military 
 organisation of the ecitons of Central America; 
 and so forth. But to class all of these activities 
 of the ant as illustrations of instinct is a survival 
 of an old-fashioned method of treatment. 
 
 ' Suppose that the intelligent ant were to make 
 observations on human behaviour as displaj^ed in 
 one of our great cities or in an agricultural district. 
 Seeing so great an amount of routine work going 
 on around him, might he not be in danger of 
 regarding all this as evidence of hereditary instinct ? 
 Might he not find it difficult to obtain satisfactory 
 evidence of the fact that this routine work has to 
 some extent to be learned ? Might he not say 
 (perhaps not wholly without truth), " I can see 
 nothing whatever in the training of these beings 
 to fit them for their life-work. The training of 
 their children has no more apparent bearing upon 
 the activities of their after-life than the feeding of 
 3ur grubs has on the duties of ant-life. They 
 seem to fall into the routine of life with little or 
 ao preparatory training as the periods for the 
 manifestation of the various instincts arrive. If 
 [earning thereof there be, it has so far escaped 
 our observation. And such intelligence as their 
 activities evince (and many of them do show 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 215 
 
 remarkable adaptations to uniform conditions of 
 life) would seem to be rather ancestral than of the 
 present time, as is shown by the fact that many 
 of the adaptations are directed rather to past con- 
 ditions of life than to those which now hold good. 
 In the presence of new emergencies to which their 
 instincts have not fitted them, these poor creatures 
 are often completely at a loss. We cannot but 
 conclude, therefore, that, although acting under 
 somewhat different and less favourable conditions, 
 instinct occupies fully as large a space in the 
 psychology of man as it does in that of the ant, 
 while human intelligence is far less unerring and 
 hence markedly inferior to our own." 
 
 'Are these views much more absurd than the 
 views of those who, on the evidence which we 
 at present possess, attribute all the activities of 
 ant-life to instinct ?' (21) 
 
 Reason is the power of adapting means to ends 
 which is acquired from experience or instruction. 
 All animals that profit by experience, therefore, or 
 that learn from instruction — that is, are teachable 
 — exercise reason. 
 
 The line of demarkation between instinct and 
 reason is a mezzotint, reason being often instinc- 
 tive, and instinct being as frequently flavoured 
 with judgment. ' Instinct is usually regarded as 
 a special property of the lower animals, and con- 
 trasted with the conscious reason of man. But 
 just as reason may be looked upon as a higher 
 form of the understanding or intellect, and not as 
 something essentially distinct from them, so a 
 
2i6 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 closer examination shows that instinct and the 
 conscious understanding do not stand in absolute 
 contrast, but rather in a complex relation, and 
 cannot be sharply marked off from each other.' 
 It is instinct that urges the bird to build its nest ; 
 but when birds whose habit it is to build on the 
 ground learn, on the introduction of cats into the 
 neighbourhood, to change their nesting-places to 
 the tree-tops, intelligence and thought are neces- 
 sary. The first time Cavy (one of my guinea-pigs) 
 smelled a cat, she was almost scared to death. 
 She jumped back from it as if she had come in 
 contact with a red-hot stove, and screamed and 
 kept on screaming, and shot down under my coat 
 as if she were about to be crucified. After a little 
 while I tried to pull her out, but she refused, and 
 kept hiding. The second time the kitten was pre- 
 sented to her the result was the same. But after 
 two or three days of association, she paid little 
 more attention to it than to the other guinea-pigs. 
 She had never seen a cat before. It was the odour 
 of the carnivore that terrified her, and the effect 
 was purely instinctive. But instinct was soon 
 modified by intelligent experience. {Poor dear 
 little Cavy ! I wonder where she is now !) 
 
 Both instinct and reason (and one, too, just as 
 much as the other) are absolutely dependent upon 
 processes that are purely mechanical — that is, 
 upon brain processes ; and brain processes depend 
 upon brain structure, which is inherited. Hence, 
 reason is, in a certain sense, as truly inherited as 
 instinct is. A being must be born with the 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 217 
 
 particular nervous apparatus by means of which 
 reasoning is carried on, or with the power or 
 disposition to develop this apparatus, or he will 
 never reason. The genius of the partridge in 
 cajoling the passer-by from her nest is called 
 instinct, but it is not more inherited than was 
 the genius of Shakspere. Experience simply calls 
 into being that, whatever it is in each particular 
 being, which is inherited. Sir Isaac Newton took 
 to philosophy and Ole Bull to music not less 
 inevitably than the duck takes to water or the 
 hound to hunting. Reason is, hence, inherited 
 by every man, who has it as truly as his erect 
 posture and plantigrade feet. There is something 
 in the past of all of us and of everything which 
 has determined, and which may be used to account 
 for, everything that to-day exists or happens, even 
 to the style and behaviour of every leaf that 
 flutters in the forest, and to the eccentricities 
 of our opinions and handwritings. 
 
 Reason, in the sense in which it is here used, is 
 found feebly in the oyster. Oysters taken from 
 a depth never uncovered by the sea open their 
 shells, lose their water, and quickly perish. But 
 oysters taken from the same depths, if kept where 
 they are occasionally left uncovered for short 
 intervals, learn to keep their shells closed and to 
 live a much longer period out of the water. On 
 the coast of France ' oyster schools ' exist, where 
 oysters intended for inland cities are educated to 
 keep their shells closed when out of the water in 
 order to enable them to survive the desiccating 
 
2i8 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 exposures of the overland journey (lo). This act 
 of the bivalve is probably the result of something 
 like a vague form of reason. It is an act adapted 
 to the accomplishment of a definite end, and the 
 adapting power is acquired from experience. It 
 is, moreover, reason which in its final analysis 
 does not differ from the reason displayed by the 
 wisest being that thinks. Judgment, forethought, 
 common-sense, inference, ingenuity, genius, reason, 
 and abstract thought, are all exercises of the 
 cognitive or perceptive power of mind, and consist, 
 all of them, in nothing more nor less than the dis- 
 cerning of relations among stimuli. The dog who 
 adopts a cut-off in order to intercept a fleeing hare 
 performs exactly the same kind of intellectual 
 process as the mechanic who erects a windmill in 
 order to divert the energies of the breeze, or the 
 politician who adopts a particular platform to 
 :atch votes. ' A perception is always in its 
 essential nature what logicians term a conclusion, 
 whether it has reference to the simplest memory 
 of the past sensation or to the highest product of 
 abstract thought. For, when the highest product 
 of abstract thought is analysed, the ultimate 
 elements must always be found to consist in 
 material given directly by the senses ; and every 
 stage in the symbolic construction of ideas, in 
 which the process of abstraction consists, depends 
 on acts of perception taking place in the lower 
 stages ' (i). The difference among the perceptive 
 acts of different individuals consists, not in the 
 different kinds of intellectual exercise, but in 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 219 
 
 differences among the inatcriak with which the 
 perceptive faculty deals. There are perceptions 
 of simple sensations, and there are perceptions of 
 composite sensations, or concepts — perceptions of 
 elementary relations, and perceptions of compound 
 and elaborate relations. But all displays of 
 rational faculty, from the simple judgment of 
 distance by the dimness and distinctness of defini- 
 tion and the size of the visual angle, which all 
 higher animals are compelled to make, to the 
 labyrinthic abstractions of the logician, consist 
 in nothing in addition to discriminations among 
 stimuli. 
 
 Brehm one day gave one of his apes a paper 
 bag with a lump of sugar and a wasp in it. The 
 ape in getting the sugar was stung by the wasp. 
 From that day, whenever Brehm gave that ape, 
 or any other ape in that cage, a paper package, 
 the animal, before opening it, took the precaution 
 to shake the package at his ear and listen to find 
 out whether or not there was a wasp inside (18). 
 Now, such an act of intelligence implies several 
 inferences. A train of thoughts something like 
 this must have passed through this ape's mind : 
 * Now, if one wasp can sting, so can another ; and, 
 if a man can deceive me once by wrapping a wasp 
 in a paper with a lump of sugar, he may try it 
 again ; and, if one man will attempt such a thing, 
 so may another ; and, if men will attempt it on 
 me, they may attempt it on my friends ; so I will 
 warn my friends to look out for those villainous 
 chaps outside.' These inferences of the ape are 
 
220 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 the same kind of generalisations exactly as are 
 made by men everywhere in their daily lives. And 
 the common-sense inferences made by ordinary 
 people in their every-day affairs are precisely the 
 same processes of reasoning as those used by 
 scientists and philosophers. Many people, like 
 the character in Molifere's plays who was sur- 
 prised and delighted to learn that he had been 
 talking prose all his life, are surprised on hearing 
 for the first time that they use induction and 
 deduction every hour almost of their waking lives. 
 They imagine that philosophers must have some 
 secret and superior way of acquiring their con- 
 clusions, different from what ordinary mortals 
 have. ' But there is no more difference,' says 
 Huxley, ' between the mental operations of a man 
 Df science and those of an ordinary person than 
 there is between the operations and methods 
 Df a grocer weighing out his goods in common 
 scales and the operations of a chemist in perform- 
 ing a difficult and complex analysis by means 
 Df his balance and finely graduated weights. It 
 IS not that the scales in the one case and the 
 balances in the other differ in the principles of 
 their construction or manner of working ; but 
 :he beam of the one is set on an infinitely finer 
 ixis than the other, and, of course, turns by 
 ■he addition of a much smaller weight ' (i6). 
 (\nd the difference in mental method between 
 the man of learning and the ordinary man or 
 ?ifoman is the same as the difference between 
 nature men and children and between men 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 221 
 
 generally and other animals. It is one of degree, 
 not of kind. The philosopher, the clodhopper, 
 and the ape, all use precisely the same methods 
 of reasoning, differing only in exactness and in 
 the materials of consciousness dealt with. 
 
 Nearly all animals, from moUusks to men, 
 reason — not once or twice in a lifetime, but the 
 most of them every day and every hour of their 
 existence. In fact, it would be impossible for any 
 animal addicted to moving about, and with a 
 delicate and easily wrecked organism, to long 
 survive in a world like this without that elasticity 
 of action which reason alone can impart. Since 
 they live in the same world-conditions as human 
 beings, and are seeking providence for substantially 
 the same wants, non- human beings manifest 
 reason in the same general directions as human 
 beings do — in the location and construction of 
 their homes and fortresses, in the arrest of their 
 prey, in circumventing their enemies, in over- 
 coming obstacles and surmounting dangers, in 
 protecting and educating their young, in meet- 
 ing the emergencies of food and climate, in 
 the wooing of mates and the waging of wars, 
 and in the thousand other cases where they 
 are called upon in their daily wanderings and 
 doings to deal with novel and unprecedented 
 situations. 
 
 When wild geese are feeding there is said to be 
 always one of them that acts as sentinel. This 
 one never takes a grain of corn while on duty. 
 When it has acted awhile it gives the bird next to 
 
222 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 t a sharp peck and utters a querulous kind of 
 :ry, and the second one takes its turn. This is 
 prudence, or forethought, which is a form of 
 reason. When swans are diving there is generally 
 Dne that stays above the water and watches. 
 Sentinels have alarm sounds of various kinds, 
 which they give to signify ' enemy.' ' Ibex, 
 marmots, and mountain -sheep whistle; prarie- 
 iogs bark ; elephants trumpet ; wild geese and 
 Bwans have a kind of bugle call ; rabbits and 
 sheep stamp on the ground ; crows caw ; and 
 wild ducks utter a low, warning quack.' 
 
 In the Popular Science Monthly for March, 1901, 
 is an account of a series of experiments on the 
 intelligence of the turtle made by Professor Yerkes, 
 of Harvard. The turtle was placed in a labyrinth, 
 at the farther end of which was a comfortable bed 
 of sand. It took just thirty-five minutes of wander- 
 ing for the turtle to reach the nest the first time. 
 But in the second trial the nest was reached in 
 fifteen minutes, and by the tenth trip the turtle 
 was familiar enough with the route to go through 
 in three and one-half minutes, making but two 
 mistakes. The turtle was afterwards placed in a 
 more complex labyrinth, containing, among other 
 features, a blind alley and two inclines. The 
 inclines were puzzles, and it took one hour and 
 thirty-five minutes of aimless rambling for the 
 wanderer to reach its nest the first time. But 
 the fifth trip was made in sixteen minutes, and 
 the tenth in four minutes, which was not far from 
 direct. 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 233 
 
 These experiments show that animals of almost 
 proverbial density may learn with surprising 
 quickness. English sparrows and other avian 
 inhabitants of the city learn to live tranquilly 
 along the busiest thoroughfares, exposed to all 
 sorts of dangers, and subjected to what would be 
 to many birds the most terrifying circumstances. 
 Whizzing trolleys, tramping multitudes, and 
 screaming engines have no terrors for them. They 
 simply exercise the caution necessary to keep from 
 being run over. They boldly build their nests 
 right under passing elevated cars, where the roar 
 is sufficient to scare the life out of an ordinary 
 country bird. I have seen these testy little chaps 
 sit and feed and jabber to each other in a perfectly 
 unconcerned way within ten or fifteen feet of a 
 thundering express train. They do not do these 
 things from instinct : they learn to do them. 
 They know that a diabolical-looking locomotive 
 is harmless, because they have seen it before ; 
 and they know that an insignificant urchin with 
 a savage heart and a sling is not harmless, and 
 they know it simply because they have previously 
 had dealings with him. English sparrows will 
 disappear completely from a neighborhood if a 
 few of them are killed. Cats, dogs, horses — all 
 animals, in fact — acquire during life a fund of 
 information as to how to act in order to avoid 
 harm and extinction. If they did not, they would 
 not live long. And they do it just as man does it, 
 by memory and discrimination, by retaining im- 
 pressions made upon them, and acting differently 
 
224 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 when an impression is made a second, third, or 
 thirteenth time. 
 
 Animals of experience (including men) are more 
 skilful in adjusting themselves to environmental 
 exigencies than the young and inexperienced, 
 because of their store of initial impressions. It 
 is a matter of common observation that young 
 animals are more easily caught or killed or other- 
 wise victimised than the old and experienced. 
 Many animals, however, (and a good many men) 
 are able to profit by a single impression. One 
 dose of tartar emetic is generally suificient to cure 
 an egg-sucking dog, and it is a very stupid canine 
 indeed that does not understand perfectly after 
 one or two experiences with a porcupine or an 
 unsavory skunk. ' The burnt child dreads the 
 fire,' but so does the burnt puppy. Rengger states 
 that his Paraguay monkeys, after cutting them- 
 selves only once with any sharp tool, would not 
 touch it again, or would handle it with the greatest 
 caution (lo). Older trout are more wary than 
 young ones, and fishes that have been much 
 hunted and deceived become suspicious of traps. 
 Rats, martins, and other animals cannot long be 
 trapped in the same way, and partridges and other 
 birds seldom fly against telegraph-wires the second 
 season after the wires are put up. These animals, 
 however, cannot learn to avoid these dangers from 
 experience, for only a few of them are ever caught 
 or struck. They must learn it from observing 
 their unfortunate companions. Everyone who has 
 read the story of Lobo, the big gray wolf of the 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 225 
 
 Carrumpaw, cannot but wonder at the remarkable 
 shrewdness shown by this old leader in baffling 
 for years the tigers that hung upon his tracks (17). 
 Nansen states that the seals, before man invaded 
 the Arctics, occupied the inner ice-floes to avoid 
 the polar bear, but after man came they took to 
 living on the outer floes in order to escape the 
 persecutions of this new and more fearful enemy. 
 Domestic animals, when first turned out in new 
 regions, often die from eating poisonous weeds, 
 but in some way soon learn to avoid them. Many 
 animals, when pursuing other animals, or when 
 being pursued, display a knowledge of facts very 
 little understood by the majority of mankind, such 
 as of places where scent lies or is obliterated, and 
 the effects of wind in carrying evidence of their 
 presence to their enemies. The hunted roebuck 
 or hare will make circles, double on its own tracks, 
 take to water, and fling itself for considerable dis- 
 tances through the air as cleverly as if it had read 
 up all the theory of scent in a book. According 
 to the London Spectator, one of the large African 
 elephants in the Zoological Gardens of that city 
 restores to its entertainers all the bits of food 
 which on being thrown to him fall alike out of his 
 reach and theirs. He points his proboscis straight 
 at the food, and blows it along the floor to the feet 
 of those who have thrown it. He clearly knows 
 what he is about, for if he does not blow hard enough 
 to land the food the first time, he blows harder 
 and harder until he does. The cacadoos (parrots) 
 of Australia, before descending upon a field or 
 
 15 
 
6 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 :hard in search of food, send out a scouting 
 rty to reconnoitre the region and see that ' all 
 well.' Sometimes a second party is sent. If 
 e report is favourable, the whole band advance 
 d plunder the field in short order. These birds 
 2 exceedingly wary and intelligent, and seldom 
 ike mistakes. But ' if man once succeeds in 
 ling one of them, they become so prudent and 
 Ltchful that they henceforward baffle all strata- 
 ms ' (20). A short time ago a parrot at Wash- 
 ;ton, New Jersey, saved the life of its owner by 
 mmoning the neighbours to his relief. Cries of 
 [urder!' 'Help!' 'Come quick!' coming from 
 
 2 home of the parrot, attracted the attention of 
 ighbours, who ran to the house to find out the 
 use. ' They found the owner of the parrot lying 
 
 the floor unconscious, bleeding from a great 
 sh in his neck. He had been repairing the 
 iling, and had fallen and struck his head against 
 
 3 stove. It required six stitches to close the 
 )und, and the surgeon said that in only a few 
 nutes the injured man would have been dead, 
 few years ago this parrot's screams awakened 
 
 owner in time to arouse his neighbours and 
 /e them from a fire which started in the house 
 xt door.' 
 
 A friend of mine, who is thoroughly reliable, tells 
 I that when he was a student at the University 
 Michigan a few years ago one of the professors 
 zoology there had a dog who was used by the 
 partment for experiments in digestion. The dog 
 lS compelled to wear a tube opening downward 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 227 
 
 out of his stomach, and soon grew very weak and 
 emaciated from the constant loss of food, which 
 leaked out through this tube. After a time, how- 
 ever, the dog was observed to be growing unac- 
 countably hale and strong. He was watched, and 
 the poor creature was found to have struck upon 
 an ingenious expedient to save his life. On eating 
 his meal, he would go out to the barn, and, in 
 order to prevent the artificial escape of the con- 
 tents of his stomach, would lie down flat on his 
 back between two boxes and remain there until 
 his digested food had passed safely beyond the 
 pylorus. 
 
 A few months ago, John, one of the monkeys 
 at Lincoln Park, Chicago, was suffering from a 
 terrible abscess on the cheek, and an operation 
 became necessary in order to save the little fellow's 
 life. It was a pathetic sight to see the look of 
 trust in the monkey's eyes when the surgeon was 
 ready to begin the operation, and the courage and 
 fortitude displayed by the sufferer were almost 
 human. At the first touch of the knife the monkey 
 pressed his head hard against the knee of the 
 assistant and grabbed the forefinger of each of the 
 assistant's hands, just as a person does who is 
 about to undergo a painful operation. The swell- 
 ing was first cut open and washed with antiseptic, 
 when the cheek-bone was scraped and a small 
 piece of it removed. After being again washed 
 in antiseptic, the wound was sewed up, and John 
 was lifted gently back into his cage — not, however, 
 until he had licked the hands of the surgeon and 
 
 15—2 
 
228 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 kissed his face in gratitude. The Httle hero never 
 uttered a sound from the time the knife first 
 touched his face until he was put back into his 
 cage. A similar act of intelligence is recorded of 
 an orang. Having been once bled on account of 
 illness, and not feeling well some time afterward, 
 this orang went from one person to another, and, 
 pointing to the vein in his arm, signified his desire 
 to have the operation repeated. Both of these 
 instances are examples of reason of a very high 
 order — of a higher order, indeed, than many 
 children and some grown people exhibit in similar 
 circumstances. The chimpanzee, Mafuca, learned 
 how to unlock her cage, and stole the key and hid 
 it under her arm for future use. After watching the 
 carpenter boring holes with his brad-awl, she took 
 the brad-awl and bored holes in her table. She 
 poured out milk for herself at meals, and always 
 carefully stopped pouring before the cup ran over. 
 When baboons go on marauding expeditions, 
 they show that they realise perfectly what they 
 are doing by moving with great stealth. Not a 
 sound is uttered. If any thoughtless youngster so 
 far forgets the necessities of the occasion as to utter 
 a single chatter, he is given a reminder in the 
 shape of a box on the ear. ' A certain Mr. Cops, 
 who had a young orang, gave it half an orange 
 one day, and put the other half away out of its 
 sight on a high press, and lay down himself on 
 the sofa. But the ape's movements, attracting his 
 attention, he only pretended to go to sleep. The 
 creature came cautiously and satisfied himself that 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 229 
 
 his master was asleep, then climbed up the press, 
 ate the rest of the orange, carefully hid the peel 
 among the shavings in the grate, examined the 
 pretended sleeper again, and then went and lay 
 down on his own bed.' This incident is recorded 
 by Tylor in his ' Anthropology.' ' And such be- 
 haviour,' he adds, ' is to be explained only by 
 supposing a train of thought to pass through the 
 brain of the ape somewhat similar to what we our- 
 selves call reason.' These instances of undoubted 
 intelligence and thought might be added to almost 
 without number if there was room. Every person 
 nearly who has been in the world any length of 
 time, and has had occasion to associate with these 
 so-called ' machines,' has seen for himself, often 
 unexpectedly, many flashes of brightness among 
 them. 
 
