Mental Evolution in Animals

Abstract

IN the present volume Mr. Romanes redeems a part of the promise which he gave us in his “Animal Intelligence.” He traces in its main outlines the development of mind in the lower animals. The other part of the promise, to follow the course of mental development in man, will be fulfilled in another work. We think it well that the author has thus divided his task. Each division is of sufficient magnitude to require a separate volume; and though as an evolutionist Mr. Romanes would of course maintain the continuity and identity of the process of mental evolution from its first obscure manifestations in the lower grades of animals up to its highest present point of attainment in civilised man, he would probably allow that the two stages of the process, the sub-human and the human, are sufficiently differenced by the difference in the degree of complexity of the factors involved. To this it may be added that the detailed study of each of these two stages of mental life requires a body of knowledge of its own, a special modification of psychological method, and a particular kind of psychological interest.

Mental Evolution in Animals.

By G. J. Romanes, &c. With a Posthumous Essay on Instinct, by Charles Darwin. (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1883.)