This conclusion, in truth, is one of those which,
though they cannot be demonstrated, are never doubted; and, since it is
highly probable and cannot be disproved, we are quite safe in accepting
it, as, at any rate, a good working hypothesis.
But, if we accept it, we must extend it to a much wider assemblage of
living beings. Whatever cogency is attached to the arguments in favour
of the occurrence of all the fundamental phenomena of mind in young
children and deaf mutes, an equal force must be allowed to appertain to
those which may be adduced to prove that the higher animals have minds.
We must admit that Hume does not express himself too strongly when he
says--
"no truth appears to me more evident, than that the beasts are
endowed with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are
in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and
ignorant."--(I. p. 232.)
In fact, this is one of the few cases in which the conviction which
forces itself upon the stupid and the ignorant, is fortified by the
reasonings of the intelligent, and has its foundation deepened by every
increase of knowledge. It is not merely that the observation of the
actions of animals almost irresistibly suggests the attribution to them
of mental states, such as those which accompany corresponding actions in
men. The minute comparison which has been instituted by anatomists and
physiologists between the organs which we know to constitute the
apparatus of thought in man, and the corresponding organs in brutes, has
demonstrated the existence of the closest similarity between the two,
not only in structure, as far as the microscope will carry us, but in
function, as far as functions are determinable by experiment.
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