that a man would discover the hollowness of the nut by that "faculty of abstraction which is better known to us by the homely name of reason," while the parrot would discover it by the different process which "philosophers would dignify with the grand title of syllogism." And I have failed, moreover, to discover that there is any difference in the two processes. All deductive reasoning may be exhibited in the form of the syllogism, but Mr. Mill has clearly shown that all inference is really from particulars to particulars. The process by which the hollowness of the nut is arrived at is of this kind: "This particular nut produces a sensation similar to the sensation produced by a certain other nut or nuts which were hollow; therefore this nut is hollow;" or to adopt the formula of Mr. Mill: "This nut has a mark (lightness) which is a mark of hollowness." Professor Max Müller has, perhaps, another name for this process, but it is generally known by the name of reasoning, and it is the process by which every proposition in Euclid is proved. Until the new name is made known and generally adopted, we are justified in concluding that parrots reason, and if we are to accept the statement that reason and the faculty of abstraction are one and the same, we may declare further that parrots have the faculty of abstraction. It appears to me, then, that by this one sentence Professor Max Müller has destroyed his own case and established mine. It happens, strangely enough, that Rousseau, in discussing this question, took one of his illustrations from nuts. "Pense-t-on,' says he,* of the monkey, who passes from one nut to another, "pense-t-on qu'il ait l'idée générale de cette sorte de fruit, et qu'il compare son archetype à ces deux individus ?" The answer to this question is surely easy enough. There is no evidence whatever that the monkey has the capacity of realising to himself Platonic archetypes in a less or greater degree than man. The probability is that he knows a nut when he sees it, just as much as we do; at all events, all his actions seem to prove that to be the fact. If we say simply that the law of similarity seems to apply to brutes as well as to mankind, we say all that the facts will justify us in saying. "There is," says Professor Max Müller,† "a petrified philosophy in language, and if we examine the most ancient word for name we find it is naman in Sanskrit, nomen in Latin, namo in Gothic. This nâman stands for gnâman, which is preserved in the Latin cognomen. The g is dropped, as in natus, son, for gnatus. Nâman, therefore, and name are derived from the root gnâ, to know, and meant originally that by which we know a thing." He goes on to argue that brutes neither know nor name anything, and that it is an abuse of language to say that they do. In curious contrast to this view are the words which Milton places in the mouth of the Almighty.‡ "Knowest thou not Their language and their ways? They also know A poet's testimony may, perhaps, be thought of little weight in a + Lectures, p. 384. Paradise Lost, b. viii, 372. 1 question of science, but it is, after all, the poet's imagination which enables the philosopher to discover laws of nature. These words, full of life and nature, are worth far more than the "petrified philosophy" of a questionable etymology. But let it not be supposed that by any of my remarks I wish at all to detract from the very great abilities of the expounder of the science of language. No one can admire more than myself his philological ingenuity. It is only when he deals with subjects that are less familiar to him, and in which he is probably influenced by the prejudices of a particular German school and of a particular Oxford school, that, as it seems to me, he falls into the pit of selfcontradictory dogmatism. My object has been to show, and to show from the evidence of an adversary, on what footing we may expect the science of psychology to stand; to show that the impassable gulf supposed to yawn between the minds of brute and man is a fable as unfounded as those which stay-at-home travellers tell of unknown lands. When this point is once established, the place which psychology will take in the science of man is easily assigned. Comparative psychology must travel on side by side with comparative anatomy; and each in turn must lend a helping hand to the other. They must necessarily carry with them a whole train of subordinate sciences, one of which is the science of language; but without comparative psychology and comparative anatomy, a science of man is impossible. To neglect those sciences which illustrate man's corporeal nature would be as wise as to study anatomy in the soft tissues, and to ignore the skeleton, to examine the nerves of sensation, and neglect the nerves of motion, or as to study geology simply in the different strata, and to ignore the fossils they contain. To neglect those sciences which illustrate man's mental nature would be as wise as to study anatomy in the skeleton and ignore the soft tissues, to examine the nerves of motion and neglect the nerves of sensation, or as to study geology in the fossils and ignore the strata. In short, as the highest type of man is the cosmopolite, so the science which is to deal with man in general must be cosmopolitan. The PRESIDENT observed, that the paper was written in the most liberal spirit, and he was sure they must all have been much interested in listening to it. The author of the paper had told them that