 It has been said that man differs from other 
 animals, and is superior to them in the fact that 
 he modifies his environment while other animals 
 do not, but are modified by environment. Mr. 
 Lester F. Ward makes this distinction in his 
 ' Pure Sociology.' The distinction is no nearer 
 the truth than other distinctions of like character 
 that have from time to time been drawn between 
 men and other animals. It is not much more 
 than half true, if it is that, and does not by any 
 means deserve the italics awarded to it by this 
 writer. Many races of non-human beings have a 
 far greater influence on their environment than 
 many races of men have. Many tribes of men 
 wander about naked, build no habitations, make 
 
230 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 no weapons, and feed upon the fruits, roots, insects, 
 and such other chance morsels as they can pick 
 up from day to day in their wanderings. Such 
 races are far inferior in constructive activity to 
 the birds, who build elaborate houses, and to the 
 beavers, who not only construct substantial dwell- 
 ings, but dam rivers, and cut down trees and 
 transport them long distances, and dig artificial 
 waterways, to be used as aids in their engineering 
 enterprises. Compare the elaborate compartments 
 of the Australian bower-birds, surrounded with 
 ornamented and carefully-kept grounds, with the 
 lean-to of many savage tribes, made by sticking 
 two or three palm-leaves in the ground and leaning 
 them against a pole. Even ants plant crops, make 
 clearings, build roads and tunnels, etc. It must 
 be remembered, too, that, however affirmative and 
 masterful a race of men may become, it never 
 succeeds, and never can succeed, in emancipating 
 itself from the influences of environment. It is 
 true that with the growth of intelligence among 
 organic forms there has been a constant transfer 
 of influence from the environment to the organism; 
 but this transfer began, not with man by any 
 means, but low down in the scale of animal life. 
 
 It has been said that man is the only animal 
 that uses tools. But this is not true either, for 
 animals as low in the scale of development as 
 insects have been known to use tools. At least 
 two diff'erent observers testify to having seen 
 ground-wasps use small stones as hammers in 
 packing the dirt firmly over their nests. Spiders 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 231 
 
 use stones as weights to steady their webs in times 
 of storm. Orangs throw sticks and stones at their 
 pursuers, and certain tribes of Abyssinian baboons, 
 when they go to battle with each other, carry 
 stones as missiles. Monkeys often use stones to 
 crack nuts with, and tame monkeys know very 
 well how to use a hammer when it is given to 
 them. In the London Zoological Gardens a 
 monkey with poor teeth kept a stone hidden in the 
 straw of its cage to crack its nuts with, and it 
 would not allow any other monkey to touch the 
 stone. ' Here,' says Darwin, in speaking of this 
 case, ' is the idea of property.' Monkeys also use 
 sticks as levers in prying open chests and lifting 
 heavy objects. Cuvier's orang used to carry a 
 chair across the room and stand on it to lift the 
 door-latch. Chimpanzees, who are very fond of 
 making a noise, have been seen standing around a 
 hollow log in the forest, beating it with sticks ; 
 and if we are to believe Emin Pasha, these in- 
 genious parodies of men sometimes carry torches 
 when they go at night on foraging expeditions. 
 The Indian elephant, when travelling, will some- 
 times turn aside and break off a leafy branch from 
 a roadside tree and carry it along in its trunk to 
 sweep off the flies. As Dr. Wesley Mills says in 
 his work on ' The Nature and Development of 
 Animal Intelligence,' ' It was formerly believed 
 that animals cannot reason, but only those persons 
 who do not themselves reason about the subject, 
 with the facts before them, can any longer occupy 
 such a position.' 
 
232 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 V. Conclusion. 
 
 It is enough. The ancient gulf scooped by 
 human conceit between man and the other animals 
 has been effectually and forever filled up. The 
 human species constitutes but one branch in the 
 gigantic arbour of life. And all the merit and all 
 the feeling and all the righteousness of the world 
 are not, as we have been accustomed to aver, con- 
 gested into this one branch. And all of the weak- 
 ness and deformity are not, as we have also been 
 anxious to believe, found elsewhere. The reluctance 
 of wrinkles and deformities to appear in the pictures 
 of men, and of strength and beauty to appear in 
 the representations of the other races of the earth, 
 is to be accounted for by the highly elucidative 
 fact that man is the universal portrait-painter. 
 There is no one to tell man what he is and how 
 he strikes others, and hence he is the ' paragon of 
 creation ' — the inter-stellar pet, half clay and half 
 halo — the image and pride of the gods — the flower 
 and gem of the eternal spheres. Man is the only 
 professional linguist in the universe. And it is 
 fortunate for him that he is. For, if he were not, 
 his auditories would be compelled to carry to his 
 perceptive centres a great many sentiments he now 
 never hears. He would be likely to hear a good 
 deal said, and said with a good deal of feeling, 
 about perpendicular brigand — grandiloquent kakis- 
 tocrat swelling with self-righteousness — rhetorical 
 hideful wrapped in pillage and gorged with decom- 
 position — a voluble and sanctimonious squash with 
 
CONCLUSION 233 
 
 two sticks in it. The definition of man as it 
 appears in the dictionary of the donkey probably 
 runs something Hke this : ' Man is an animal that 
 walks on its hind-legs, invents adjectives with 
 which to praise itself, and displays its greatest 
 utility in proving that all sharks are not aquatic' 
 We know what a lion looks like when painted by 
 a man, but human eyes have never yet been 
 allumined by the sardonic lineaments of a man 
 painted by a lion. Being boiled alive in order to 
 look well as corpses in store-windows, and having 
 wooden pegs thrust into our muscles and left there 
 to rot for a week or two to keep us in our agony 
 from doing something desperate — we know what 
 these experiences are like when they are delegated 
 to lobsters, and we take no more serious part in 
 them than to insure their infliction, but we are 
 too fervent barbarians to bother our heads about 
 what they are like from the crustacean point of 
 view. 
 
 Let us be candid. Men are not all gentle men 
 and humane, and not-men are not all inhuman. 
 There are reptiles in broadcloth, and there are 
 warm and generous hearts among those peoples 
 who have so long suffered from human prejudice 
 and ferocity. Let us label beings by what they 
 are — by the souls that are in them and the deeds 
 they do — not by their colour, which is pigment, 
 nor by their composition, which is clay. There 
 are philanthropists in feathers and patricians in 
 fur, just as there are cannibals in the pulpit and 
 saurians among the money-changers. The golden 
 
234 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 rule may sometimes be more religiously observed 
 in the hearts and homes of outcast quadrupeds 
 than in the palatial lairs of bipeds. The horse, 
 who suffers and serves and starves in silence, who 
 endures daily wrongs of scanty and irregular 
 meals, excessive burdens and mangled flanks, 
 who forgets cruelty and ingratitude, and does 
 good to them that spitefully use him, and submits 
 to crime without resistance, misunderstanding 
 without murmur, and insult without resentment, 
 is a better Christian, a better exemplar of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, than many church-goers, 
 in spite of the creeds and interdictions of men. 
 And the animal who goes to church on Sundays, 
 wearing the twitching skins and plundered plumage 
 of others, and wails long prayers and mumbles 
 meaningless rituals, and gives unearned guineas 
 to the missionary, and on week-days cheats and 
 impoverishes his neighbours, glorifies war, and 
 tramples under foot the most sacred principles 
 of morality in his treatment of his non-human 
 kindred, is a cold, hard-hearted brute, in spite of 
 the fact that he is cunning and vainglorious, and 
 towers about on his hinders. 
 
 There are lessons that may be learned from 
 the uncorrupted children of Nature — lessons in 
 simplicity of life, straightforwardness, humility, 
 art, economy, brotherly love, and cheerfulness — 
 more beautiful, perhaps, and more true than may 
 sometimes be learned from the stilted and Machia- 
 vellian ways of men. Would you learn forgiveness? 
 Go to the dog. The dog can stand more abuse 
 
CONCLUSION 235 
 
 and forgive greater accumulations of wrong than 
 any other animal, not even excepting a wife. 
 About the only thing in the universe superior to 
 the dog in willingness to undergo outrage is the 
 human stomach. Would you learn wisdom and 
 industry ? Go to the ant, that tireless toiler of 
 the dust. The ant can do that which no man 
 can do — keep grain in a warm, moist atmosphere 
 without sprouting. Would you learn art ? Go 
 to the bee or to the wild bird's lodge. The art 
 of the honeycomb and of the hang-bird's nest 
 surpasses that of the cranny of the savage as 
 the Cathedral of St. Peter exceeds the cottage. 
 Would you learn socialism, that dream of poets 
 and the hope and expectation of wise men ? It is 
 actualised around you in thousands of insect 
 communities. The social and economic relations 
 existing in the most highly wrought societies of 
 bees and wasps are fundamentally the ideal rela- 
 tions of living beings to each other, but it will 
 require millenniums of struggle and bloodshed 
 for men to come up to them. Would you learn 
 curiosity — not the curiosity that gossips and 
 backbites, but the curiosity of the explorer and 
 searcher after knowledge ? Go to the monkey. 
 The monkey has been known to work two hours, 
 without pause, utterly unconscious of everything 
 but its purposes, trying to open a fettered trunk 
 lock (10). Would you learn sobriety ? Go not 
 to the gilded hells of cities, where men die like 
 flies in gin's vile miasma. Go to the spring where 
 the antelope drinks. Would you learn chastity ? 
 
236 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Go not to the foul dens and fiery chambers of 
 men. Go to the boudoir of the bower-bird, or to 
 the subterranean hollow where the wild wolf rears 
 her litter. 
 
 Man is not the surpassingly pre-eminent indi- 
 vidual he so actively advertises himself to be. 
 Indeed, in many particulars he is excelled, and 
 excelled seriously, by those whom he calls ' lower.' 
 The locomotion of the bird is far superior in ease 
 and expedition to the shuffling locomotion of man. 
 The horse has a sense which guides it through 
 darkness in which human eyes are blind ; and the 
 manner in which a cat, who has been carried in a 
 bag and put down miles away, will turn up at 
 the back-door of the old home next morning 
 dumfounds science. The eye of the vulture is a 
 telescope. The hound will track his master along 
 a frequented street an hour behind his footsteps, 
 by the imponderable odour of his soles. The cat- 
 bird, without atlas or geographic manuals, will 
 find her way back over hundreds of trackless 
 leagues, season after season, to the same old 
 nesting-place in the thicket. Birds, thousands of 
 them, journey from Mexico to Arctic America, 
 from Algiers and Italy to Spitzbergen, from Egypt 
 to Siberia, and from Australia and the Polynesian 
 Islands to New Zealand, and build their nests and 
 rear their young, year after year, in the same vale, 
 grove, or tundra. The nightingale, who pours 
 out his incomparable lovesong in the twilight of 
 English lanes during May and June, winters in 
 the heart of Africa ; and some birds nest within the 
 
CONCLUSION 237 
 
 Arctic Circle and winter in Argentina. Some of 
 the plovers travel the entire length of the American 
 land mass every summer, from Patagonia to the 
 Arctic Circle, in order to lay three or four pale- 
 green eggs, and see them turn to birdlings by the 
 shores of the Hudson Sea. Many animals have 
 the power to foretell storms, and man, though he 
 can weigh worlds, is ever glad to profit by their 
 superior sense. When herons fly high above the 
 clouds, when sea-birds dip and sport in the water 
 and the bittern booms from the marshes, when 
 swallows fly low and the sow repairs her bed, 
 when horses scamper and cattle sniff the air, 
 when ravens beat the air with their wings, make 
 noises, and flock together, when the swan raises 
 her eggs by additions to her nest and the prairie- 
 dog scratches the dirt up around its hole, when 
 beetles are not found in the air and caterpillars 
 mass in their webs, when bees remain near their 
 hives and ants carry their eggs to their innermost 
 abodes, when frogs croak more loudly from their 
 watery retreats and fishes seek the safety of the 
 unharried deeps — look out for foul weather ! Man 
 has not the sweetness of the song-sparrow, the 
 innocence of the fawn, nor the high relative brain 
 capacity of the tomtit and the fice. 
 
 Many animals have powers by which they are 
 able to act in concert at times, vast numbers of 
 them moving in unison over immense areas by 
 signals or intuitions which man can neither 
 imitate nor understand. Such are the mysterious 
 migrations of the Norway lemming and of many 
 
238 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 birds and insects, and such were the memorable 
 stampedes of the bison hordes on the American 
 plains in years gone by. Kropotkin saw on the 
 Siberian steppes one autumn ' thousands and 
 thousands ' of fallow deer come together from an 
 area as large as Great Britain at a point on the 
 Amur River in an unprecedented exodus to the 
 lowlands on the other side (20). How these scat- 
 tered thousands knew when to start so as to arrive 
 at the river at the same time, and how they knew 
 the direction to travel and found their way so 
 well, are mysteries which man can as yet only 
 wonder at. More marvellous yet — more marvel- 
 lous, perhaps, than the concurrent action of any 
 other animal, for it implies the most accurate 
 time-keeping extending over many years — are the 
 annual festivals of the palolo, an annelid living 
 among the interstices of the coral reefs of some 
 of the islands of the South Pacific. About three 
 o'clock on the morning following the third quarter 
 of the October moon, these worms invariably 
 appear on the surface of the sea, swarming in 
 great numbers. Just after sunrise their bodies 
 begin to break to pieces, and by nine o'clock no 
 trace of them is left. On the morning following 
 the third quarter of the November moon they 
 appear again, but usually in smaller numbers. After 
 that they are seen no more till the next October. 
 This annual swarming is a phenomenon connected 
 with reproduction, the ova escaping from the 
 broken bodies of the females and, after being 
 fertilised by the free-floating sperms, sinking 
 
CONCLUSION 239 
 
 down among the coral reefs and hatching into a 
 new generation. ' Year after year these creatures 
 appear according to lunar time. And yet in the 
 long-run they keep solar time. They keep two 
 cycles, one of three and one of twenty-nine years. 
 In the three-year cycle there are two intervals of 
 twelve lunations and one of thirteen lunations. 
 These thirty -seven lunations bring lunar time 
 somewhat nesir to solar time. But in twenty-nine 
 years there is enough difference to require the 
 addition of another lunation; the twenty -ninth 
 year is therefore one of thirteen instead of twelve 
 lunations. In this way they do not change their 
 season in an entire century. So unfailing is their 
 appearance that in Samoa they have given their 
 name to the spring season, which is called " the 
 time of the palolo." ' 
 
 Instead of the highest, man is in some respects 
 the lowest, of the animal kingdom. Man is the 
 most unchaste, the most drunken, the most selfish 
 and conceited, the most miserly, the most hypo- 
 critical, and the most bloodthirsty of terrestrial 
 creatures. Almost no animals, except man, kill 
 for the mere sake of killing. For one being to 
 take the life of another for purposes of selfish 
 utility is bad enough. But the indiscriminate 
 massacre of defenceless innocents by armed and 
 organised psicks, just for pastime, is beyond charac- 
 terisation. The human species is the only species 
 of animals that plunges to such depths of atrocity. 
 Even vipers and hyenas do not exterminate for 
 recreation. No animal, except man, habitually 
 
240 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 seeks wealth purely out of an insane impulse to 
 accumulate. And no animal, except man, gloats 
 over accumulations that are of no possible use to 
 him, that are an injury and an abomination, and 
 in whose acquisition he may have committed 
 irreparable crimes upon others. There are no 
 millionaires — no professional, legalised, lifelong 
 kleptomaniacs — among the birds and quadrupeds. 
 No animal, except man, spends so large a part of 
 his energies striving for superiority — not superiority 
 in usefulness, but that superiority which consists 
 in simply getting on the heads of one's fellows. 
 And no animal practises common, ordinary 
 morality to the other beings of the world in which 
 he lives so little, compared with the amount he 
 preaches it, as man. 
 
 Let us be honest. Honour to whom honour 
 is due. It will not emaciate our own glory to 
 recognise the excellence and reality of others, or 
 to come face to face with our own frailties. We 
 are our brother's keeper. Our brethern are they 
 that feel. Let us universalise. Our thoughts and 
 sympathies have been too long wingless. The 
 Universe is our Country, and our Kindred are the 
 Populations that Mourn. It is well — it is eminently 
 well, for it is godlike — to send our Magnanimity to 
 the Dusts and the Deeps, our Sunrises to the Utter- 
 most Isles, and our Charity to the Stars. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 (i) Romanes : Mental Evolution in Animals ; New York, 
 1898. 
 
 (2) Burton : First Footsteps in East Africa ; London, 
 
 1856. 
 
 (3) Lubbock : Origin of Civilisation ; New York, 1898. 
 
 (4) Demoor : Evolution by Atrophy ; New York, 1899. 
 
 (5) Darwin : Expression of Emotions in Men and Animals ; 
 
 New York, 1899. 
 
 (6) Starr : Human Progress ; Meadville, Pennsylvania, 
 
 1895- 
 
 (7) Hartmann : Anthropoid Apes ; New York, 1901. 
 
 (8) Brehm : From North Pole to Equator ; London, 1896. 
 
 (9) Stanley: In Darkest Africa, vol i. ; New York, 1890. 
 
 (10) Romanes : Animal Intelligence ; New York, 1899. 
 
 (11) Evans: Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology; 
 
 New York, 1898. 
 
 (12) Jesse: Gleanings in Natural History, vol. i. ; London, 
 
 1832. 
 
 (13) Peckham and Peckham : Instincts and Habits of the 
 
 Solitary Wasps ; Madison, Wisconsin, 1898. 
 
 (14) Cornish: Animals of To-day ; London, 1898. 
 
 (15) Darwin: Descent of Man ; London, 1874. 
 
 (16) Huxley: On the Origin of Species, lecture iii. 
 
 (17) Thompson : Wild Animals I have Known ; New York, 
 
 1900. 
 
 (18) Brehm: Thierleben ; Leipzig, 1880. 
 
 (19) Gilbraith : Ethnological Journal, 1869, p. 304. 
 
 (20) Kropotkin: Mutual Aid a Factor of Evolution; New 
 
 York, 1902. 
 
 (21) Morgan : Animal Behaviour ; London, 1900. 
 
 241 16 
 
THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. HUMAN NATURE A PRODUCT OF THE JUNGLE- 245 
 
 II. EGOISM AND ALTRUISM - - - - 247 
 
 III. THE ETHICS OF THE SAVAGE - - - 252 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT - - - 258 
 V. MODERN ETHICS ----- 267 
 
 VL THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS TOWARD NON- 
 HUMAN BEINGS .... 272 
 VII. THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM- - - 282 
 VIII. UNIVERSAL ETHICS - - - - 291 
 IX. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM - - 296 
 X. ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS - - "314 
 XI. ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF EVOLUTION - 3 19 
 XII. CONCLUSION ..... 324 
 
 243 16—2 
 
One of the wisest things ever said by one of the pro- 
 foundest philosophers of all time was the warning to the 
 seeker after truth to beware of the influence of the ' idols 
 (or illusions) of the tribe/ by which he meant that body of 
 traditional prejudices which every sect, family, nation, and 
 neighbourhood has clinging to it, and in the midst of which 
 and at the mercy of which every human being grows up. 
 
