Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/815

Rh prima facie case in favor of the view that there has been no interruption of the developmental process in the course of psychological history; but that the mind of man, like the mind of animals—and, indeed, like everything else in the domain of living nature—has been evolved. For these considerations show, not only that on analogical grounds any such interruption must be held as in itself improbable; but also that there is nothing in the constitution of the human mind incompatible with the supposition of its having been slowly evolved, seeing that not only in the case of every individual life, but also during the whole history of our species, the human mind actually does undergo, and has undergone, the process in question.

In order to overturn so immense a presumption as is thus erected on a priori grounds, the psychologist must fairly be called upon to supply some very powerful considerations of an a posteriori kind, tending to show that there is something in the constitution of the human mind which renders it virtually impossible—or at all events exceedingly difficult to imagine—that it can have proceeded by way of genetic descent from mind of lower orders. I shall therefore proceed to consider, as carefully and as impartially as I can, the arguments which have been adduced in support of this thesis.

In the introductory chapter of my previous work I observed that the question whether or not human intelligence has been evolved from animal intelligence can only be dealt with scientifically by comparing the one with the other, in order to ascertain the points wherein they agree and the points wherein they differ. I shall, therefore, here begin by briefly stating the points of agreement, and then proceed more carefully to consider all the more important views which have hitherto been propounded concerning the points of difference.

If we have regard to emotions as these occur in the brute, we can not fail to be struck by the broad fact that the area of psychology which they cover is so nearly coextensive with that which is covered by the emotional faculties of man. In my previous works I have given what I consider unquestionable evidence of all the following emotions, which I here name in the order of their appearance through the psychological scale—fear, surprise, affection, pugnacity, curiosity, jealousy, anger, play, sympathy, emulation, pride, resentment, emotion of the beautiful, grief, hate, cruelty, benevolence, revenge, rage, shame, regret, deceitfulness, emotion of the ludicrous.

Now, this list exhausts all the human emotions, with the exception of those which refer to religion, moral sense, and perception