comparative psychology showed that man is mentally above the lower animals, and how much, and that in all mental phenomena there is no difference in kind, but that the difference consists altogether in degree. The illustrations brought forward to confirm that view were very numerous and interesting. Man's spiritual pride had hitherto prevented him from recognising that law, if such it might be called,— for the generality of mankind were afraid to look simple facts in the face. The society were, therefore, much indebted to Mr. Pike for the clear statement he had made of his views on this interesting subject, on which there had been a large amount of foolish talk in scientific societies and in the universities. Mr. BOUVERIE PUSEY observed, that the views of the author of the paper were in accordance with the oldest known conceptions of brute intelligence. In every collection of old tales, it would be found that brutes were made to talk, and were supposed to be influenced by similar motives as men. The same view was supported by the Hindoos and the Egyptians; and the doctrine of metempsychosis was founded on the supposed intelligence of brutes: the opposite opinion was a modern conception. Mr. REYNOLDS considered that the illustrations adduced of the exercise of reasoning power by animals were indecisive. With respect to the illustration of the elephant and the potatoe, he thought the occurrence might have been altogether accidental. Animals were often seen to blow; and the elephant, irritated at not being able to reach the potato, might have blown through its proboscis without anticipating the effect. The illustration of the parrot and the light nut was also very doubtful evidence of reasoning power. The bird might have found out that the nut was a bad one by its feeling light, and that the nut was not, in fact, a nut, though looking like one. Mr. ST. CLAIR objected to the paper, that it was rather a refutation of the opinions of Professor Max Müller than an exposition of the subject in general. The science of comparative psychology should. be established by independent facts and reasoning. It was not known, he said, that brutes have not abstract ideas, and that they do not form rational conceptions. After alluding to the affirmation of Locke of the same views as Professor Max Müller with respect to abstract ideas distinguishing man from brutes, and of Archbishop Whately on another distinction, Mr. St. Clair proceeded to say, that in an old sermon of Wesley's he showed that brutes are not altogether without reason; and the distinction he drew between man and beasts was, that man is capable of being religious, and that brutes are not. This was strictly true in a philosophical point of view. As to the illustration of the derivation of the word "mama," from the fact that the mother has two breasts, it would not bear examination. If the two breasts of the mother caused the repetition of the sound "ma," and so formed the word "ma-ma," the same cause could not apply to the formation of the word "pa-pa," which infants utter as readily as the former, though the breasts in the father are not conspicuous. The Duke of ROUSSILLON suggested some considerations which he thought favoured the opinions of the author of the paper. He said he had been for a long time engaged in examining the opinions of various writers respecting the origin of a race of men whom he believed to be the most ancient of mankind. That race was called the Scythians, but the meaning of the word was lost. Fifteen hundred years before Ninus, the Scythians were in possession of Asia. There was no certainty respecting the time when that king reigned; but it appeared from all authorities on the subject, that it could not have been later than twelve hundred years before Christ. Some writers represented it to have been eighteen hundred years; but taking it to have been fifteen hundred for round numbers, it was evident that the Scythians were an organised society three thousand years before Christ, as at that time they were enabled to rule over Asia Minor. It was, there fore, nearly certain that there was a population in existence at that early period, who possessed laws, arms, organisation, and all the necessary appliances to enable them to fight and conquer. When they thus had before them a race who existed in a civilised condition four thousand eight hundred years before our time, it became a matter of great interest to ascertain what were the characteristics of that race. Certain authors were of opinion that they were the Mongolian race, and there is at the present time an author who says they were of the Caucasian race. He had carefully examined the evidence on this subject, and he intended shortly to publish his opinions, and the results of his investigations respecting it. He would now merely state that the Scythians had light hair, fair eyes, and a fair skin, and that from them were descended the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Sclavonians, and many other nations. Mr. REDDIE said he should be sorry if the Anthropological Society of London came to the conclusion that there is no great difference between men and beasts. In anatomical construction, indeed, there was some resemblance; but if there was a distinction at all between man and the lower animals, it was chiefly in his possession of an exclusive kind of intelligence. He was not prepared to assert a distinction between man and beasts in all respects, but he did