 244 
 
THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 I. Human Nature a Product of the Jungle. 
 
 The Golden Rule is not exemplified by the 
 conduct of any considerable number of the in- 
 habitants of the earth. To be civilised or even 
 half-civilised is, to the children of this world, 
 neither instinctive nor easy. To preserve a 
 certain pretence or appearance of virtue, especially 
 when encouraged to do so by an uplifted cudgel 
 in the hands of the community, is a possible and 
 not uncommon accomplishment. But to be at 
 heart and in reality as considerate of others as we 
 are of ourselves is, unfortunately, not natural. 
 Human beings are not children of the sun, so- 
 journing for a season on this spheroid of clay, and 
 needing only pinions to be angels. Human nature 
 did not come, pure and shining, down from the 
 glittering gods. It came out of the jungle. 
 Civilised peoples are the not very remote posterity 
 of savages, and savages are the posterity of indi- 
 viduals who laid eggs and had literally cold blood 
 in their veins. Civilised men and women are 
 troglodytes with a veneering of virtue. In the 
 245 
 
246 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 heart of every ' civilised ' man and woman is an 
 unconverted core, large or small, of barbarism. 
 Humanity is only a habit. Against it, and tend- 
 ing ever to weaken and subvert it, are the power- 
 ful inertias of animalism. Like the ship in Ibsen's 
 ' Rhymed Epistle,' civilisation carries a corpse in 
 its cargo — the elemental appetites and passions 
 which have been implanted in all sentient nature 
 by the laws in accordance with which organic 
 forms have been fashioned. Moral progress is 
 simply the sloughing off of this inherited animality. 
 To the initiated, therefore, it is not strange 
 that we civilised folk in our conduct display so 
 freely the phenomena of the savage. There is 
 nothing more inevitable in the life of the convert 
 than the haunting inclination to give way to 
 original impulses. It is not strange that we are 
 powerless to be as good and beautiful and true as 
 we would like to be, that our divine efforts are our 
 half-hearted efforts, and that the only time we get 
 terribly in earnest and put forth really titanic 
 energies is when we are dominated directly or 
 indirectly by the instincts of the pack. Human 
 aspiration is fettered by the fearful facts of human 
 origin. It is not strange that we are continually 
 conscious of being torn by contending tendencies, 
 conscious of ghastly masteries, and of horrible 
 goings on in our innermost beings. The human 
 heart is the gladiatorial meeting-place of gods and 
 beasts. 
 
EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 247 
 
 II. Egoism and Altruism. 
 
 Everything has been evolved — everything — from 
 daffodils to states and from ticks to religion. 
 Every organic thing is the result of long and 
 incessant survival of the advantageous — advanta- 
 geous from the standpoint of the organism itself 
 or from the standpoint of its kind, not necessarily 
 so from the standpoint of the universe. That 
 which is true of everything is true also of egoism 
 and altruism. Egoism and altruism exist as facts 
 in the natures of human and other beings for the 
 same reason that the various physical facts exist 
 in the structures of human and other beings, 
 because they have been advantageous in the 
 struggle for life. There is just as definite an 
 explanation for the existence of egoism and 
 altruism in this world, and for their existence in 
 the particular form and ratio in which they do 
 exist, as there is for the fact that the human hand 
 has five fingers, the rose odour, and the eggs of the 
 kildeer the mottled markings of the clods among 
 which they lie. 
 
 Egoism is preference for self, partiality toward 
 that part of the universe bounded by one's own 
 skin. It may consist simply of regard for self, 
 but with regard for self is usually associated 
 enmity toward others. Egoism manifests itself 
 in such qualities of mind as selfishness, cruelty, 
 intolerance, hate, hardheartedness, savagery, rude- 
 ness, injustice, narrowness, and the like. It is the 
 primal impulse of the living heart. Enmity is 
 
248 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 older and more universal than love. Enmity con- 
 stituted the very loins from vi^hich long ago came 
 the original miscreants of this world. 
 
 ' I saw the fishes playing there ; 
 I saw all that was in the whole world round ; 
 In wood, and bower, and marsh, and mead, and field, 
 All things which creep and fly, 
 And put a foot to earth. 
 All these I saw, and say to you, 
 That nothing lives among them without hate.' 
 
 Life has been developed through selection. This 
 selection has been brought about largely through 
 war — war between individuals and between groups 
 of individuals. War and competition are struggle 
 between living beings, and the soul of competition 
 is selfishness. Egoism is the primal and most 
 powerful of terrestrial impulses, because beings 
 hated and exterminated each other before they 
 tolerated and loved, and because struggle has 
 far overshadowed cooperation as a factor in life 
 evolution. 
 
 There are those who believe that mutual aid 
 has been a more dynamic factor in the develop- 
 ment of terrestrial life than competition. Co- 
 operation has been an important element in the 
 evolution of animal life, and it has operated 
 among nearly all animals, from the humblest to 
 the highest. Far down near the beginning of 
 organic existence we find the one-celled forms 
 huddling together in colonies, giving rise in the 
 course of time to the many-celled animals. But 
 to conclude that cooperation is the chief factor in 
 
EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 249 
 
 animal development is to shut one's eyes to one of 
 the most obvious and overwhelming facts of organic 
 evolution. Individualism antedates mutualism, 
 both among the one-celled forms and among the 
 many-celled metazoa. Cooperation everywhere is 
 the sequence of a long preliminary of individual 
 contention. And cooperation does not mean 
 cessation of struggle, either among those co- 
 operating or among the groups themselves, as 
 Kropotkin and other exaggerators of the mutual 
 aid factor seem to assume. It usually does little 
 more than transfer the struggle from individuals 
 to groups. When a lot of pelicans or wolves get 
 together and work together in order that they may 
 thereby the better defend themselves or slay others, 
 it is hard to see how such facts can be placed to 
 the credit of cooperation any more than to that 
 of competition. Then, too, excepting in a few 
 societies of insects, cooperation has not gone so 
 far as to do more than slightly alleviate the 
 competition even among the members of a co- 
 operating group. Competition is a much more 
 common and influential fact in the phenomena of 
 life than cooperation, for it involves a large part 
 of the activity of individual life, and is also promi- 
 nent in all social activities. 
 
 The preponderance of egoism in the natures of 
 living beings is the most mournful and immense 
 fact in the phenomena of conscious life. It has 
 made the world the kind of world it would have 
 been had the gods actually emptied their wrath 
 vials upon it. Brotherhood is anomalous, and, 
 
250 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 even in its highest manifestations, is but the 
 expression of a veiled and calculating egoism. 
 Inhumanity is everywhere. The whole planet is 
 steeped in it. Every creature faces an inhospi- 
 table universeful, and every life is a campaign. It 
 has all come about as a result of the mindless and 
 inhuman manner in which life has been developed 
 on the earth. It has been said that an individual 
 of unlimited faculties and infinite goodness and 
 power made this world and endowed it with ways 
 of acting, and that this individual, as the world's 
 executive, continues to determine its phenomena 
 by inspiring the order of its events. But one 
 cannot help thinking sometimes, when, in his 
 more daring and vivid moments, he comes to 
 comprehend the real character and condition of 
 the world, what a discrepancy exists between the 
 reputation of this builder and his works, and 
 cannot help wondering whether an ordinary 
 human being with only common-sense and insight 
 and an average concern for the welfare of the 
 world would not make a great improvement in 
 terrestrial affairs if he only had the opportunity 
 for a while. 
 
 Altruism is the recognition of, and regard for, 
 others. It shows itself in feelings of justice, good- 
 will, tenderness, charity, pity, public spirit, sym- 
 pathy, fraternity and love, and in acts of kindness, 
 humanity, mercy, generosity, politeness, philan- 
 thropy and the like. Altruism is a graft. The 
 stock is selfishness and brutality. Altruism (the 
 form of altruism to which I here refer : there are 
 
EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 251 
 
 several distinct species of altruism) has come into 
 the world as a result of cooperation and con- 
 sanguinity. It has grown out of the cooperation 
 of individuals in families and tribes against their 
 cooperating enemies. Altruism — at least, in its 
 initial stages — is a sort of tribal egoism. Men and 
 other animals have learned to stand by each other 
 and help each other against their common foes 
 because it was the only way in which they were 
 able to stand. Those aggregates that have had 
 strongest this feeling of fraternity have prospered 
 and prevailed, while the less fraternal have gone 
 down. 
 
 The altruism manifested by men in their rela- 
 tions with each other is not different in kind from 
 the altruism and cooperation displayed by other 
 social animals. Human gregariousness — the gather- 
 ing together of human beings into tribes and 
 communities for purposes of companionship and 
 defence — is a part of the phenomena of animal 
 gregariousness in general. The inhabitants of a 
 human town, however much they may think so, are 
 not impelled to associate with each other and to 
 cooperate with each other in the affairs of life by 
 causes or considerations different from those which 
 actuate a society of ants or apes, of wasps or 
 wolves, who do the same things. The ante- 
 cedents of human ethics and society are, there- 
 fore, to be looked for in the ant-hill and the 
 jungle. 
 
 The fact that altruism has been evolved by the 
 cooperation of individuals with each other and 
 
252 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 against others is a significant fact in the analysis 
 and understanding of the ethical phenomena of 
 the earth. To this fact is due the restricted and 
 illogical character of all altruism. The ethical 
 systems of all peoples are, and have always been, 
 to a greater or less extent, provincial and contra- 
 dictory. Ethical feeling and practice are not 
 extended universally — that is, to all beings — but 
 are maintained only among those associating 
 more or less closely as a group, and having 
 interests that are more or less nearly the same. 
 Among men of primitive mind, morality is a thing 
 to be practised toward only a few thousand or 
 even a few hundred individuals, and then in a 
 very half-awake and half-hearted manner. But 
 as the perceptions sharpen and vivify and the 
 horizon of knowledge widens — as commerce and 
 imagination cause the mind to overflow the narrow 
 bounds of the community into larger dimensions 
 of time and space — as the myriad influences 
 operating as race experience and race selection 
 enable men to realise the wider and wider oneness 
 of their origin, natures, interests, and destiny — 
 an increasing consistency characterises the con- 
 duct among the members of the group, and an 
 increasingly larger number of individuals are 
 admitted to ethical consideration and kinship. 
 
 III. The Ethics of the Savage. 
 
 The ethics of the savage is, almost without 
 exception, purely tribal in its extent. A marked 
 distinction is everywhere made by primitive peoples 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE SAVAGE 253 
 
 between injuries to persons inside the tribe and 
 injuries to those outside the tribe. Crimes which 
 are looked upon as felonious when committed by 
 a savage against the members of his own tribe 
 may be regarded as harmless, or even highly com- 
 mendable, when perpetrated on those outside the 
 tribe. Acts are not judged according to their 
 intrinsic natures or results, but wholly as to 
 whether they are performed on outsiders or on 
 insiders. The Balantis (Africa) punish with death 
 a theft committed against a fellow-tribesman, but 
 encourage and reward thieving from other tribes. 
 The Afridi (Afghanistan) mother prays that her 
 son may be a successful robber — not a robber of 
 her own people, but of other peoples — and in 
 order that he may become proficient in crime 
 teaches him to creep stealthily through a hole in 
 the wall. By certain Bedouin tribes the * strenu- 
 ous life ' is held in such high honour that ' it is 
 considered a disgrace to die in bed ' ; and among 
 the man-eating Fijians ' men who have not slain 
 an enemy suffer the most degrading of all punish- 
 ments ' (i). In the paradise of the Kukis (India) 
 the cut-throats who have in life killed the largest 
 number of aliens not only inherit the highest 
 places, but these adepts of the knife are supposed 
 to be attended in their celestial comings and 
 goings by their victims as slaves (i). In his 
 dealings with the other members of his tribe, the 
 savage observes a certain rude code of morals, 
 this code being usually, as in the case of the 
 civilised code, an inglorious mixture of equity and 
 
254 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 brutality, superstition and sanity, honesty and 
 hypocrisy. But the savage recognises no moral 
 obligations to any being outside of his tribe, 
 clan, or family. Anthropology teaches nothing 
 more positively than this. Consanguinity and 
 self-interest are the only bases of savage friend- 
 ship. Outsiders are outlaws. They may be 
 attacked, robbed, deceived, murdered, eaten, or 
 enslaved, with perfect propriety. It was this 
 general hostility of foreigners that Cain feared 
 when he was turned out from his countrymen 
 after his crime upon Abel. He knew that he was 
 liable to be set upon by the first stranger that 
 came upon him. So the Lord is said to have set 
 a mark upon him, ' lest any finding him should 
 kill him.' 
 
 ' There was no brotherhood recognised by our 
 savage forefathers,' says Sir Henry Maine, in 
 speaking of the ancestors of the Aryan and 
 Semitic races, 'except actual consanguinity re- 
 garded as a fact. If a man was not of kin to 
 another, there was nothing between them. He 
 was an enemy to be hated, slain, or despoiled as 
 much as the wild beasts upon which the tribe 
 made war, as belonging, indeed, to the craftiest 
 and cruelest of wild animals. It would scarcely 
 be too strong to assert that the dogs which 
 followed the camp had more in common with it 
 than the tribesmen of an alien and unrelated tribe ' 
 (2). Among some tribes of savage men the ethical 
 code is reversed in dealing with outsiders, and 
 enmity toward aliens is considered a duty. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE SAVAGE 253 
 
 This same senseless hostility toward every one 
 from abroad, so spitefully exhibited by primitive 
 men, is also manifested by ants, who immediately 
 recognise and pounce upon an individual intro- 
 duced from a foreign colony, but welcome with 
 every demonstration of joy, even after a lapse of 
 weeks or months, a returning member of their 
 own society. The same spirit of exclusiveness 
 is found also in elephants. If by accident an 
 elephant becomes separated from his herd, he 
 becomes an outcast and a fugitive, never being 
 permitted in any circumstances to attach himself 
 to another herd (3). 
 
 That the savage should entertain feelings of 
 friendship for those belonging to the same social 
 unit as himself is, considering the circumstances 
 in which it takes place, a perfectly natural phe- 
 nomenon. The members of his tribe are, to the 
 savage, the beings among whom he has come 
 into existence, and in the midst of whom he has 
 grown up. He knows and understands them, 
 and is known and understood by them. They 
 speak the same language as himself, and cherish 
 the same customs and traditions. They have 
 the same sacred trees, the same gods, the same 
 experiences day after day, and the same memories, 
 as he himself They are his associates in the 
 chase, his allies in war, and his comrades in 
 sorrow and success. They are the only beings 
 into whose lives he has ever entered. They 
 constitute his world, and are to him the only 
 real beings in the universe. 
 
256 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 The members of his tribe are, moreover, to the 
 savage, for the most part, his kinspeople. If 
 they are not actually related to him by blood, 
 they are usually conceived by him to be so related. 
 The co-villagers of an Indian community call 
 each other brothers. It is a characteristic of all 
 the Aryan and Semitic races when in the tribal 
 state to conceive that the tribes themselves, and 
 all subdivisions of them, are descended each from 
 a single male ancestor. The savage sees the 
 living family of which he forms a part descended 
 from a single living man and his wife or wives. 
 This family group with which he is familiar and 
 other similar groups make up the tribe. And the 
 process by which each family has been brought 
 about is in his mind identical with the process 
 by which the community as a whole has been 
 formed (2). It is a conception of this kind, 
 handed down as a tradition from ancient tribal 
 times, which causes the Jews even to-day to regard 
 themselves as the ' seed ' of that venerable sheik 
 who, so many centuries ago, led them as a band 
 of nomads in their memorable migration westward 
 from the plains of Mesopotamia. It is not strange, 
 therefore, considering all of the circumstances in 
 the midst of which the savage lives and moves, 
 that he should look upon his fellow-tribesmen as 
 beings to be distinguished by him from all other 
 beings in the universe. 
 
 Nor is it strange, when we consider the mental 
 sterility of the savage, his lack of travel and 
 imagination, the meagerness of his experiences, 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE SAVAGE 257 
 
 and his utter ignorance of the world beyond the 
 community in which he Hves, that he should look 
 upon and treat all outsiders as nobodies — as beings 
 without any claims whatever upon his humanity 
 or mercy. The imagination is the picturing power 
 of the mind, the power by which beings are able 
 to get out of themselves and into the places of 
 others, the power which enables us to view the 
 world comparatively — that is, from different points 
 of view. This power of mind, which imparts to 
 the higher types of intelligence their mobility and 
 sympathy, is rudimentary in the savage. This 
 has been proved by Tylor in his study of the 
 comparative mythology of savages. It is this 
 lack of imagination in the savage, combined with 
 his ignorance and his simplicity of life, which 
 gives to him his ferocity, and which renders him 
 inaccessible to those higher sentiments of justice 
 and righteousness which are — well, which are, at 
 least, dreamed about and theorised about by the 
 more evolved savages of the 'civilised world.' 
 The world, to the simple mind of the sayage, is, as 
 it is to the mind of the child, the world in which 
 he lives and moves — the world which he feels, 
 hears, tastes, and sees. The horizon is the boun- 
 dary of the universe. Beings beyond his tribe are 
 outside of the world. If they exist at all, it is as 
 a very different order of beings from him and his 
 people. They are not of kin to him, speak a 
 strange tongue, and have monstrous customs and 
 superstitions. How could they be in any way 
 related to him ? They are his enemies — vague, 
 
 17 
 
258 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 villainous apparitions who appear to him only in 
 the horrible ordeals of battle. His chief occupa- 
 tion is the waging of war against them, and his 
 keenest gratification is felt in laying them low. 
 The accounts of all travellers testify that the 
 intertribal relations of savages are, with few 
 exceptions, those of chronic feud and hostility. 
 The irreconcilable antagonism between the savage 
 and those around him begets in the savage nature 
 its dominating impulse — hate, hatred and hostility 
 toward other men, as well as toward all other 
 beings. In fact, the savage makes no moral 
 distinction between man and the other animals, 
 but regards them all indiscriminately as his foes, 
 whom he must either use or remove from the face 
 of the earth. The savage hunts men about as he 
 hunts other animals, and for a like purpose. The 
 Troglodytes hunted the Ethiopians in four-horse 
 chariots with as little compunction as Americans 
 hunt antelopes to-day. 
 
 IV. The Ethics of the Ancient. 
 
 But the doctrine that each petty tribe is the 
 centre of the world and the only real and impor- 
 tant people in the universe, and that all others 
 are mere nobodies, is not peculiar to primitive 
 peoples. Ethnocentric ethics — the ethics of amity 
 toward their own tribe or state, their own clique 
 or kind, and the ethics of enmity toward outsiders — 
 has been manifested to a greater or less extent by 
 the peoples of all times and of all degrees of 
 enlightenment. Every people that has ever existed 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT 259 
 
 has had its own particular point of view, its own 
 bias, its own knot-hole, large or small, through 
 which it has looked at life and the world. This is 
 inevitable. It arises as a necessary sequence out 
 of the fact that all peoples above savages are 
 the descendants of savages, and as such have 
 inherited the limitations, mental and environ- 
 mental, of those from whom they have evolved. 
 
 Aliens had no legal rights in ancient times — 
 none whatever. International cooperation, such 
 as exists among the political societies of Europe 
 and America to-day, was absolutely unknown. 
 International relations were everywhere those of 
 hostility. States and races looked upon each 
 other as foes, as objects of plunder and victim- 
 isation, not as friends. 
 
 Caesar says of the ancient Germans that 
 depredations committed beyond the boundaries 
 of each state bore no infamy, and that stealing 
 from aliens was even encouraged as a means of 
 teaching their young men adroitness. 
 
 The ancient Jews are an excellent illustration 
 of a narrow and self-centred people. Not- 
 withstanding their insignificance, politically and 
 intellectually, as compared with the Egyptians, 
 Greeks, and Persians, the Jews believed them- 
 selves to be the only people of the first class 
 inhabiting the earth. They conceived that they 
 had been selected as favourites by the gods 
 themselves, and that around their little district 
 in half-arid Palestine revolved the interests of the 
 entire world. Their chief city was supposed to 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 be the sacred and central city of the world, and 
 heaven itself only a new and idealised edition of 
 their metropolis. Every Jew was bound to every 
 other Jew by high-wrought ceremony and obliga- 
 tion. But all non-Jews were ' Gentiles,' chaff-like 
 'pagans,' who possessed no rights which a 'child 
 of Abraham ' was bound to respect. Their tribal 
 god is said to have been so indulgent toward them 
 as his ' chosen people ' that he allowed them to 
 exact usury from foreigners, to sell them diseased 
 meats, and to borrow jewels from them and after- 
 wards run away with them. He even permitted 
 them to make war upon weak peoples and dis- 
 possess them of their lands. ' Whomsoever the 
 Lord our God shall drive out from before us, 
 them will we possess' (Judg. xi. 24). 
 
