Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    357/408 page 349
    cular abnormal cerebration which forcibly reminded him of the specific healthy characteristics of animals lower in the scale of organization ;* and every one must have observed how often the actions of chil- dren, especially in their moments of play, and where their selfish feelings are concerned, bear a resemblance to those of certain familiar animals.f Behold, then, the wonderful unity of the whole system. The grades of mind, like the forms of being, are mere stages of development. In the humbler forms, but a few of the mental faculties are traceable, just as we see in them but a few of the lineaments of universal structure. In man the system has arrived at its highest condition. The few gleams of reason, then, which meee th the lower animals, are precisely analogous to such a development of the fore-arm as we find in the paddle of the whale. Causality, comparison, and other of the nobler faculties, are in them rudi- mental. Bound up as we thus are by an identity in the * Phrenological Journal, xv. 338. t A pampered lap-dog, living where there is another of its own species, will hide any nice morsel which it cannot eat, under arug, or in some other by-place, designing to enjoy it afterwards. I have seen children do the same thing.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image