ed with reason--lays her eggs and looks after her young. The
general significance of the facts is that when competition is keen, a
new area of exploitation is a promised land. Thus spiders have spread
over all the earth except the polar areas. But here is a spider with
some spirit of adventure, which has endeavoured, instead of trekking, to
find a new corner near at home. It has tackled a problem surely
difficult for a terrestrial animal, the problem of living in great part
under water, and it has solved it in a manner at once effective and
beautiful.

In Conclusion

We have given but a few representative illustrations of a great theme.
When we consider the changefulness of living creatures, the
transformations of cultivated plants and domesticated animals, the
gradual alterations in the fauna of a country, the search after new
haunts, the forming of new habits, and the discovery of many inventions,
are we not convinced that Evolution is going on? And why should it
stop?

VII

THE DAWN OF MIND

THE DAWN OF MIND

In the story of evolution there is no chapter more interesting than the
emergence of mind in the animal kingdom. But it is a difficult chapter
to read, partly because "mind" cannot be seen or measured, only
_inferred_ from the outward behaviour of the creature, and partly
because it is almost impossible to avoid reading ourselves into the much
simpler animals.

Sec. 1

Two Extremes to be Avoided

The one extreme is that of uncritical generosity which credits every
animal, like Brer Rabbit--who, by the way, was the hare--with human
qualities. The other extreme is that of thinking of the animal as if it
were an automatic machine, in the working of which there is no place or
use for mind. Both these extremes are to be avoided.

When Professor Whitman took the eggs of the Passenger Pigeon (which
became extinct not long ago with startling rapidity) and placed them a
few inches to one side of the nest, the bird looked a little uneasy and
put her beak under her body as if to feel for something that was not
there. But she did not try to retrieve her eggs, close at hand as they
were. In a short time she flew away altogether. This shows that the mind
of the pigeon is in some respects very different from the mind of man.
On the other hand, when a certain clever dog, carrying a basket of eggs,
with the handle in his mouth, came to a stile which had to be
negotiated, he laid the basket on the