 The kings of the ancient Assyrians were so 
 accustomed to cruelties upon non-Assyrians, and 
 were so proud of these cruelties, that they recorded 
 them in stone as a claim to immortality among 
 men. Assurbanipal, in speaking of the conquered, 
 says : ' I pulled out their tongues and cut off their 
 limbs, and caused them to be eaten by dogs, bears, 
 eagles, vultures, birds of heaven.' Assur-natsir-pal, 
 another wonderful fellow, boasts similarly : ' I 
 flayed the nobles and covered the pyramid with 
 their skins, and their young men and maidens I 
 burned as a holocaust.' ' Their carcasses covered 
 the valleys and the tops of the mountains,' says 
 Tiglath-Pileser in his account of the slain Mus- 
 kayans ; and Sennacherib informs us proudly that 
 he drove his chariot over the dead bodies of his 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT 261 
 
 victims until ' its wheels were clogged with flesh 
 and blood.' ' Evidently,' remarks Spencer, in 
 speaking of these monstrous inscriptions, 'the 
 expectation was that men of after-times would 
 admire these merciless destructions; for we cannot 
 assume that these Assyrian kings intentionally 
 made themselves eternally infamous ' (i). 
 
 To the ancient Greeks there were two classes of 
 human beings in the world : Greeks and ' barbar- 
 ians.' The Greeks were the inhabitants of Hellas, 
 which was believed to be the central region of 
 the world, and the ' barbarians ' were the godless 
 denizens of the less-favoured and less centrally 
 located remainder of the earth. The world was 
 believed to be flat or shield-shaped, and in its 
 exact centre stood Mount Olympus in northern 
 ThessaJy. This mountain, which is 9,700 feet 
 high, was supposed to be the highest elevation on 
 the earth, and was the awful abode of the gods. 
 The Greeks called themselves Hellenes. According 
 to their fabled genealogy, they were the descend- 
 ants of Hellen, son of Deucalion, the Greek Noah. 
 While they were often at war with each other, 
 they spoke a common language, and always 
 regarded themselves as members of a single 
 family. All non-Greeks were ' barbarians,' in- 
 cluding the Romans, who were called ' barbarians ' 
 down to the time of Augustus. While the Greeks 
 themselves traced their ancestry back to the bright 
 blood of the gods, the ' barbarians ' were generally 
 supposed to have originated from stones and trees. 
 The ' barbarians ' were looked upon and treated 
 
252 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 by the Greeks everywhere as a different order of 
 beings from themselves. Those taken by them in 
 war were regularly reduced to slavery. The slave 
 population created in this way was increased by 
 the slave traffic carried on with the East until the 
 slave population of Greece was several times as 
 great as the free population. The whole Hellenic 
 world, in fact, even in the days of its greatest 
 magnificence, was one vast pen of slaves. Almost 
 every freeman of Attica was a slave-owner. Out 
 of a population of about five hundred thousand, 
 four hundred thousand were slaves. It was con- 
 sidered a real hardship by the Greeks to be com- 
 pelled to get along with less than a half-dozen 
 slaves. In Corinth and ^gina there were ten 
 slaves to one freeman. In Sparta the slaves were 
 the vanquished Helots, the original inhabitants 
 of the Peloponnesus, whom the Spartans had 
 conquered and reduced to chains in early times. 
 Their lot was particularly horrible. They were 
 the property of the state, and were distributed to 
 the Spartan lords by lot. ' They practically had 
 no rights which their masters felt bound to re- 
 spect. If one of their number displayed unusual 
 powers of either body or mind, he was secretly 
 assassinated, as it was deemed unsafe to allow 
 such qualities to be fostered in the servile class. 
 It is affirmed [by Thucydides] that, when the Helots 
 grew too numerous for the supposed safety of the 
 state, their numbers were thinned by deliberate 
 massacre of the surplus population ' (4). The 
 conception of human slavery entertained by the 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT 263 
 
 :ommon mass of Greeks may be inferred from the 
 Fact that philosophers Hke Aristotle taught that 
 ' slaves were simply domestic animals possessed 
 of intelligence.' It is this fact, this utter lack of 
 justice and humanity manifested by the Greeks in 
 their treatment of non-Hellenic mankind, which 
 gives to Greek 'civilisation' its seamy side. Greek 
 society has been appropriately likened to a pyra- 
 mid, its apex gleaming with light and splendour, 
 while its base was sunk in darkness. 
 
 N on- Romans were called ' barbarians ' also by 
 the Romans, and were considered by the Romans 
 to be an entirely different order of beings from 
 themselves. Any splinter of a Roman was, 
 according to the Romans, superior to the most 
 illustrious ' barbarian.' Men were not treated 
 nor estimated according to their intrinsic quali- 
 ties, but wholly as to whether they were or were 
 not ' Roman citizens.' To be a ' Roman citizen ' 
 was to be entitled to everything ; to be a ' barbarian' 
 was not to be entitled to anything necessarily, 
 except to serve in some way the all-glorious 
 Romans. The elaborate legal and ethical codes 
 formulated by these masters of the Mediterranean 
 were reserved religiously for themselves. The 
 business of the ' barbarians ' was to furnish fields 
 for pillage and conquest, to impart magnitude to 
 triumphal pageants, to act as slaves, and to die 
 by ignominiously butchering each other for the 
 amusement of their bloodthirsty masters. ' Bar- 
 barian ' lands were looked upon simply as game- 
 preserves where ambitious captains from the Tiber 
 
254 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 went to refresh their reputations by hunting and 
 victimising the inhabitants. The history of Rome 
 is the history of infamy on a colossal, almost 
 world-wide, scale. There has never been dis- 
 played by any people pretending to be civilised 
 such shameless savagery as that displayed by the 
 Romans in their gladiatorial arenas, where men 
 (generally the captives of war) were ' butchered to 
 make a Roman holiday.' These tragedies, in their 
 magnitude and atrocity, seem almost frightful 
 when we read of them on the pages of history. 
 They were generally celebrated by victorious cap- 
 tains and emperors at the close of some unusual 
 outrage against the ' barbarians,' or upon the 
 departure of Roman legions for the field of activity. 
 The celebrations sometimes lasted weeks, or even 
 months. The Emperor Trajan celebrated his 
 victories over the Dacians with shows that lasted 
 more than a hundred days. During this horrible 
 festival ten thousand men fought upon the arena, 
 and more than ten thousand wild animals were 
 slain. The gladiators in these ancient combats 
 fought in chariots, on horseback, on foot — in all 
 the ways in which soldiers fought in actual battle. 
 They fought with swords, lances, daggers, tridents, 
 and every other manner of weapon. Some had 
 nets and lassoes with which they entangled their 
 adversaries, and then slew them. The life of a 
 wounded gladiator was in the hands of the 
 spectators, who showed their clemency or their 
 lack of it by turning their thumbs respectively 
 down or up. The thirst of the populace for blood 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT 265 
 
 was sometimes such that the dying were aroused 
 and forced on to the fight by burning with a 
 hot iron. The dead bodies were dragged from 
 the arena with hooks, like the carcasses of 
 animals, and the pools of blood soaked up with 
 dry sand (5). There was an occasional Roman, 
 like Seneca, sane enough to realise the real char- 
 acter of these performances, and brave enough 
 to denounce them as crimes. But by the great 
 mass of all classes of Romans, even by those who 
 pretended to think, they were regarded with per- 
 fect moral indifference. The excuse offered by 
 Pliny was generally concurred in by his country- 
 men, that these bloody shows were necessary for 
 the cultivation of manliness and for keeping 
 awake the strenuous and red-handed instincts in 
 the young. 
 
 Scarce less revolting than the gladiatorial arena, 
 in its violation of every principle of humanity, 
 was the institution of human slavery. During the 
 later republic and the earlier empire, one -half 
 the population of the Roman state was slaves. 
 The slave population was recruited chiefly, as in 
 Greece, by war and by slave-hunting. Slave- 
 traders and slave-markets flourished both in the 
 capital itself and in all the great ports visited by 
 Roman ships. Some of the outlying provinces of 
 Asia and Africa were almost depopulated by the 
 slave-hunters. Greek slaves were the highest- 
 priced, because the most intelligent. Among the 
 wealthy, who, like the illiterate rich of every age, 
 dawdled their time in ostentation, there were 
 
266 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 slaves for each different function in the house- 
 hold. There were the cubicularii, who acted as 
 housemaids ; the triclinarii, who waited at table ; 
 the culinarii, who acted as kitchen drudges ; and 
 the balnearii, who looked after the baths. Then 
 there were tonsores, or barbers ; criniflores, or hair- 
 crimpers ; calceatores, who took care of the feet ; 
 and lectores, whose business it was to read aloud 
 to their masters at meals, in the bath, or in bed. 
 The ostiarius, who was sometimes chained in the 
 vestibule like a dog, was the porter; the invitator 
 summoned the guests ; and the serviis ab hospitiis 
 looked after their lodgment. There was the slave 
 called the sandalio, whose sole duty was to care for 
 his master's sandals ; and another, called the nomen- 
 clator, whose exclusive business it was to accom- 
 pany his master when he went upon the street, 
 and give him the names of such persons as he 
 ought to recognise. The common punishment 
 for a refractory slave was beating. If the runaway 
 were caught, as he could hardly fail to be, since 
 there were extremely heavy penalties for harbour- 
 ing or assisting him, he was either branded or had 
 an iron collar like a dog's welded around his neck, 
 or his legs were fettered, or, in exaggerated or 
 repeated cases of offence, he was at once turned 
 into the arena or otherwise put to death. If he 
 attempted to take personal vengeance upon his 
 master for any wrong whatsoever, his whole family 
 shared his fate, and the regular form of capital 
 punishment for a slave was crucifixion under the 
 most ignominious and agonising circumstances (6). 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE ANCIENT 267 
 
 ' In many cases, as a measure of precaution, the 
 slaves were forced to work in chains and to sleep 
 in subterranean prisons. The feeling entertained 
 toward this unfortunate class in the later repub- 
 lican period is illustrated by Varro's classification 
 of slaves as " vocal agricultural implements," and 
 by Cato the Elder's recommendation that old and 
 worn-out slaves be sold, as a matter of economy. 
 Sick and hopelessly infirm slaves were taken to 
 an island in the Tiber, and there left to die of 
 starvation and exposure' (5). Slaves were prac- 
 tically without any rights whatever to the world 
 in which they lived. A Roman could take the Hfe 
 of his Gallic slave with as complete impunity as 
 an American can slay his bovine servant to-day. 
 Romans, in short, looked upon and treated non- 
 Romans about as human beings to-day look upon 
 and treat non-humans — as mere prey. 
 
 V. Modern Ethics. 
 
 But the peoples of the ancient world are not 
 the only human beings who have suffered from 
 the psychological bequests of savages. Modern 
 states and peoples, notwithstanding their far-flung 
 professions of righteousness, manifest, though in a 
 somewhat weakened form, the same ethnic preju- 
 dices and the same senseless antipathies as those 
 displayed by the ancients. Remnants of the 
 primitive tribal morality are found in the moral 
 habits and conceptions of every people, however 
 emancipated they may imagine themselves to be. 
 Many a person who would not think of swindling 
 
268 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 one of his neighbours will not hesitate to swindle 
 a foreigner, especially if the foreigner happens to 
 be of a nationality much removed in language, 
 colour, manners, or interests from his own. 
 Morality is genetic. It is not a consistent some- 
 thing — something reasoned out and framed accord- 
 ing to the facts. It has grown up. It is essentially 
 tribal — whether it is confined to a family, as is 
 done by some, to a corporation or trade, to a 
 nation, to an artificial fraternity, or to a species. 
 We are, in fact, all of us, even the broadest and 
 most illuminated, simply savages more or less 
 leafed out. We all suffer, as men have always 
 suffered, from the over-vividness of the presenta- 
 tive powers of the mind (sensation and perception) 
 compared with the representative powers (memory 
 and imagination). We all exaggerate out of their 
 proper perspective in the phenomena of a universe 
 the things that are around us and about us — the 
 events we witness or take part in, the things that 
 are ours, and the aifairs of the street, city, state, 
 neighbourhood, world, and time, in which we live. 
 Every human being (the sage less than the savage, 
 but the sage to some extent) is inclined to lump 
 together as foreign to him, and as more or less 
 useless and shadowy in themselves, the things, 
 beings, and events that are distant, and to con- 
 sider' them of less reality than those with which 
 he is directly concerned, and of which his know- 
 ledge is immediate. The evolution of consciousness 
 in its social and ethical aspects consists in the evolution 
 of the ability to make real and vivid the phenomena 
 
MODERN ETHICS 269 
 
 that are more and more distant in both space and 
 time. 
 
 The Chinese call their country 'the flower of 
 the middle,' and believe it to be the central and 
 choicest portion of the earth's surface. All those 
 beyond the bounds of ' The Heavenly Flower 
 Kingdom ' are, by those on the inside, venomously 
 lumped together as ' foreign devils.' The people 
 of Spain look upon themselves in much the same 
 way as the Chinese look upon themselves, although 
 they are in reality the most belated of all peoples 
 to-day pretending to be civilised. There are a 
 few travelled and educated Spaniards who realise 
 the pitiful place held by their country in the 
 family of reputable states. ' But the great mass 
 of the people are not only perfectly satisfied with 
 their condition, but consider themselves the most 
 fortunate of all God's creatures. They never go 
 outside of their country and never read a foreign 
 newspaper or book. Like the Chinese, they con- 
 sider other nations barbarians, and point to Madrid 
 as the centre of civilisation.' The French, down 
 to the nineteenth century, confiscated the property 
 of all aliens who died within the realm ; and the 
 savage practice of punishing one alien for the 
 crimes of another alien was sanctioned by the 
 laws of England down to the middle of the 
 fourteenth century. It has been only a day 
 in the history of the world since Caucasians 
 hunted their dusky brothers in Africa like ' wild 
 animals,' and sold and loaned and lashed them 
 as we do horses to-day. Men now living can 
 
270 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 remember when it made no difference how exalted 
 in character men might be: if a certain pigment of 
 their bodies was dark, they were ' niggers.' They 
 had no 'souls' as pale men had, and no more 
 chance of paradise than cattle. At the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century, incredible as it may 
 seem, every country of Europe and America held 
 slaves, and was engaged in the soulless avocation 
 of man-hunting in Africa. Tens of thousands of 
 Africa's children were annually seized by prowling 
 pirate bands and exported to distant lands to 
 wear their lives out in disgrace and drudgery. It 
 was not until the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century that civilised nations, following the initia- 
 tive of England, finally abolished human slavery, 
 the United States and Brazil being the last to act. 
 The Christian sneers at all who do not bow down 
 to his deities and worship according to his ritual, 
 as ' heathens ' or ' freethinkers,' and to the Mos- 
 lem all who are not followers of 'the True 
 Prophet ' are ' infidel dogs.' The history of these 
 two religions is a chronicle of almost unparalleled 
 crimes upon disbelievers. 
 
 But it is not necessary to go to Arabia or 
 Cathay, nor even necessary to read history, in 
 order to find examples of bigotry and provincial- 
 ism. It is only necessary to open our eyes. 
 Americans are not a peculiar people — unless it be 
 in the unbridled character of their conceit. All 
 the barbarism is not behind us nor around us. 
 History looks dark and discouraging to us, as we 
 turn its terrible pages, but we would see some- 
 
MODERN ETHICS 271 
 
 thing just as discouraging if we would look into a 
 mirror. The old savage spirit still circulates in 
 our veins. The ' foreigner ' is not an enemy, but 
 he is still an individual whose chief significance is 
 in his ' fleece.' If the ' foreigner ' did not ease 
 our economic theories by benevolently ' paying 
 the tax,' it would be hard to tell what would 
 become of him. Those who suffer from a different 
 government, speak a different language, or laud 
 other gods are regarded by us as distinctly inferior 
 to ourselves. Millions of dollars are annually 
 squandered by self-righteous societies in sending 
 missionaries to the other side of the planet to 
 peoples who need evangels of mercy and humanity 
 far less than we do ourselves. In these times of 
 ecclesiastical enterprise, however, missionaries are 
 being superseded, as agents of evangelisation, by 
 the more effective inventions of Messrs. Maxim 
 and Krupp. ' American ' is regarded by us as the 
 synonym of perfection, and to be ' patriotic ' is to 
 give unthinking enthusiasm to every scheme in- 
 cubated by wolfish spoilsmen. Crimes of conquest 
 carried on by others become, when undertaken by 
 us, shining masterpieces of ' benevolent assimila- 
 tion.' We are not so far from the naked and 
 unkempt contemporaries of the cave-bear and 
 sabre-toothed lion as we imagine we are. To 
 carry a bayonet, and especially to redden it with 
 an alien's blood, is here in this degenerate 
 land of Jefferson, more glorious than to create 
 a book. Captains particularly competent as 
 butchers, though their characters be as coarse as a 
 
272 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 savage chief's, are hailed as heroes by thousands 
 besides silly women, and held up, like the cut- 
 throats of the Kukis, as the highest exemplars of 
 right-doing. Old Rameses, holding by their hair 
 a half-dozen dwarfs, and ostentatiously cutting off 
 their heads with a single sweep of his sword, finds 
 his modern counterpart in miserable Americans 
 pompously gloating over the offhand slaughter of 
 the children of distant archipelagoes. 
 
 VI. The .Ethics of Human Beings toward Non- 
 Human Beings. 
 
 But the most mournful instance of provincial 
 ethics afforded by the inhabitants of the earth is 
 not that furnished by the varieties of the human 
 species in their conduct toward each other, but 
 that afforded by the human race as a whole in 
 its treatment of the non-human races. Human 
 nature is nowhere so hideous, and human con- 
 science is nowhere so profoundly inoperative, as in 
 their disregard for the life and happiness of the 
 non-human animal world. With the develop- 
 ment of the representative powers of the mind, 
 the widening and mutualising of human activities, 
 and the consequent enlargement of the human 
 horizon, the feeling of amity has spread and 
 intensified, until to-day, notwithstanding all that 
 is true of human sectionalism, the ethical systems 
 of civilised peoples include, theoretically at least, 
 and more or less seriously, all human beings 
 whatsoever. Ethical consciousness has extended 
 from individual to family, from family to clan, 
 
THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 273 
 
 from clan to tribe, from tribe to confederac)', 
 from confederacy to kingdom, from kingdom to 
 race, from race to species, until, in the case of 
 many millions of men, ethical feeling has reached, 
 with greater or less vividness and consistency, the 
 anthropocentric stage of evolution. The fact that 
 an individual is a man — that is, that he belongs to 
 the human species of animals — entitles him in all 
 civilised lands to the fundamental rights and 
 privileges of existence. The rights to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness are believed to-day, by 
 all exalted minds, to be the inalienable properties 
 of every human being who comes into the world. 
 
 But, except by occasional individuals here and 
 there whose emotions are more civilised than the 
 rest, or whose conceptions are more ample and 
 clear, ethical relations are not extended by human 
 beings beyond the bounds of their own species. 
 Non-human millions are outsiders. They are 
 looked upon and treated by human beings as if 
 they were an entirely different order of existences, 
 with entirely different purposes and susceptibilities, 
 from human beings. They are not considered to 
 be living beings at all, as human beings are, 
 who are here in the world to enjoy life and 
 all that life holds that is dear to a living being. 
 They belong to the same class of existences as 
 the waves of the sea and the weeds of the field. 
 They are looked upon as mere things — mere 
 moving, multiplying objects, without the slightest 
 equity in the world in which they find themselves. 
 They may be set upon, beaten, maimed, starved, 
 
 18 
 
274 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 assassinated, eaten, insulted, deceived, imprisoned, 
 robbed, tormented, skinned alive, shot down foi 
 pastime, cut to pieces out of curiosity, or com- 
 pelled to undergo any other enormity or victimisa- 
 tion anybody can think of or is disposed to visit 
 upon them. It is enough almost to make knave; 
 shudder, the cold-blooded and business-like man- 
 ner in which we cut their throats, dash out theii 
 brains, and discuss their flavour at our cannibal- 
 istic feasts. As Plutarch says, ' Lions, tigers 
 and serpents we call savage and ferocious, yel 
 we ourselves come behind them in no species o: 
 barbarity.' Accustomed from our cradle up tc 
 look upon violence and assassination, we have 
 become so habituated and hardened to these thing; 
 that we perpetrate them and see them perpetrated 
 with the same indifference as that with which wf 
 watch waves die on the beach. Human beings 
 are, in fact (' paragons ' though they pretend tc 
 be), the most predatory and brutal of all animals 
 — the great bone - breakers and bone - pickers o 
 the planet. 
 
