h such activities are connected. Then we
are impelled to compare the objective phenomena of action with the
behavior of other men and of lower organisms, and if their behavior does
not coincide with our own we are justified in believing that its direction
lacks some of the elements we know about in our own case. This is the
method of comparative psychology, which establishes the conclusion that
reason is the more complex term of a series to which reflex action,
instinct, and intelligence directly lead.
Were we to study in detail the psychology of adult human beings, we would
find only more truly that instinct and intelligence play a large part in
our everyday mental life, and more certainly that even the highest
reasoning powers we possess are only more complex in nature than the
nervous processes of lower mammals and invertebrates. Just as the nervous
systems advance in physical or structural respects, so must their
activities become more and more complex until the result is human faculty.
* * * * *
We must now briefly consider what may be called the "comparative
anthropology" of mind which deals with the various degrees of mental
ability displayed by different human races; this subject follows
inevitably upon the comparison of the human mind viewed as a single type
with the psychological processes of lower animals. When we reviewed the
diverse characteristics of human races--the protrusion of the jaws,
greater or lesser stature, and the like--it appeared that so-called
"lower" races could be distinguished which differed from the "higher"
races in the direction of the apes; the question immediately arises
whether similar distinctions and relations are discoverable on the basis
of mental traits. But in the present case there are not so many
well-substantiated differentia at the disposal of the student, and it does
not appear so clearly that the "higher" races are furthest from the lower
primates and lower mammalia as regards their mental processes. What facts
there are, however, prove to be highly significant, and they materially
amplify our conception of human faculty as a product of evolution. The
essential point is that the intellectual attainments of various races are
by no means the same. The calculus is a mental product of the white race
only; gunpowder and printing from movable type were independently invented
by the Caucasian and Mongolian races; but the American Indian and the
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