not agree in the opinion that the difference in their mental capacities is only a difference in degree. No reasoning power, properly so called, was evinced by animals. The instance of the sagacity of the elephant which had been adduced was no proof of reasoning power. It was probably only an accidental occurrence. Many better instances of the intelligence of animals might be adduced than that; but they were all of that kind of sagacity which is instinctive as distinguished from rational. It might rather be said that man has the faculty of instinct than that brutes have the faculty of reason, and there could be no doubt that many of our acts are instinctive. Thus, for example, when a stone is thrown at your head, you draw aside to avoid it from instinct, without reflection; and an animal possesses the same instinctive power of getting out of danger. The resemblance between animals and man is not in their having reason, but in man having also instincts. With regard to the origin of language, the illustration of the formation of the word "ma-ma" was not borne out by facts, for more generally the sound "da-da" is the first word that is uttered by an infant. If the development of the breast of the mother had any relation to the number of times the infant said "ma", she would have as many teats as a cow! As to the parrot and the dropped hollow nut, he did not think that illustration afforded any proof of reasoning power. He had seen a parrot crack hollow nuts, and he considered the instance when a parrot refused to do so, to be accidental, or an instinctive action only. He did not perceive any indication of the conception of abstract ideas in the sagacity of animals, or any approach to the power of speech; and, with respect to the antiquity of the notion that animals could talk, it could not surely be gravely intended that a literal interpretation should be given to the fables about talking animals, and to the words put into their mouths! As to the doctrine of metempsychosis, which had also been alluded to by the same speaker, it should be borne in mind that all those who believed in the transmigration of souls believed also in the grand distinction between men and animals which reason and language create. Mr. BLAKE adduced an instance of the communication of intelligence between a pilot-fish and a shark of which he was a witness, in about the latitude of Buenos Ayres, many years ago. A shark was observed alongside the ship and attempts were made to catch it. They got a piece of beef and fastened it to a hook, and as soon as it was thrown overboard the pilot-fish came and smelt at the bait. It then went back towards the shark, which continued at the beam of the vessel, and made some communication to it, the result of which was that the shark did not move. This was done several times with the same effect. They then baited the hook with a piece of pork, and the pilotfish having examined it made its report to the shark, at a distance of more than thirty feet, when instantly the latter came to the stern of the vessel, made a snatch at the pork, which it swallowed, and then swam away with the meat and hook too. This was a fact witnessed by himself, and he should like to know what means of communication subsisted between the two fishes, so that they could thus understand each other. Mr. C. CARTER BLAKE said the paper was so suggestive and was conceived in so liberal a spirit, that he only objected to some slight details. Mr. Pike had pointed out the difficulty of transmuting a gorilla into a Shakespeare or a Müller; but it was a difficulty of his own creation, for no one ever conceived of such a transmutation. The transmutationist only contended for the probable transmutation of the higher class of anthropoid apes, into the lowest class of human beings. As to the question whether language was inseparable from thought, it might be observed that some inferior races of man had a very low grade of language, and uttered sounds that did not convey distinct conventional ideas. He alluded, in support of that opinion, to the Veddahs, and to the observations of Sir Emerson Tennent to the same effect. In what respect, then, except in degree, did such a language differ from the communication of ideas among animals-such, for instance, as was recognised by the bark of a dog, or the mewing of a cat? For his own part he could not distinguish the difference. The communication of ideas by peculiar sounds was especially observable in animals brought under the control of man. It had been stated by Broca, that man might be deprived of the faculty of speech. by taking away the second plait of the frontal convolution of the brain; and though, of course, we reject the hypothesis of phrenology in its strict application, there could be no doubt that the faculty of speech has some definite relation to nerve substance. The assertion that the distinction between man and brutes consists in his being a religious animal would not bear examination, for there are many tribes of savage men who have no idea of a God or of a future state; he therefore objected to that definition of man. He wished strongly to express the belief that the distinctions between man and brutes do not depend on moral or psychological forms of classification, but that it must depend on anatomical observation of some positive fact. He had no sympathy with those who, admitting man's physical sameness with the inferior animals, wish to give to man an immaterial substance |