 It is scarcely possible, astounding as it is, tc 
 commit crimes upon any beings in this world 
 except men. There are no beings in the universe 
 according to human beings, except themselves 
 All others are commodities. They are of conse 
 sequence only because they have thighs and cai 
 fill up the unoccupied places of the human alimen 
 tary. Human beings are 'persons,' and hav( 
 souls and gods and places to go to when they die 
 But the hundreds of thousands of other races o 
 
THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 275 
 
 terrestrial inhabitants are mere ' animals,' mere 
 ' brutes,' and ' beasts of the field,' ' livestock ' and 
 ' vermin.' Every crime capable of being perpe- 
 trated by one being upon another is day after day 
 rained upon them, and with an equanimity that 
 would do honour to the managers of an inferno. 
 Human beings preach as the cardinal rule of 
 morality — and they seem never to tire of its 
 reiteration — that they should do unto others as 
 they would that others would do unto them ; but 
 they hypocritically confine its application to the 
 members of their own crowd, notwithstanding 
 there are the same reasons identically for extending 
 it to all creatures. The happiness of the human 
 species is assumed to be so much more precious 
 than that of others that the most sacred interests 
 of others are unhesitatingly sacrificed in order 
 that human desires may all be fastidiously catered 
 to. Even for a tooth or a feather or a piece of 
 skin to wear on human vanity, forests are depopu- 
 lated and the land filled with the dead and 
 dying. Assassination is the commonest and most 
 fashionable of human pastimes. Jaded systems 
 are regularly recuperated by massacre. Men arm 
 themselves — men who roar about 'rights,' and 
 even ministers of mercy — and go out on killing 
 expeditions with as little compunction as savages 
 put on war-paint. They come back from their 
 campaigns of crime like the cut-throats of old 
 Rome, trailing their victims as trophies, and 
 expecting to be hailed as heroes for the hells they 
 have established. Barbarians preponderate, and 
 
 18—2 
 
276 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 morality is turned inside out. Cruelty is lionised, 
 and broad-mindedness is rewarded with a sneer. 
 Compassion is a disease, and to be fashionable 
 is to be a fiend. If non-human peoples had no 
 nerves and no choice of emotions, and were utterly 
 indifferent to life, they could scarcely be treated 
 more completely as personal nonentities. 
 
 The denial by human animals of ethical rela- 
 tions to the rest of the animal world is a 
 phenomenon not differing either in character or 
 cause from the denial of ethical relations by a 
 tribe, people, or race of human beings to the rest 
 of the human world. The provincialism of Jews 
 toward non-Jews, of Greeks toward non-Greeks, of 
 Romans toward non- Romans, of Moslems toward 
 non-Moslems, and of Caucasians toward non-Cau- 
 casians, is not one thing, and the provincialism of 
 human beings toward non-human beings another. 
 They are all manifestations of the same thing. 
 The fact that these various acts are performed by 
 different individuals and upon different individuals, 
 and are performed at different times and places, 
 does not invalidate the essential sameness of their 
 natures. Crimes are not classified (except by 
 savages or their immediate derivatives) according 
 to the similarity of those who do them or those 
 who suffer from them, but by grouping them 
 according to the similarity of their intrinsic quah- 
 ties. All acts of provincialism consist essentially 
 in the disinclination or inability to be universal, 
 and they belong in reality, all of them, to the 
 same species of conduct. There is, in fact, but 
 
THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 277 
 
 one great crime in the universe, and most of the 
 instances of terrestrial wrong-doing are instances 
 of this crime. It is the crime of exploitation — the 
 considering by some beings of themselves as 
 ends, and of others as their means — the refusal to 
 recognise the equal, or the approximately equal, 
 rights of all to life and its legitimate rewards — the 
 crime of acting toward others as one would that 
 others would not act toward him. For millions 
 of years, almost ever since life began, this crime 
 has been committed, in every nook and quarter of 
 the inhabited globe. 
 
 Every being is an end. In other words, every 
 being is to be taken into account in determining 
 the ends of conduct. This is the only consistent 
 outcome of the ethical process which is in course 
 of evolution on the earth. This world was not 
 made and presented to any particular clique for 
 its exclusive use or enjoyment. The earth belongs, 
 if it belongs to anybody, to the beings who inhabit 
 it — to all of them. And when one being or set of 
 beings sets itself up as the sole end for which the 
 universe exists, and looks upon and acts toward 
 others as mere means to this end, it is usurpation, 
 nothing else and never can be anything else, it 
 matters not by whom or upon whom the usurpa- 
 tion is practised. A tyrant who puts his own 
 welfare and aggrandisement in the place of the 
 welfare of a people, and compels the whole people 
 to act as a means to his own personal ends, is not 
 more certainly a usurper than is a species or 
 variety which puts its welfare in the place of the 
 
278 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 welfare of all the inhabitants of a world. The 
 refusal to put one's self in the place of others and to 
 act toward them as one would that they would 
 act toward him does not depend for its wrongful- 
 ness upon who makes the refusal or upon whether 
 the refusal falls upon this or that individual or set. 
 Deeds are right and wrong in themselves ; and 
 whether they are right or wrong, good or evil, 
 proper or improper, whether they should be done 
 or should not be done, depends upon their effects upon 
 the welfare of the inhabitants of the universe. The 
 basic mistake that has ever been made in this 
 egoistic world in the judging and classifying of 
 acts has been the mistake of judging and classify- 
 ing them with reference to their effects upon 
 some particular fraction of the inhabitants of the 
 universe. In pure egoism conduct is judged as 
 good or bad solely with reference to the results, 
 immediate or remote, which that conduct pro- 
 duces, or is calculated to produce, on the self. 
 To the savage, that is right or wrong which affects 
 favourably or unfavourably himself or his tribe. And 
 this sectional spirit of the savage has, as has been 
 shown, characterised the moral conceptions of the 
 peoples of all times. The practice human beings 
 have to-day — the practice of those (relatively) 
 broad and emancipated minds who are large enough 
 to rise above the petty prejudices and 'patriotisms' 
 of the races and corporations of men, and are able 
 to view ' the world as their country ' (the world of 
 human beings, of course) — the practice such minds 
 have of estimating conduct solely with reference 
 
THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 279 
 
 to its effects upon the human species of animals is 
 a practice which, while infinitely broader and more 
 nearly ultimate than that of the savage, belongs 
 logically in the same category with it. The par- 
 tially emancipated human being who extends his 
 moral sentiments to all the members of his own 
 species, but denies to all other species the justice 
 and humanity he accords to his own, is making 
 on a larger scale the same ethical mess of it as the 
 savage. The only consistent attitude, since Darwin 
 established the unity of life (and the attitude we 
 shall assume, if we ever become really civilised) , is 
 the attitude of universal gentleness and humanity. 
 
 'The world is my country,' said Thomas Paine, 
 and every man, woman, and child capable of 
 appreciating the exalted sentiment applauded. 
 But ' the world ' of the great freethinker was 
 inhabited by men only. 
 
 The following lines were written by Robert 
 Whitaker, and first printed in a San Francisco 
 newspaper : 
 
 ' My Country is the world ! I count 
 
 No son of man my foe, 
 Whether the warm life currents mount 
 
 And mantle brows like snow, 
 Or whether yellow, brown, or black, 
 The face that into mine looks back. 
 
 ' My Native Land is Mother Earth, 
 And all men are my kin. 
 Whether of rude or gentle birth, 
 
 However steeped in sin ; 
 Or rich or poor, or great or small, 
 I count them brothers one and all. 
 
28o THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 ' My Flag is the star-spangled sky, 
 
 Woven without a seam, 
 Where dawn and sunset colours lie. 
 
 Fair as an angel's dream. 
 The Flag that still unstained, untorn, 
 Floats over all of mortal born. 
 
 ' My Party is all humankind. 
 My Platform, brotherhood ; 
 I count all men of honest mind 
 Who work for human good, 
 And for the hope that gleams afar. 
 My comrades in the holy war. 
 
 ' My Country is the world ! I scorn 
 
 No lesser love than mine, 
 But calmly wait that happy morn 
 
 When all shall own this sign. 
 And love of country, as of clan. 
 Shall yield to love of Man.' 
 
 Robert Whitaker, you are a grand improvement 
 on the 'jingo.' But you are still too small. 
 There are conceptions as much more prophetic 
 and exalted than yours as your conception is 
 superior to that of the Figian. 
 
 Broad as he is who can look upon all men as 
 his brethren and countrymen — broad as he is 
 compared with those groundlings called 'patriots,' 
 who can see nothing clearly beyond the bounds of 
 the political unit to which they belong — he is not 
 broad enough. He is still a sectionalist, a partialist. 
 He represents but a stage in the process of ethical 
 expansion. He is, in fact, small compared with 
 the universalist, just as the savage is small 
 compared with the philanthropist. ' Mankind,' 
 
THE ETHICS OF HUMAN BEINGS 281 
 
 ' humanity,' ' all men,' ' the whole human family ' 
 — these are big conceptions, too big for the poor 
 little nubbins of brains with which most millions 
 make the effort to think. But they are pitifully 
 small compared with that grand conception of 
 kinship which takes in all the races that live and 
 move upon the earth. Smaller yet are these 
 conceptions compared with that sublime and 
 supreme synthesis which embraces not only the 
 present generation of terrestrial inhabitants, but 
 which extends longitudinally as well as laterally, 
 extends in time as well as in space, and embraces 
 the generations which shall grow out of the exist- 
 ing generation and which are yet unborn — that 
 conception which recognises earth-life as a single 
 process, world-wide and immortal, every part related 
 and akin to every other part, and each generation 
 linked to an unending posterity. 
 
 Every individual, therefore, emancipated enough 
 to judge of acts of conduct according to their 
 intrinsic natures and consequences rather than 
 according to some local or traditional bias, cannot 
 help knowing that the exploitation of birds and 
 quadrupeds for human whim or convenience is an 
 offence against the laws of morality, not different 
 in kind from the offences denounced in human 
 laws as robbery and murder. The creophagist 
 and the hunter exemplify the same somnambulism, 
 are the authors of the same kind of conduct, and 
 belong literally in the same category of offenders, 
 as the cannibal and the slave-driver. To take the 
 life of an ox for his muscles, or to kill a sheep for 
 
282 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 his skin is murder, and those who do these things 
 or cause them to be done are murderers just as 
 actually as highwaymen are who blow oif the heads 
 of hapless wayfarers for their guineas. If these 
 things seem untrue, it is not because they are untrue, 
 but because those to whom they seem so are unable 
 to judge conduct from the quadrupedal point of view. 
 If there were in this world beings as much more 
 clever than Caucasians as Caucasians are more 
 clever than cows and sheep, and these beings 
 should regard themselves as the darlings of the 
 gods and should attach a fictitious dignity and 
 importance to their own lives, but should look 
 upon Caucasians as simply so much ' beef and 
 ' mutton,' these bleached terrorists of the world 
 would in the course of a few generations of ex- 
 perience probably become sufficiently illumined 
 to realise that current human conceptions of cows 
 and sheep are not only preposterous, but fiendish. 
 
 VII. The Origin of Provincialism. 
 
 Human provincialism, all of it, is the conse- 
 quence of a common cause — the provincialism of the 
 savage. Back of the provincialism of the savage 
 is, of course, the antecedent fact of primordial 
 egoism. The savage is the common ancestor of 
 all men, and as such has imparted to all men 
 their general characters of mind and heart. 
 Everything that grows, whether it be a tree, a 
 human being, a grass blade, or a race, grows from 
 something. This something, this germ or embryo 
 from which each thing springs, imparts to the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM 283 
 
 thing its fundamental characters. However far 
 anything may evolve, and however much it may 
 come to differ superficially from its original, it 
 will always remain at heart more or less faithful 
 to the facts of its genesis. This hereditary 
 tendency of everything, this tendency toward 
 invariability, is the conservative, or inertial ten- 
 dency of the universe. All races, colours, and 
 conditions of men — civilised, slightly civilised, 
 and barbarous — extend back to, and take root in, 
 savages, just as all savages have probably sprung 
 in some still more remote period of the past from 
 a single stirp of anthropoids. The savage is, 
 therefore, the author of human nature and 
 philosophy. Just as the fish, which is the com- 
 mon ancestor of all amphibians, reptiles, birds, 
 and mammals, has predetermined the general 
 structural style of all subsequently evolved verte- 
 brates, so the savage, as the original ancestor of 
 mankind, has predetermined the general mental 
 and dispositional make-up of all higher men. 
 That civilised and semi -civilised men are naturally 
 narrow and revengeful, selfish and superstitious, 
 and find it next to impossible to feel and act 
 toward others as they would like to have others 
 feel and act toward them, is, therefore, not more 
 mysterious than that vertebrates have red blood, 
 two eyes, two pairs of limbs, and a backbone with 
 a bulging brain-box at the hither end of it. Just 
 as the habits, beliefs, and conceptions of the child 
 persist, often but slightly modified, in the full- 
 grown man or woman, so the habits, beliefs, and 
 
284 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 conceptions, formed by the race in its childhood, 
 continue, under the influence of the same laws of 
 inertia, on into the more mature stages of racial 
 development. Human nature changes with great 
 reluctance, and only in its superficial aspects at 
 that. There are cave-men, men with the primitive 
 ideas and practices of the Stone Age, and men in 
 the pastoral and hunting stages of mankind, in 
 all the highest societies of men. There is scarcely 
 a habit, vice, occupation, amusement, crime, or 
 trait of character, found among men of the 
 past but may be seen still among our contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 Altruism (other-love) is just as natural as 
 egoism (self-love) is. There is not so much of it 
 in the world as there is of egoism. But that is 
 simply the misfortune of our place of existence. 
 There is no reason why there might not have been 
 as much, or even more, under different conditions. 
 With the same antecedents, nothing can, of course, 
 happen differently from what does happen. But 
 with different antecedents, different causes, the 
 results are bound to be different. Civilised men 
 are not beings of altruism, because they are not 
 the effects of that kind of causes. But there is no 
 reason why there might not be a world — several of 
 them, in fact, or even a universeful — where the 
 inhabitants have never known or heard of such an 
 indelicate thing as of beings preferring themselves 
 to others — where it is as natural for them to act 
 toward each other according to what we call the 
 Golden Rule as it is for us terrestrial heathens to 
 
THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM 285 
 
 violate it. It is possible to conceive of beings 
 with even too much altruism. The ideal condition 
 is one of balanced egoism and altruism — one in 
 which each thinks as much of others as he does of 
 himself, no more and no less. And if beings were 
 endowed with natures rendering them not only 
 willing but determined to act primarily in the 
 interests of others, and this condition of things 
 were universal, there would be about as much 
 discord and strife as if everyone acted in the 
 interest of himself. The Golden Rule among a 
 lot of hypothetical otherists like this would be the 
 opposite of ours, for, instead of emphasising the 
 importance of others as we do, they would need 
 to encourage regard for self. Wouldn't it seem 
 original to live in a world where men were sent to 
 gaol for over- benevolence, and where sermons had 
 to be preached on such texts as, ' Love thyself as 
 thy neighbour ' ; ' It is more blessed to receive 
 than to give ' ; ' Avoid doing to yourself that which 
 you do not like when done to others ' ; ' The Lord 
 loves a cheerful taker ' ; and the like ? 
 
 The persistence with which savage ideas and 
 instincts continue to influence men long after 
 those ideas and instincts have really become 
 anachronistic and vestigial is well illustrated by 
 civilised men and women everywhere. The sun 
 continues to ' rise ' and ' set ' in all civilised lands 
 just as it used to do to the savage, although men 
 have long since learned that it does not do either. 
 Hell, as originally conceived, was an actual sub- 
 terranean region, and heaven was an abode 
 
286 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 located a few hours' journey above the supposedly 
 flat earth. To-day we continue to say ' up to 
 heaven,' and 'down to hell' (never 'down to heaven' 
 and 'up to hell'), and always think of these 
 places as being thus relatively located, although it 
 is extremely doubtful whether any really sane mind 
 continues to believe that hell is on the inside of 
 the earth (or any place else, for that matter), and 
 although up means simply away from the centre 
 of the earth, and away from the centre of a ball 
 means literally every possible direction. The 
 theological theories of the origin, nature, and 
 destiny of man and of the universe in general, 
 all of which originated in savage or semi-savage 
 minds, and all of which bear the unmistakable 
 traces of their origin, continue to cling to the 
 minds of the masses of civilised men, notwith- 
 standing the inherent absurdity of these theories, 
 and notwithstanding the fact that their unsound- 
 ness is vouched for by the most positive and 
 unanimous assurances from the scientific world. 
 Why should civilised men and women, any of 
 them, be indifferent to the sufferings of others, or 
 find delight in such loathsome avocations as the 
 fishing and hunting of their fellow-creatures ? 
 Because their ancestors were savages, and they are 
 not yet sufficiently evolved to be independent of the 
 instincts of their savage sires. There is no other 
 explanation. No human being could enjoy seeing 
 a pack of hounds hunt down and rend to pieces a 
 poor harmless hare — unless he were a savage. No 
 human being could go out to the abodes of the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM 287 
 
 squirrel and quail, and shoot murderous balls into 
 their beautiful bodies for food or fun — unless he 
 were a savage. No human being would lounge 
 all day about the margins of a brook, blind to 
 the beauties of the stream and the glories of forest 
 and sky, in order to thrust brutal hooks into the 
 lips of those whom he deceives, and drag them 
 from their waters to suffocate in the sun — unless 
 he were a savage. No human being would have 
 palaces and parks and yachts and equipages, 
 townships of lands, packs of hounds, and studs of 
 horses, troops of lackeys and nothing to do, when 
 all around him are the men and women who made 
 this wealth, half clad and half starved, suffocating 
 in shanties and working like wretches from morn- 
 ing till night — unless he were a savage. All of 
 these deeds are savage deeds, deeds of exceeding 
 thoughtlessness and brutality, and, instead of 
 being enjoyable, are to every emancipated mind 
 positively painful. 
 
 Hunting, fishing, and fighting are the chief 
 occupations of savage life. Back of the activities 
 displayed in these occupations are powerful in- 
 stincts prompting and sustaining them. Civilised 
 peoples are devoted primarily to the arts of in- 
 dustry and peace. But there are enough savages 
 in every civilised society, and enough of the savage 
 spirit in those who pretend to approximate the 
 civilised state, to give to civilised life a decidedly 
 barbaric aspect. War is a more or less regular 
 exercise, and killing and competing and torturing 
 enter largely into the pastimes of all peoples. 
 
288 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 Next to eating, fighting, in one form or another, 
 is the favourite pursuit of men nearly everywhere 
 on holy days and days of leisure. Whenever 
 human beings have any energy or time left over 
 from what they are required to spend in maintain- 
 ing their existence, they use it in fighting some- 
 body or in watching somebody else fight. And 
 generally the more brutal and sanguinary the 
 conflict, the more popular and satisfying it is. 
 Witness the bull-fights and cock-fights of Spain 
 and Mexico, the fisticuffs of Anglo-Saxons, and 
 the baseball and slugball battles of the Americans, 
 where eager thousands gather and roar for hours 
 like hysterical idiots simply to see one animal or 
 set of animals punish or discredit another. If 
 there are no pigeons to shoot, or if the community 
 is ruled by men and women who are too eman- 
 cipated to allow such things, we make glass birds 
 and heroically bang away at them, supplying by 
 our imaginations the blood and agony of real 
 carnage. And if we can't do anything else, we 
 take some poor pig, that never did anyone any 
 harm in the world, and grease it and turn it loose, 
 and then take after it with knives, as Chicago 
 butchers do on vacation days, and see who can 
 cut its throat the quickest. This amusement, in 
 pure barbarity, certainly stands pretty near the 
 top in the list of human pastimes so far invented. 
 Maybe it is outclassed by that other contest some- 
 times advertised as a feature of butchers' bar- 
 becues, in which a band of professional cut- 
 throats compete to see who can kill, skin, and 
 
eviscerate the largest number of their fellow- 
 beings in a given time. 
 
 Games and other performances in which interest 
 is aroused by contending or killing are all of them 
 entertainments gotten up primarily for the amuse- 
 ment of the under-exercised savage within us. 
 The bloody carnivals of the ancient Romans, 
 which seem so incomprehensible to the people of 
 to-day, find their diabolical parallels right here in 
 our high-sniffing civilisation. The bull-pen, where 
 poor quadrupeds are baited by gorgeous assassins 
 for the amusement of Castilian communities, and 
 the cockpit and the prize-ring, where irate fowls 
 and naked thugs peck and pound each other to 
 insensibility for the entertainment of blood-loving 
 mobs, are the legitimate succcessors of the gladia- 
 torial arena of the Romans, The gladiatorial 
 horror is not changed, either in its nature or 
 functions, by changing the combatants to cocks 
 and bulls. The ringside roars that rise to-day 
 beside the Tagus and the Hudson over the fatal 
 thrust of the matador or the knockout lunge of 
 the pugilist are howls of barbaric elation arising 
 from the satisfaction of the same instincts as those 
 which seventeen centuries ago made amphitheatres 
 thunder at the spectacle of gutted Gauls. The 
 ability to enjoy strife and suffering in one form is 
 not different in kind from the ability to be enter- 
 tained by strife and suffering in any other form. 
 Beings who can follow in riotous glee the terrified 
 form of a fleeing stag, or shout ecstatically at 
 sight of the death-stagger of a mangled ox, are 
 
 19 
 
290 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 psychologically equipped to go into raptures over 
 the blood-curdling combustions of a literal hell. 
 
 Few pastimes indulged in by civilised peoples 
 are more horrible to an emancipated mind than 
 that of bull-fighting. It is the national amusement 
 of Spain, and is carried on among all peoples who 
 have acquired their natures and institutions from 
 the Spanish. ' Every Sunday afternoon, when- 
 ever the weather permits, 14,000 or 15,000 men 
 and women, representing every class of society, 
 mothers and grandmothers, priests and monks, 
 assemble at the Plaza de Toros in Madrid to 
 witness the most brutal spectacle the human 
 taste approves. Six bulls are tortured and 
 worried until they are exhausted. Then they 
 are killed by the thrusts of the sword of a 
 matador, who is the most popular person in the 
 community and makes more money than any 
 other man. Often as many as twelve horses are 
 ripped open by the horns of the infuriated bulls, 
 and are allowed to die in the presence of the 
 audience, with blood gushing from their wounds 
 and their entrails dragging upon the ground. 
 This sort of thing is carried on not only in 
 Madrid, but is a regular weekly festival in all 
 the cities of Spain. The horses are blindfolded, 
 so they cannot even see what attacks them. The 
 men who torture the bulls have wooden screens 
 behind which they can dodge when pursued, and 
 if one of the baited creatures crowds too closely 
 upon any of its tormentors, the other matadors 
 throw a blanket over its head. It is not sport, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF PROVINCIALISM 291 
 
 for the poor bulls have no chance whatever to 
 escape or to fight back. It is simply slow 
 butchery, an exhibition of unmitigated cowardice 
 and cruelty. And yet, although the Spanish people 
 are the most religious people of Europe, 95 per 
 cent, of the population approve this atrocious 
 barbarism — not only approve it, but demand that 
 the King shall appear in the royal box at every 
 bull-fight, or have his throne upset.' 
 
 The notorious 'Juke' family of criminals, 
 who sprang from a single ruffian who lived 
 in 1720, has cost the State of New York 
 millions of dollars in money and incalculable 
 misery and crime. But the initial savage progeni- 
 tors of the human species have stocked the earth 
 with the most stupendous array of wrong-doers 
 — knaves, felons, kings, warriors, barbarians, 
 butchers, brutalitarians, kleptomaniacs, and thugs 
 — that has ever (let us hope) brought damnation 
 to a world. 
 
 VIII. Universal Ethics. 
 
 There are the same reasons for the recognition 
 by human beings of ethical relations to non-human 
 beings as there are for the recognition by human 
 beings of ethical relations among themselves. 
 Analyse the reasons for being considerate toward 
 men, any variety of men, and you will find the same 
 reasons to exist for being considerate toward all 
 men. And analyse the reasons for being altruistic 
 toward men — for being kind and sympathetic 
 toward them — and you will find the same reasons 
 
 19 — a 
 
292 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 to exist for being altruistic toward those who ar 
 not men. The doctrine that we human being 
 may perform upon the other inhabitants of th 
 earth all sorts of injurious acts, and that these act 
 when so performed by us are perfectly right an( 
 proper, but that these same things when done b; 
 others to us are crimes, is the logic of pur 
 brutalitarianism. It is a doctrine utterly withou 
 intelligence, at variance with every sentiment o 
 justice and humanity, and has no legitimate exist 
 ence outside the fibrous brains of ruffians. 
 
 Right and wrong are qualities belonging to tw( 
 diverse kinds of conduct. They are the qualitie: 
 which render conduct respectively proper anc 
 improper. All terrestrial races (unless the ven 
 lowest) have the power of experiencing two kind; 
 of conscious states — the desirable (pleasurable 
 and the undesirable (painful). Now, if being; 
 were indifferent as to what sort of conscioui 
 states entered into and made up their experiences 
 there would manifestly be no such thing as pro 
 priety and impropriety in the causing of these 
 states. But they are not indifferent. The pleasur 
 able experiences are the experiences all beings arc 
 seeking, and the painful ones are the ones thej 
 are all seeking to avoid. Those acts which helj 
 or tend to help beings to those experiences foi 
 which they are striving are, therefore, right anc 
 proper, and are, they and their authors, callec 
 good. While those acts which compel beings tc 
 undergo that which they are striving to avoid are 
 improper and wrong, and are, they and theii 
 
UNIVERSAL ETHICS 293 
 
 authors, called bad. Kindness, courtesy, justice, 
 mercy, generosity, sympathy, love, and the like, are 
 good, and selfishness, cruelty, deceit, pillage, in- 
 justice, and murder, are bad, because they are 
 respectively the promoters and destroyers of well- 
 being and happiness in the world. 
 
 But these two kinds of conduct produce the 
 same respective effects upon non-human beings as 
 they do upon human beings. The emotion of a 
 mangled sensory — is it not the same terrible thing 
 whether the sensory hang to the brain of a quad- 
 ruped or a man ? Do shelter and food not affect 
 shivering and empty cattle, horses, and fowls, 
 precisely as they do human beings ? Thunder 
 harsh words at your dog. Will he not shrink 
 and suffer, just as your child or hired hand will 
 under like acts of terrorisation ? Speak kindly to 
 him, love him, and accord to him a quarter of the 
 consideration you claim for yourself. Is he not 
 caused to be one of the happiest and most devoted 
 of associates ? To take squirrels or song-birds, 
 the most active of animals, and shut them up in 
 narrow cages, and keep them there shut off from 
 their companions and their own green world their 
 whole lives long; to take an animal as sensitive 
 and high-minded as the horse and put a pack on 
 his back and a bit in his mouth, and then strike 
 him dozens of times a day with a lash whose touch 
 is like fire ; to shoot off the legs and wings of birds 
 and fill their vitals with lead, and leave them to 
 flounder out a lingering death in the reeds and 
 grasses — do these things not cause misery and 
 
294 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 desolation in the world ? To place temptations in 
 the way of fur-bearing animals and induce them 
 to enter carefully concealed traps, and then allow 
 them to remain in the villainous clutches of these 
 devices, not minutes, but hours, perhaps days, 
 until it suits the convenience of the ensnarer to 
 knock out their brains, or until, crazed by pain, 
 the poor wretches eat off their own limbs and 
 escape — is not this a monstrous thing to do ? 
 
 Oh that men everywhere were moved by the 
 deep tenderness and the all-embracing sympathy 
 of poor Robert Burns, who could apologise with 
 real feeling to a frightened field-mouse whom he 
 had accidentally upturned with his plough. 
 
 ' Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, 
 O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
 Thou needna start awa' sae hasty, 
 
 Wi' bick'ring brattle ! 
 I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, 
 Wi' murd'rous pattle ! 
 
 ' I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken nature's social union, 
 And justifies that ill opinion 
 
 Which makes thee startle 
 At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 
 
 And fellow-mortal.' 
 
 Long ago it was said, and truthfully, that the 
 merciful man is merciful to his ox. The truly 
 kind man, the truly honest and the truly humane 
 man, is not kind and honest and humane to men 
 only, but to all beings — to the humble and lowly 
 as well as to the proud and powerful — to all that 
 have the misfortune to feel and mourn- Benevolence 
 
UNIVERSAL ETHICS 295 
 
 is the same beautiful thing whether it pour sun- 
 shine into the dark and saddened souls of men or 
 into the dark and saddened souls of other beings. 
 John Howard never hearkened to a nobler duty 
 when he lifted the darkness that hung over English 
 gaols than will some inflamed soul some day who 
 hears the cry of the lonely captives who to-day 
 languish in menagerial dungeons to satisfy human 
 curiosity. He who will emancipate horses from 
 the hell in which they pass their lives — make 
 them the associates of men instead of their slaves 
 — will deserve to stand in the constellation of the 
 world's redeemers beside Garrison and Garibaldi. 
 Is there he who holds in his heart-cups the love 
 and compassion of Buddha ? Let him go where 
 the dagger drips and the heartless pole-axe crashes, 
 and the meek-eyed millions of the meadows pour 
 out their innocent existences in the soulless houses 
 of slaughter. Let him lift from off the races the 
 hounding incubus of fear, give back to them their 
 birthright — the right to a free, unhunted life — and 
 make the great monster (man) to be their high- 
 priest and friend. 
 
 ' Among the noblest in the land, 
 Though he may count himself the least. 
 That man I honour and revere 
 Who, without favour, without fear, 
 In the great city dares to stand 
 The friend of every friendless beast, 
 And tames with his unflinching hand 
 The brutes that wear our form and face, 
 The were-wolves of the human race.' 
 
296 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 If to do good is to generate welfare, then to 
 cause welfare to a horse, a bird, a butterfly, or a 
 fish, is to do good just as truly as to cause welfare 
 to men. And if to do evil is to cause unhappiness 
 and illfare, then to cause these things to one 
 individual or race is evil just as certainly as to 
 cause them to any other individual or race. And 
 if to put one's self in the place of others, and to 
 act toward them as one would wish them to act 
 toward him, is the one great rule — the Golden 
 Rule — by which men are to gauge their conduct 
 when acting toward each other, then this is also 
 the one great rule — the Golden Rule — by which 
 men are to regulate their conduct toward all 
 beings. There is no escape from these conclusions, 
 except for the savage and the fool.* 
 
 IX. The Psychology of Altruism. 
 
 The growth of altruism in the world has been 
 largely cotemporaneous with the growth of the 
 power of sympathy. Sympathy is the emotion a 
 
 * The deliberate causing of misery and death to criminals, 
 whether they be human or non-human beings, individuals or 
 species, is not, as is sometimes supposed, a violation or 
 reversal of the general theory of ethics. When they are 
 prompted by a spirit of tenderness and universal goodness 
 rather than by a spirit of revenge, penalties are justifiable by 
 the everyday assumption that it is sometimes wise to inflict 
 or undergo a certain amount of illfare in order to avoid or 
 forestall a larger amount. The problems of universal penology 
 are not different from those of human penology, practically 
 the same cases and perplexities being presented by all delin- 
 quents. See ' Better-World Philosophy,' by the author, 
 pp. 218-227, foi' a discussion of the function of punishment. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 297 
 
 being has when by means of his imagination he 
 gets so actually into the place of another that his 
 own feelings duplicate more or less the feelings 
 of that other. It is the ability or the impulse to 
 weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those 
 who are glad. Sympathy is the substance and 
 the only sure basis of morality — the only tie of 
 sincere and lasting mutualism. Men have always 
 been to a considerable extent, and are yet, dis- 
 posed to think about and act toward each other 
 from motives of mutual fear or advantage. But 
 such motives are not the highest nor the most 
 reliable bonds of fellowship and unity. True 
 altruism and solidarity — true expansion and uni- 
 versalisation of the self — are found in sympathy. 
 It is impossible for one individual to do in his 
 heart to another as he would that another should 
 do to him, unless he is at all times able and 
 willing to get into the place of that other, and to 
 realise in his own consciousness the results to the 
 other of his acts. It is only when there is such an 
 intertwining of the consciousnesses that the joys 
 and sorrows of each individual consist to a greater 
 or less extent of the reflexes of the joys and 
 sorrows around him that there exists true social 
 oneness. The great task of reforming the universe 
 is, therefore, since the world is so steeped in 
 selfishness and hate, the task of endowing beings, 
 or the task of stocking the universe with beings, 
 with dispositions to get out of themselves. If the 
 far-away first parents of men and women had 
 been broad-minded beings instead of narrow — had 
 
298 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 been beings whose most natural impulse was to be 
 kind to others, and whose sympathies were as 
 far-reaching as feeling — terrestrial life would not 
 to-day present to the all-seeing understanding the 
 disheartening spectacle it does present, and the 
 long struggle for justice and amelioration would 
 not have been. 
 
 The primary fact prompting and underlying the 
 exploitation of one being or set of beings by 
 another is, and has always been. Selfishness. 
 Whenever and wherever one people have ex- 
 ploited another — whether the exploiters have been 
 savages, Jews, Romans, Caucasians, or men — 
 they have done so primarily because the act of 
 exploitation was a convenience and pleasure to 
 them and in harmony with their natures. This 
 selfishness, in the case of civilised peoples, has 
 been acquired by them through inheritance from 
 the savage tribes from whom they have severally 
 evolved ; and the selfishness of the savage is a 
 legacy from the animal forms from whom the 
 savage has come. Human selfishness is simply 
 an eddy of an impulse that is universal — an im- 
 pulse that has been implanted in the nature of the 
 life-process of the earth by the manner in which 
 life has been evolved. 
 
 But there is another fact which has generally, 
 if not always, contributed to every act of exploita- 
 tion in this world, and that is Ignorance — ignorance 
 on the part of those who have executed the ex- 
 ploitation : not ignorance of grammar or geography 
 or any other particular branch of human informa- 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 299 
 
 tion or philosophy, but ignorance regarding those 
 upon whom they have worked their will — uncon- 
 sciousness on the part of the exploiters of the 
 similarity which actually existed between them- 
 selves and their victims. However free an indi- 
 vidual may be from naturally selfish impulses, he 
 will never act in an altruistic manner toward 
 others unless he is able to realise that these others, 
 are similar to himself, and that acts toward them 
 produce results of good and evil, of welfare and 
 suffering, similar to what these same acts produce 
 when done to himself. Altruistic conduct implies 
 not only altruistic impulses, but altruistic con- 
 ceptions as well. Tyrants hold, and have always 
 held, themselves to be an entirely different order 
 of beings from their subjects, and far more deserv- 
 ing. Read history — it is a tale told over and over. 
 Between those who have ruled and those who 
 have served — between the Ends and the Means — 
 has ever yawned a chasm, wide, deep, and im- 
 passable. The exploited have always been, ac- 
 cording to their masters, a fibrous set, unfavoured 
 and unthought of by the gods, endowed with little 
 feeling or intelligence, and brought into existence 
 more or less expressly as adjuncts to their masters. 
 This is the theory of the savage, and it is the 
 theory of all those who have inherited his narrow 
 and unfeeling philosophy. The Gentile had no 
 rights because he was a 'pagan.' He was a 
 human being, it is true, and had come forth from 
 the womb of woman, just as the Jew had. But 
 he spoke a different language from the Jews, had 
 
300 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 his own ways of life, belonged to a different order 
 of things, and was irritatingly unconcerned about 
 the gods and traditions of the 'chosen people.' 
 The Gaul had no rights that were inconvenient to 
 Romans, because he was a ' barbarian.' The fact 
 that he had blood, and brains, and nerves, and 
 love of life, and ambitions, and that he suffered 
 when he was subjected to humiliation, hard treat- 
 ment, and death, just as Romans did, was never 
 really thought of by the arrogant and reckless 
 Romans. Romans never realised in their minds 
 what it meant for non-Romans to be treated as 
 they were treated ; and one reason why they never 
 realised it was because it was convenient for them 
 not to do so. To kill or enslave a Gaul or German 
 we now know, who are able to judge these acts 
 from an un-Roman and unprejudiced point of 
 view, was practically the same crime as to kill or 
 enslave a Roman. But it was not so to Romans. 
 The most trifling offence against a Roman citizen 
 was enough, according to Roman law, to condemn 
 the offender to execution. But the most horrible 
 outrages, when committed by Romans upon non- 
 Romans, were nothing. Romans always thought 
 and felt from the standpoint of Romans. They 
 never got over into the world of the ' barbarians,' 
 and really pictured to themselves — really felt — the 
 misfortunes of their victims. It was the same 
 way with the black man in the eyes of the white 
 man a generation or two ago ; it is the same way 
 with the brown man to-day. The black man had 
 no rights that were inconvenient for the white 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 301 
 
 man to respect, because he was a ' nigger,' and 
 had no ' soul,' and was the offspring of Ham. 
 This spirit of unconsciousness, which has been 
 so prominent throughout the history of mankind, 
 still survives in the minds of civilised men and 
 women to-day, as is shown by the conception (or 
 misconception) cherished by the Caucasian toward 
 the 'nigger,' by the Christian toward the ' heathen,' 
 by the Moslem toward the ' infidel,' by the Pro- 
 testant toward the Catholic, and vice versa, by the 
 plutocrat toward the proletarian, by men toward 
 women, and by the human being toward the 
 ' animal.' 
 
 The psychology of the exploitation of non- 
 human beings by human beings is not different in 
 kind from the psychology of any other act of 
 exploitation. The great first cause of man's in- 
 humanity to not-men is the same precisely as the 
 great first cause of man's inhumanity to man — 
 Selfishness — blind, brutal, unconscionable egoism. 
 Monopolist-like man thinks and cares only about 
 himself. He has the heart of the bully — deriving 
 from the contemplation of his fiendish supremacy 
 a sort of monstrous satisfaction. But there is 
 also present in this case the same half-sincere, 
 half-fostered nescience as in all other cases of 
 exploitation. The ox, the hare, the bird, and the 
 fish have no rights in the world in which they 
 live other than those that are convenient for men to 
 allow to them, because they are ' animals.' They 
 are assumed to belong to an order of beings 
 entirely different from that to which human beings 
 
302 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 belong. They are filled with nerves, and brains, 
 and bloodvessels ; they love life, and bleed, and 
 struggle, and cry out when their veins are opened, 
 just as human beings do ; they have the same 
 general form and structure of body, their bodies are 
 composed of the same organs busied with the 
 same functions ; and they are descended from the 
 same ancestors and have been developed in the 
 same world through the operation of the same great 
 laws as we ourselves have. But all of these things, 
 and dozens of others just as significant, are dis- 
 regarded by us in our hard-hearted determination 
 to exploit them. We have a set of words and 
 phrases which we use in speaking of ourselves, 
 and another very different set for other beings. 
 The very same things are called by different 
 names with wholly different connotations depend- 
 ing on whether it is a man that is referred to or 
 some other being. It is ' murder ' to take the life 
 of a human being, but to take the life of a sheep 
 or a cow is only ' knocking it on the head.' A man 
 may murder squirrels or birds all day — that is, he 
 may do that which when done to human beings is 
 called murder — but it is only ' sport ' when done to 
 these humble inhabitants of the wilds. The dead 
 body of a man is a ' corpse ' ; the dead body of a 
 quadruped is only a ' carcass.' A race of horses 
 or dogs is a ' breed ' ; but a breed of men and 
 women is always respectfully referred to as a race. 
 We perpetuate our blindness by the use of words. 
 We accommodate our consciences by inventing 
 ways of looking at things that will bring out our 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 303 
 
 own lustre and relieve us from the ghastly faces 
 of our crimes. For the human race to rob and 
 kill other races is the same kind of activity exactly 
 as it is for human beings to rob and kill each 
 other. But it is not considered so to-day — except 
 by a few lost-caste ' visionaries ' scattered here and 
 there over Christendom, and some millions of 
 ' heathens ' in Asia. 
 
 A short time ago a series of letters came into 
 my hands vinritten from Burmah by an American 
 missionary in that country. According to this 
 writer, one of the greatest obstacles the mission- 
 aries have to contend with in their work there is 
 the hostility aroused in the people by the killing 
 and flesh-eating habits of the missionaries them- 
 selves. The native inhabitants, who are the most 
 compassionate of mankind, look upon the Christian 
 missionaries, who kill and eat cows and shoot 
 monkeys for pastime, as being little better than 
 cannibals. Contemplate the presumption neces- 
 sary to cause an individual to leave behind him 
 fields white for mission-work, and travel, at great 
 expense, halfway round the earth in order to 
 preach a narrow, cruel, anthropocentric gospel to 
 a people of so great tenderness and humanity as 
 to be kind even to ' animals ' and enemies ! 
 
 We human beings feel at liberty to commit any 
 kind of outrage upon other races, and these out- 
 rages are looked upon by us as nothing. But the 
 most trifling annoyances of other races are deemed 
 by us of sufficient consequence to justify us in 
 visiting upon them the most fearful retributions. 
 
304 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 We can break up the laboriously built home of a 
 mother mouse in the rubbish-heap of our back 
 yard, scatter the pink babies of that mother over 
 the ground to die of cold and starvation, and 
 cause the frightened mother to flee at the risk of 
 her very life — all to give to the terrier and our- 
 selves a 'little moment of savage pastime. But if 
 that same mother, some hard winter's night, when 
 she has failed in her search elsewhere for some- 
 thing to stay her hunger, comes into our larder 
 and nibbles a bit of cheese or a few mouthfuls of 
 crust from our pie, although she takes but a crumb 
 in all, and is as dainty in her feeding as a lady, 
 we immediately get out our traps and poisons and 
 storm around as if a murder or some other irrepar- 
 able wrong had been committed. We think of our 
 acts toward non-human peoples, when we think of 
 them at all, entirely from the human point of view. 
 We never take the time to put ourselves in the 
 places of our victims. We never take the trouble 
 to get over into their world, and realise what is 
 happening over there as a result of our doings 
 toward them. It is so much more comfortable not 
 to do so — so much more comfortable to be blind and 
 deaf and insane. We go on quieting our con- 
 sciences, as best we can, by the fact that every- 
 body else nearly is engaged in the same business 
 as we are, and by the fact that so few ever say 
 anything about the matter — anaesthetised, as it 
 were, by the universality of our iniquities and the 
 infrequency of disquieting reminders. 
 
 Many years ago an eccentric but gifted English- 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 305 
 
 man had a dream in which he saw the fortunes of 
 the world reversed. Man was no longer master, 
 but victim. The earth was ruled by the birds and 
 quadrupeds, the mice and monkeys, who pro- 
 ceeded to inflict upon their erstwhile tyrant the 
 same cruelties he had hitherto inflicted upon them. 
 ' Multitudes of human beings were systematically 
 fattened for the carnivora. They were frequently 
 forwarded to great distances by train, in trucks, 
 without food or water. Large numbers of infants 
 were constantly boiled down to form broth 
 for invalid animals. In over-populous districts 
 babies were given to malicious young cats and 
 dogs to be taken away and drowned. Boys were 
 hunted by terriers and stoned to death by frogs. 
 Mice were a good deal occupied in setting man- 
 traps, baited with toasted cheese, in poor neigh- 
 bourhoods. Gouty old gentlemen were hitched to 
 night-cabs, and forced to totter, on their weak 
 ankles and diseased joints, to clubs, where fashion- 
 able young colts were picked up, and taken, at 
 such speed as whipcord could extract, to visit 
 chestnut fillies. Flying figures in scarlet coats, 
 buckskins, and top-boots were run down by packs 
 of foxes that had nothing else to do. Old cock- 
 grouse strutted out for a morning's sport, and 
 came in to talk of how many brace of country 
 gentlemen they had bagged. Gamekeepers lived 
 a precarious life in holes and caves. They were 
 perpetually harried by game and vermin ; held 
 fast in steel traps, their toes were nibbled by 
 stoats and martens ; and finally, their eyes picked 
 
 20 
 
305 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 out by owls and kites, they were gibbeted alive on 
 trees, head downwards, until the termination of 
 their martyrdom. In one especially tragic case, 
 a naturalist in spectacles dodged about painfully 
 among the topmost branches of a wood, while a 
 mias underneath, armed with a gun, inflicted on 
 him dreadful wounds. A veterinary surgeon of 
 Alfort was stretched on his back, his arms and 
 legs secured to posts, in order that a horse might 
 cut him up alive for the beneiit of an equine 
 audience ; but the generous steed, incapable of 
 vindictive feelings, with one disdainful stamp on 
 the midriff, crushed the wretch's life out ' (8). 
 
 The following is from the Chinese. The speaker 
 is an ox: 
 
 ' I request, good people, that you will listen to 
 what I have to say. In the whole world there is no 
 distress equal to that of the ox. In spring and sum- 
 mer, autumn and winter, I diligently put forth 
 my strength ; during the four seasons there is 
 no respite to my labours. I drag the plough, a 
 thousand-pound weight fastened to my shoulders. 
 Hundreds of thousands of lashes are, by a leather 
 whip, inflicted upon me. Curses and abuses in a 
 thousand forms are poured upon me. I am 
 driven, with threatenings, rapidly along, and not 
 allowed to stand still. Through the dry ground 
 or the deep water I with difficulty drag the plough, 
 with an empty belly; the tears flow from both 
 my eyes. I hope in the morning that I shall be 
 early released, but I am detained until the 
 evening. If, with a hungry stomach, I eat the 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 307 
 
 grass in the middle of the field, the whole family, 
 great and small, insultingly abuse me. I am left 
 to eat any species of herbs among the hills, but 
 you, my master, yourself receive the grain that is 
 sown in the field. Of the chen paddy you make 
 rice ; of the no paddy you make wine. You have 
 cotton, wheat, and herbs of a thousand different 
 kinds. Your garden is full of vegetables. When 
 your men and women marry, amid all your 
 felicity, if there be a want of money, you let 
 me out to others. When pressed for the payment 
 of duties, you devise no plans, but take and sell 
 the ox that ploughs your field. When you see that 
 I am old and weak, you sell me to the butcher to 
 be killed. The butcher conducts me to his home 
 and soon strikes me in the forehead with the head 
 of an iron hatchet, after which I am left to die in 
 the utmost distress. My skin is peeled off, my 
 bones are scraped, and my skin is taken to cover 
 the drum by which the country is alarmed.' 
 
 ' Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells 
 Driven to the slaughter, goaded as he runs 
 To madness, while the savage at his heels 
 Laughs at the frantic sufferer's fury.' 
 
 The angler brags about his ' haul ' and the 
 hunter about his ' bag ' and his ' big game ' with 
 as little realisation of what these things mean as 
 the slave-master boasts of his ' niggers.' Men 
 talk of ' chops ' and ' steaks ' and ' roasts ' with 
 the same somnambulism, the same profound un- 
 consciousness of what these things really signify 
 in the psychic economies of the world, as the 
 
 20 — 2 
 
3o8 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 conqueror contemplates his ' captives,' the robber 
 his ' spoil,' or the savage his ' scalps.' If before 
 the eyes and in the mind of each individual who 
 sits unconcernedly down to a parsleyed ' steak ' 
 could rise the facts in the biography of that 
 ' steak ' — the happy heifer on the far western 
 meadows, the fateful day when she is forced by' 
 the drover's whip from her home,* the arduous 
 ' drive ' to the village and her baffled efforts to 
 escape, the crowding into cars and the long, 
 painful journey, the silent heartaches and the 
 low, pitiful moans, the terrible hunger and thirst 
 and cold, her arrival, bruised and bewildered, in 
 the city, her dazed mingling with others, the great 
 murder-house, the prods and bellowings, the 
 treacherous crash of the brain-axe, the death drop 
 and shudder, the butcher's knife, the gush of blood 
 from her pretty throat, and the glassy gaze of her 
 dead but beautiful eyes — there would be, in spite of 
 the inherent hardness of the human heart, a great 
 drawing back from those acts which render such 
 fearful things necessary. If human beings could 
 only realise what the hare suffers, or the stag, when 
 it is pursued by dogs, horses, and men bent on 
 taking its life, or what the fish feels when it is 
 thrust through and flung into suffocating gases, 
 
 * I have many times seen cows chased all over their native 
 premises, round and round, through fields and barnyards, 
 across streams and over fences — chased until the poor things 
 were utterly exhausted, and whipped and beaten until their 
 faces and backs were covered with wounds — before they 
 could be compelled to leave for ever the old farm where they 
 had been born and raised. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 309 
 
 no one of them, not even the most recreant, could 
 find pleasure in such work. How painful to a 
 person of tenderness and enlightenment is even 
 the thought of rabbit-shootings, duck-slaughterings, 
 bear-hunts, quail-killing expeditions, tame pigeon 
 massacres, and the like ! And yet with what 
 light-hearted enthusiasm the mindless ruffians who 
 do these atrocious things enter upon them ! One 
 would think that grown men would be ashamed 
 to arm themselves and go out with horses and 
 hounds and engage in such babyish and unequal 
 contests as sportsmen usually rely on for their 
 peculiar ' glory.' And they would be if grown 
 men were not so often simply able-bodied bullies. 
 If human beings could only realise what it means to 
 live in a world and associate day after day with other 
 beings more intelligent and powerful than themselves, 
 and yet be regarded by these more intelligent indi- 
 viduals simply as merchandise to be bought and sold, 
 or as targets to be shot at, they would hide their guilty 
 heads in shame and horror. 
 
 The Being from whose breaking heart gushed 
 these lines of sorrow and sympathy on seeing a 
 wounded hare was a god : 
 
 ' Inhuman man ! curse on thy barbarous art, 
 And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye : 
 May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, 
 Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 
 
 ' Go, live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, 
 The bitter little that of life remains ; 
 No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains 
 To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 
 
310 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 ' Seek, mangled one, some place of wonted rest. 
 No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ; 
 The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 
 The cold earth with thy bloody bosom pressed. 
 
 ' Oft, as by winding Nith I, musing, wait 
 The sober eve or hail the cheerful dawn, 
 I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 
 And curse the ruffian's aim and mourn thy hapless fate.' 
 
 We human beings, in our conduct toward the 
 races of beings associated with us on this planet, 
 are almost pure savages. We are not even half 
 civilised. And this fact is certain to bring upon 
 us the criticism and condemnation of the more 
 enlightened generations to come. The fact is 
 apparent to-day, however — ^just as apparent as the 
 barbarity of the Romans — to everyone who will 
 take the trouble to rid himself of the prejudices 
 which enslave and blind him, and view human 
 phenomena from an un-human, extra-terrestrial 
 point of view. 
 
 To most persons — to all except to a few — every- 
 thing is simply a matter of habit and education. 
 And a majority of persons, too, can become 
 educated to one thing about as easily and com- 
 pletely as they can to another. In Mr. Huxley's 
 ' Man's Place in Nature ' there is reprinted from 
 an old volume the picture of a butcher's shop as 
 it is said to have existed among the savage Anziques 
 of Africa in the sixteenth century. Mr. Huxley 
 says that the original engraving claims to represent 
 an actual fact, and that he has himself no doubt 
 but it does really stand for just what it purports to 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 311 
 
 represent, especially since the fact has been cor- 
 roborated by Du Chaillu in comparatively recent 
 times. The fact for which this old picture stands 
 is a good illustration of the power of custom in 
 shaping human ideas. In this savage ' market ' 
 pretty much the same line of goods appears as is 
 found in modern ' markets,' except that, instead 
 of the quartered corpses of sheep and bullocks, 
 there hang the shoulders, thighs, and gory heads 
 of men. The butcher is represented as standing 
 beside the chopping-block in the act of cutting up 
 the leg of a man. A child's head and other 
 fragments of the human body are piled up on 
 another block, and behind these on pegs are 
 ranged the more pretentious wares of the establish- 
 ment. ' Presently we passed a woman,' says Du 
 Chaillu, in speaking of the cannibalism of the 
 Fans, who were probably identical with those 
 referred to two centuries earlier as Anziques. 
 ' She bore with her a piece of the thigh of a 
 human body, just as we should go to market and 
 carry thence a roast of steak.' We can easily 
 imagine (by the help of the sights we see every 
 day) the anthropophagous crowd standing around 
 giving their early morning orders, and the enter- 
 prising assassin hustling about to wait on them. 
 One of them wants an arm, another wants a leg, 
 another a liver, another a half-dozen nice fat ribs. 
 One fellow wants a tender ' cut ' of young girl's 
 sirloin, and another would like an old man's calf 
 for soup. A little naked urchin, who has had to 
 wait a long time in order to get a chance to buy 
 
312 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 anything at all, exchanges a few shells for a 
 section of human bologna. One fellow wants to 
 know the price of the boy's head which lies on the 
 neighbouring block, and a woman complains that 
 the baby's brains which she bought the day before, 
 and which were recommended as being especially 
 ' fresh and nice,' turned out to be ' bad.' We can 
 see them go home with their gruesome purchases, 
 cook them, and sit down and eat them, discussing 
 their flavour or their lack of it, and remarking their 
 tenderness, toughness, or juiciness, and finally 
 throwing the bones out to the dogs — all with as 
 little thought of the immorality of it as ' Thanks- 
 giving ' gluttons have to-day at their feasts of 
 blood. There may have been an occasional 
 ' visionary ' among these people fanatical enough to 
 ' refuse to eat meat,' or even to protest against the 
 practice. Probably there was. There generally 
 are a few such discordants in every generation of 
 vipers. But ' fanatics ' in those days were in all 
 likelihood, as they are to-day, too few to be 
 troublesome. 
 
 To anyone familiar with the pliability of the 
 human conscience, or with the soundness and 
 depth of intellectual sleep, these things are neither 
 impossible nor strange. There is so little looking 
 into the essence of things, so little looking at 
 things as they are, and so much thinking and 
 doing as we are accustomed or told to think and do 
 — there are, in fact, so few who can really think 
 at all — that if we had been accustomed and taught 
 to do so from childhood, and the world were 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 313 
 
 practically unanimous in its conduct and teach- 
 ings on the matter, very few of us indeed would 
 not sit down to a breakfast of scrambled infant's 
 brains, a luncheon of cold boiled aunt, or a dinner 
 of roast uncle, with as little compunction, perhaps 
 with the same horrible merriment, as we to-day 
 attend a ' barbecue ' or a ' turkey.' Why should 
 we not make hash and sausages out of our broken- 
 down grandfathers and grandmothers just as we 
 do out of our worn-out horses, and help out the 
 pigeons at our killing carnivals with a few live 
 peasants ? How much more artistic and civilised 
 to pile our tables on holy days with the gold and 
 crimson of the fields and orchards than to load 
 them with the dead ! And yet how strangely few 
 are mature enough to care anything at all about 
 the matter ! 
 
 Oh, the helplessness and irresponsibility of the 
 human mind ! There is no spontaneity, no origin- 
 ality, only the dead level of the machine. How im- 
 possible it is for us to think, to discover anything 
 unassisted, to perceive anything after it has been 
 pointed out to us even, if it is a little different 
 from what we are used to ! This, it seems to me, 
 is one of the most pathetic things in all this world 
 — this illimitable impotence, this powerlessness 
 to inspect things from any other point of view 
 than the one we inherit when we come into the 
 world ; to be a knave or lunatic (or the next thing 
 to it), and never have the slightest suspicion of 
 the fact. The human mind will certainly not 
 always be this way. It will surely be different 
 
314 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 some time. It seems incredible that the planet 
 will drag along in disgrace this way forever. The 
 men of Europe and America are not so primitive 
 as the junglemen, and the junglemen are superior 
 in some respects to the quadrupeds and reptiles, 
 and this gives reason for a little hope. But when, 
 that is the question, when will it he ? In what 
 distant time will the Golden Dream of our prophetic 
 hours come to this poor darkened larva of a world ? 
 Ages upon ages after our little existences have 
 gone out, and the detritus of our wasted bodies 
 has wandered long in the labyrinths of the sod 
 or been sown by aimless gusts over our native 
 hills. 
 
 X. Anthropocentric Ethics. 
 
 Anthropocentricism, which drifted down as a 
 tradition from ancient times, and which for cen- 
 turies shaped the theories of the Western world, 
 but whose respectability among thinking people 
 has now nearly passed away, was, perhaps, the 
 boldest and most revolting expression of human 
 provincialism and conceit ever formulated by any 
 people. It was the doctrine that man was the 
 centre about whom revolved all facts and interests 
 whatsoever; and Judaism and its two children, 
 Christianity and Mahometanism, were responsible 
 for it. Everything, according to this conception, 
 was interpreted in terms of human utility. Every- 
 thing was made for man — including women. The 
 sun and moon were luminaries, not worlds, hung 
 there by the fatherly manufacturer of things for 
 
ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS 315 
 
 the convenience and delight of his children. The 
 stars were perforations in the overarching concave 
 through which eavesdropping prophets peered into 
 celestial secrets, and errand-angels came and went 
 with messages between gods and men. Not only 
 the spheres in space, but the earth and all it 
 contained — the rivers, seas, and seasons, all the 
 plants that grow, and all the ilowers that blow, 
 and all the millions that swim and suffer in the 
 waters and skies — were, according to this remorse- 
 less notion, the soulless adjuncts of man. In- 
 trinsically they were meaningless. They had sig- 
 nificance only as they served the human species. 
 The hues and perfumes of flowers, the songs of 
 birds, the dews, the breezes, the rains, the rocks, 
 the ' beasts of the field and the fowls of the air,' 
 the great forests, the mighty mountains, the 
 fearful solitudes, even famine and pestilence, were 
 all made for the being with the reinless imagination. 
 Luther believed that the fly — festive little Musca 
 domestica, who inhabits our homes, and sometimes 
 unwittingly wanders over our tender places — was 
 a pestiferous invention of the devil, maliciously 
 sent to annoy him in his meditations. Garlic 
 grew on the swamp brim as a handy antidote for 
 human malaria. Fruits ripened in the summer- 
 time because the acids and juices which they 
 contained were believed to be necessary for man's 
 health and refreshment. The great muscles of 
 the ox were made to provide men with delicacies 
 and leisure. The cloak of the ewe was made 
 without any special thought, or without any 
 
3i6 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 thought at all, of the comforts of the ewe. It 
 was placed there on the ewe by an all-tender 
 creator, to be torn by his images from her 
 bleeding back and worn. The fossil forms found 
 in the rocks were not the bond fide remains of 
 creatures that had lived and perished when the 
 calcareous foundations of the continents were 
 forming in ancient sea-beds. They were counter- 
 feits, slyly designed by a suspicious providence, 
 and sandwiched among the strata ' to test human 
 faith.' The rainbow was a phenomenon with 
 which the laws of reflection and refraction had 
 nothing whatever to do. It was a sign or seal 
 stamped on the retreating storms as a pledge that 
 submersion would not be again used as a punish- 
 ment for sinners. The universal ruler was con- 
 ceived to be an individual of transcendent power 
 and respectability, but was supposed to spend 
 the most of his time and a good deal of anxiety 
 on the regulation and repair of his illustrious 
 likenesses. 
 
 The history of intellectual evolution is the 
 history of disillusionment. The stars, we now 
 know, are not hatchways, but worlds. They burn 
 because they are fire. They blaze and circle in 
 obedience to their own unchangeable inertias, just 
 as the earth does. They blazed and wheeled when 
 the elemental matters of the earth mingled indis- 
 tinguishably with the vapours of the sun, and they 
 will blaze and wheel when the last inhabitant of 
 this clod has dissolved into the everlasting atoms. 
 The I earth is not the capital of cosmos nor the 
 
ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS 317 
 
 subject of celestial anxiety. The earth is a satrap 
 of the sun — a subordinate among servants, not a 
 sovereign with a retinue of stars. The earth and 
 its contents were not made for man. They were 
 not made at all. They were evolved. The con- 
 caves of the sea have been hollowed, the mountains 
 upheaved, and the continents planted and peopled, 
 by the same tendencies as those that hold the 
 universes in their grasp- The primal matters of 
 the earth came out of the substance of the sun, 
 and by the play and activity of these elements and 
 the play and activity of their derivatives were 
 evolved all the multitudinous forms of land, fluid, 
 plant, animal, and society. The flowers that 
 ' blush unseen ' do not necessarily ' waste their 
 sweetness on the desert air,' as the poet so melo- 
 diously imagines. The colours and scents of 
 flowers serve their purposes — which are to secure 
 the services of insects in fertilisation — quite as 
 well when unperceived, as when perceived by 
 human senses. The non-human races of beings 
 were not made for human beings. They were 
 evolved — the higher forms from the lower forms, 
 and the lower forms from still lower — ^just as 
 the higher societies of men have been evolved, 
 under the eye of history, out of barbarism and 
 savagery. They are our ancestors. They have 
 made human hfe and civilisation possible. They 
 made their homes on primeval land patches when 
 the continents we creep over were sleeping in 
 the seas. They lived and loved and suffered and 
 died in order that a being intelligent enough to 
 
3i8 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 analyse himself and recreant enough to pick their 
 bones might come into the world. 
 
 There are supposed to be something like a 
 million (maybe there are several million) species 
 of inhabitants living on the earth. The human 
 species is one of these. Not more than a few 
 thousand of these species are seriously advan- 
 tageous to men. The harmful and useless species 
 are many times more numerous than the helpful. 
 Now, if the 999,999 non-human species were made 
 for the human species, why were the hundreds of 
 thousands of species made that are of no possible 
 human importance, and the hundreds of thousands 
 of other species that are a positive injury ? And 
 if by some miraculous stretch of imagination the 
 999,999 species now living on the earth are con- 
 ceived to have been made for man, why were the 
 10,000,000 or 15,000,000 of species made that lived 
 and passed away before there was a human being 
 in existence. Perhaps the traditionist will say — 
 accustomed as he is to treat syllogisms with con- 
 tempt — that they were made to invigorate human 
 ' faith.' 
 
 If the age of the human species be estimated at 
 50,000 years and the age of the life-process at 
 100,000,000 years, the time during which man 
 has been on the earth is, when compared with 
 the entire period during which the planet has 
 been tenanted, as i to 2,000. And the time 
 during which the earth has been inhabited — 
 immense as that time is when compared with the 
 little span of human history — is also insignificant 
 
ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS 319 
 
 when compared with the enormous lapse of time 
 during which the planet was slowly cooling and 
 solidifying preliminary to the existence of life. 
 And the entire life of the planet — inconceivably 
 vast as it is — is as nothing compared with that 
 eternity, that duration without beginning or close, 
 during which the sidereal millions have undergone, 
 and are destined to continue to undergo, their 
 countless and immeasurable transformations. 
 
 It is about as profound to suppose that the 
 earth and its contents, and the suns, stars, and 
 systems of space, were all made for a single species 
 inhabitating an obscure ball located in a remote 
 quarter of the universe as it is to suppose that the 
 gigantic body of the elephant was made for the 
 wisp of hair on the tip of its tail. Man is not the 
 end, he is but an incident, of the infinite elabora- 
 tions of Time and Space. 
 
 XI. Ethical Implications of Evolution. 
 
 The doctrine of organic evolution, which forever 
 established the common genesis of all animals, 
 sealed the doom of anthropocentricism. "What- 
 ever the inhabitants of this world were or were 
 thought to be before the publication of ' The 
 Origin of Species,' they never could be anything 
 since then but a family. The doctrine of evolution 
 is probably the most important revelation that 
 has come to the world since the illuminations of 
 Galileo and Copernicus. The authors of the 
 Copernican theory enlarged and corrected human 
 understanding by disclosing to man the compara- 
 
320 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 tive littleness of his world — by discovering that 
 the earth, which had up to that time been sup- 
 posed to be the centre and capital of cosmos, is 
 in reality a satellite of the sun. This heliocentric 
 discovery was hard on human conceit, for it was the 
 first broad hint man had thus far received of his true 
 dimensions. The doctrine of evolution has had, 
 and is having, and is destined to continue to have, 
 Sf. similarly correcting effect on the naturally narrow 
 conceptions of men. It tends to fry the conceit 
 out of us. It has been impossible since Darwin 
 for any sane and honest man to go around brag- 
 ging about having been ' made in the image of his 
 maker,' or to successfully lay claim to a more 
 honourable origin than the rest of the creatures of 
 the earth. And if men had accepted the logical 
 consequences of Darwin's teachings, the world 
 would not to-day — a half-century after his reve- 
 lation — be filled with practices which find their 
 only support and justification in out-of-date 
 traditions. But logical consequences, as Huxley 
 observes, are the official scarecrows of that large 
 and prolific class of defectives usually known as 
 fools. The doctrine of evolution is accepted in 
 one form or another by practically all who think. 
 It is taught even in school primers. But while 
 the biology of evolution is scarcely any longer 
 questioned, the psychology and ethics of the Dar- 
 winian revelation, though following from the same 
 premises, and almost as inevitably, are yet to be 
 generally realised. Darwin's revelation, like every 
 other revelation that has come to the world, is 
 
ETHICS AND EVOLUTION 321 
 
 perceived most tardily by those working in depart- 
 ments where the phenomena are the most intan- 
 gible and complicated. 
 
 Darwin himself called ' the love for all living 
 creatures the most noble attribute of man.' Giant 
 as he was, he perceived more clearly than any of 
 his contemporaries, more clearly even than his 
 successors, the ultimate goal of evolving altruism. 
 For he says : ' As man advances in civilisation, 
 and small tribes are united into larger communities, 
 the simplest reason would tell each individual that 
 he ought to extend his social instincts and sym- 
 pathies to all members of the same nation, though 
 personally unknown to him. There is, then, only 
 an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies 
 extending to the men of all nations and races. 
 Experience, however, shows us how long it is, if 
 such men are separated from him by great differ- 
 ences of appearance or habits, before he looks 
 upon them as his fellow-creatures. Sympathy 
 beyond the confines of man is one of the latest 
 moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by 
 savages, except for their pets. The very idea of 
 humanity, so far as I could observe, was new to 
 most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue 
 seems to arise from our sympathies becoming 
 more tender and more widely diffused, until they 
 are extended to all sentient beings ' (7). 
 
 The influences of a doctrine old enough and 
 precious enough to have become embodied in the 
 life and institutions of a race persist generally, 
 through mere mornentum, long after the substance 
 
 21 
 
322 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 of the doctrine has passed away. This is eminently 
 true of that misconception which has come down 
 to us regarding the nature and origin of man and 
 his relations to the rest of the universe. Darwin 
 has lived, shed his light over the world, and passed 
 back to the dust whence he came. Men no 
 longer believe that other races and other worlds 
 were really made for them. But they continue to 
 act in about the same manner as they did when 
 they did believe it. This assertion applies not 
 simply to those half-baked intelligences who have 
 only the rudest and most antiquated notions about 
 anything but also to thousands of men and women 
 who pretend to have up-to-date conceptions of 
 themselves and the universe — men and women 
 noted even for their activity in reminding others 
 of their inconsistency — men and women who 
 
 ' Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
 By damning those they have no mind to.' 
 
 The doctrine of Universal Kinship is not a new 
 doctrine, born from the more brilliant loins of 
 modern understanding. It is as old almost as 
 human philosophy. It was taught by Buddha 
 twenty-four hundred years ago. And the teach- 
 ings of this divine soul, spreading over the plains 
 and peninsulas of Asia, have made unnumbered 
 millions mild. It was taught also by Pythagoras 
 and all his school of philosophers, and rigidly 
 practised in their daily lives. Plutarch, one of 
 the grandest characters of antiquity, wrote several 
 essays in advocacy of it. In these essays, as well 
 
ETHICS AND EVOLUTION 323 
 
 as in many passages of his writings generally, he 
 demonstrates that he was far ahead of his con- 
 temporaries in the breadth and intensity of his 
 moral nature, and in advance even of all except a 
 very few of those living to-day, 2,000 years after 
 him. Shelley among the poets of modern times, 
 and Tolstoy in these latter days, are others among 
 the eminent adherents of this holy cause. 
 
 Wherever Buddhism prevails, there will be 
 found in greater or less purity, as one of the 
 cardinal principles of its founder, the doctrine of 
 the sacredness of all Sentient Life. But the 
 Aryan race of the West has remained steadfastly 
 deaf to the pleadings of its Shelleys and Tolstoys, 
 owing to the overmastering influence of its anthro- 
 pocentric religions. Not till the coming of Darwin 
 and his school of thinkers was there a basis 
 for hope of a reformed world. To-day the planet 
 is ripe for the old-new doctrine. Tradition is 
 losing its power over men's conduct and concep- 
 tions as never before, and Science is growing 
 more and more influential. A central truth of 
 the Darwinian philosophy is the unity and con- 
 sanguinity of all organic life. And during the 
 next century or two the ethical corollary of this 
 truth is going to receive unprecedented recognition 
 in all departments of human thought. Ignorance 
 and Inertia are fearful facts. They endure like 
 granite in the human mind. But the tireless 
 chisels of evolution are invincible. And the time 
 will come when the anthropocentric customs and 
 conceptions, which are to-day fashionable enough 
 
 21 — 2 
 
324 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 to be 'divine,' will have nothing but a historic 
 existence. The movement to put Science and 
 Humanitarianism in place of Tradition and 
 Savagery, which is so weak, languishing, and 
 neglected to-day, is a movement which has for its 
 ultimate destiny the conquest of the Human 
 Species. 
 
 XII. Conclusion. 
 
 All beings are ends; no creatures are means. 
 All beings have not equal rights, neither have all 
 men ; but all have rights. The Life Process is the 
 End — not man, nor any other animal temporarily 
 privileged to weave a world's philosophy. Non- 
 human beings were not made for human beings 
 any more than human beings were made for non- 
 human beings. Just as the sidereal spheres were 
 once supposed by the childish mind of man to be 
 unsubstantial satellites of the earth, but are known 
 by man's riper understanding to be worlds with 
 missions and materialities of their own, and of 
 such magnitude and number as to render terres- 
 trial insignificance frightful, so the billions that 
 dwell in the seas, fields, and atmospheres of the 
 earth were in like manner imagined by the illiterate 
 children of the race to be the mere trinkets of 
 men, but are now known by all who can interpret 
 the new revelation to be beings with substantially 
 the same origin, the same natures, structures, and 
 occupations, and the same general rights to life and 
 happiness, as we ourselves. 
 
 In their phenomena of life the inhabitants of 
 
CONCLUSION 325 
 
 the earth display endless variety. They swim in 
 the waters, soar in the skies, squeeze among the 
 rocks, clamber among the trees, scamper over the 
 plains, and glide among the grounds and grasses. 
 Some are born for a summer, some for a century, 
 and some flutter their little lives out in a day. 
 They are black, white, blue, golden, all the colours 
 of the spectrum. Some are wise and some are 
 simple ; some are large and some are microscopic ; 
 some live in castles and some in bluebells ; some 
 roam over continents and seas, and some doze 
 their little day-dream away on a single dancing 
 leaf. But they are all the children of a common 
 mother and the co-tenants of a common world. 
 Why they are here in this world rather than some 
 place else ; why the world in which they find 
 themselves is so full of the undesirable ; and 
 whether it would not have been better if the ball 
 on which they ride and riot had been in the 
 beginning sterilised, are problems too deep and 
 baffling for the most of them. But since they are 
 here, and since they are too proud or too super- 
 stitious to die, and are surrounded by such cold 
 and wolfish immensities, what would seem more 
 proper than for them to be kind to each other, 
 and helpful, and dwell together as loving and 
 forbearing members of One Great Family ? 
 
 Act toward others as you would act 
 toward a part of your own self. 
 
 This is The Great Law, the all-inclusive gospel 
 of social salvation. It is the rule of social recti- 
 tude and perfection which has been held up in 
 
326 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 greater or less perfection in all_ ages by the sages 
 and prophets of the human species. 
 
 Hear Confucius, the giant of Mongolia, and the 
 idol and law-giver of one-third of mankind : 
 
 ' What you do not like when done to yourself do 
 not do to others.' 
 And again he says : 
 
 ' Do not let a man practise to those beneath 
 him that which he dislikes in those above him.' 
 
 Over and over again the illustrious master 
 repeats these precepts to his disciples and 
 countrymen. 
 
 In the Mahabharata, the great epic of the 
 Sanskrit, written by Indian moralists in various 
 ages, and representing the accumulated wisdom of 
 one of the most marvellous of all peoples, we find 
 these words : 
 
 ' Treat others as thou wouldst thyself be treated.' 
 ' Do nothing to thy neighbour which thou 
 wouldst not hereafter have thy neighbour do to 
 thee.' 
 
 ' A man obtains a rule of action by looking upon 
 his neighbour as himself.' 
 
 These same truths were also taught by Jesus, 
 that godlike Galilean, the great teacher and 
 saviour of the Western world : 
 ' Love thy neighbour as thyself.' 
 ' Do unto others as you would have others do 
 unto you.' 
 
 Oh that these words were etched in fire, and 
 stamped in scorching characters on the dull, cold 
 hearts of this world ! 
 
CONCLUSION 327 
 
 Act toward others as you would act 
 toward a part of your own self. 
 
 Look upon and treat others as you do your own 
 hands, your own eyes, your very heart and soul 
 — with infinite care and compassion — as suffering 
 and enjoying members of the same Great Being 
 with yourself. This is the spirit of the ideal 
 universe — the spirit of your own being. It is 
 this alone that can redeem this world, and give 
 to it the peace and harmony for which it longs. 
 Yes, 
 
 ' So many gods, so many creeds, 
 So many paths that wind and wind, 
 While just the art of being kind 
 Is all the sad world needs.' 
 
 Oh the madness, and sorrow, and unbrotherli- 
 ness of this mal-wrought world ! Oh the poor, 
 weak, poisoned, monstrous natures of its children ! 
 Who can look upon it all without pain, and 
 sympathy, and consternation, and tears ? What 
 an opportunity for philanthropy, if the ' All- 
 mighty One ' of our traditions would only set 
 about it ! 
 
 Yes, do as you would be done by — and not to the 
 dark man and the white woman alone, but to the 
 sorrel horse and the gray squirrel as well ; not to 
 creatures of your own anatomy only, but to all 
 creatures. You cannot go high enough nor low 
 enough nor far enough to find those whose bowed 
 and broken beings will not rise up at the coming 
 of the kindly heart, or whose souls will not shrink 
 and darken at the touch of inhumanity. Live and 
 
328 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 
 
 let live. Do more. Live and help live. Do to 
 beings below yoti as you would be done by beings above 
 you. Pity the tortoise, the katydid, the wild-bird, 
 and the ox. Poor, undeveloped, untaught crea- 
 tures ! Into their dim and lowly lives strays of 
 sunshine little enough, though the fell hand of 
 man be never against them. They are our fellow- 
 mortals. They came out of the same mysterious 
 womb of the past, are passing through the same 
 dream, and are destined to the same melancholy 
 end, as we ourselves. Let us be kind and merciful 
 to them. 
 
 ' Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ? 
 Draw near them, then, in being merciful ; 
 Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.' 
 
 Let us be true to our ideals, true to the spirit 
 of Universal Compassion — whether we walk with 
 the lone worm wandering in the twilight of con- 
 sciousness, the feathered forms of the fields and 
 forests, the kine of the meadows, the simple 
 savage on the banks of the gladed river, the 
 political blanks whom men call wives, or the 
 outcasts of human industry. 
 
 Oh this poor world, this poor, suffering, ignorant, 
 fear-filled world ! How can men be blind or 
 deranged enough to think it is a good world ? 
 How can they be cold and satanic enough to be 
 unmoved by the groans and anguish, the writhing 
 and tears, that come up from its unparalleled 
 afflictions ? 
 
 But the world is growing better. And in the 
 
CONCLUSION 329 
 
 Future — in the long, long ages to come — it will 
 BE REDEEMED ! The Same spirit of sympathy 
 and fraternity that broke the black man's manacles 
 and is to-day melting the white woman's chains 
 will to-morrow emancipate the working man and 
 the ox; and, as the ages bloom and the great 
 wheels of the centuries grind on, the same spirit 
 shall banish Selfishness from the earth, and 
 convert the planet finally into one unbroken and 
 unparalleled spectacle of Peace, Justice, and 
 Solidarity. 
 
 yr 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 (1) Spencer: Principles of Ethics, vol. i. ; New York, 
 
 1893. 
 
 (2) Maine: Early History of Institutions ; New York, 1869. 
 
 (3) Tennent : Natural History of Ceylon ; London, 1861. 
 
 (4) Myers : Ancient History, part i. ; Boston, 1899. 
 
 (5) Myers : Ancient History, part ii. ; Boston, 1899. 
 
 (6) Preston and Dodge : The Private Life of the Romans ; 
 
 Boston, 1896. 
 
 (7) Darwin : Descent of Man ; London, 1874. 
 
 (8) Hamley: Our Poor Relations ; Boston, 1872. 
 
VIII. Verte- 
 brates 
 
 5. Mammals- 
 
 'II. Primates : Man, monkey. 
 10. Carnivora : Dog, lion, skunk. 
 9. Ungulates : Ox, horse, deer. 
 8. Sirenians : Dugong. 
 7. Cetaceans : Whale, porpoise. 
 6. Chiroptera : Bat. 
 5. Insectivora : Mole, hedgehog. 
 4. Rodents : Rat, mouse, beaver. 
 3. Edentates : Sloth, ant-eater. 
 2. Marsupials : Kangaroo, 
 
 opossum. 
 I. Monotremes : Duckbill, 
 echidna. 
 Birds : Ostrich, owl, lark 
 Reptiles : Snake, lizard, turtle. 
 Amphibians : Frog, salamander. 
 Fishes : Shark, salmon, lung-fish. 
 
 VII. Arthro 
 
 PODS 
 
 4. Arachnids : Spider, tick, king-crab. 
 3. Insects : Ant, fly, bug, beetle. 
 2. Crustaceans : Crayfish, crab, barnacle. 
 I. Myriapods: Centiped, milliped. 
 
 VI. Mollusks : Clam, oyster, snail, squid. 
 
 V. Worms : Earthworm, leech, trichina. 
 IV. Echinoderms : Star-fish, sea-urchin. 
 III. Celenterates : Hydra, coral, jelly-fish. 
 
 II. PORIFERA : Sponge. 
 I. Protozoa : Amoeba, euglena, paramecium. 
 
 CLASSES OF ANIMALS 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD 
 
Wooly haired Men 
 
 (UiotnxJu) 
 
 Oddtoed 
 
 Ungulates 
 
 Even-toed 
 TIngidates 
 
 Primitive 
 
 Cetaceans n / 
 Sirenians-I 
 
 Ungulates 
 
 Ape -111 :e Men 
 
 CMOx.") 
 
 Man -like Apes 
 
 Xew World 01d\*rorld 
 Apes 
 
 Straigkt-liaiied Men 
 
 flissotnchC) 
 
 Apes_ 
 
 Edentates Rodents 
 
 Lemurs 
 
 Caiuivora 
 
 Seals 
 
 Bats Tiiscctivo.[-;i 
 
 lA-iLi4iUve 
 Camivora 
 
 Herbr'orous 
 Place ntals 
 
 Herbivorous 
 Marsupials 
 
 Monotremes 
 
 FliuenUd Atu/n<ii>: 
 
 Cavin\-oi-ous 
 Placekitals 
 
 CaniiA'orous 
 Marsupials 
 
 Keel-breasted 
 Birds 
 
 Ostrich-like 
 Birds 
 
 Primiti-le Birds 
 
 (ArcheApteryx) 
 
 Teleost^flshes 
 
 Insects 
 
 Spiders 
 
 ifyriapods 
 
 Trilobites 
 
 Shark-like fishes 
 
 Primitive fishes 
 
 (Lamprey) 
 
 Chordates 
 
 (Amphiicxus) 
 
 xMollusks 
 
 Echinoderms 
 
 Worms 
 Flat tWorms 
 
 Celenterates 
 
 I 
 
 Gastraea' 
 Vob^ox 
 
 Protozoa 
 
 GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS 
 
 To face p, 330. 
 

 
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