s of mankind, and even in the lower forms, such as we know
them, from those exhibited by other animals; but, at the same time, they
tell us that the foundations, or rudiments, of almost all the faculties
of man are to be met with in the lower animals; that there is a unity of
mental faculty as well as of bodily structure, and that, here also, the
difference is a difference of degree and not of kind. I said "almost
all," for a reason. Among the many distinctions which have been drawn
between the lower creatures and ourselves, there is one which is hardly
ever insisted on,[4] but which may be very fitly spoken of in a place so
largely devoted to Art as that in which we are assembled. It is this,
that while, among various kinds of animals, it is possible to discover
traces of all the other faculties of man, especially the faculty of
mimicry, yet that particular form of mimicry which shows itself in the
imitation of form, either by modelling or by drawing, is not to be met
with. As far as I know, there is no sculpture or modelling, and
decidedly no painting or drawing, of animal origin, I mention the fact,
in order that such comfort may be derived therefrom as artists may feel
inclined to take.

If what the biologists tell us is true, it will be needful to get rid of
our erroneous conceptions of man, and of his place in nature, and to
substitute right ones for them. But it is impossible to form any
judgment as to whether the biologists are right or wrong, unless we are
able to appreciate the nature of the arguments which they have to offer.

One would almost think this to be a self-evident proposition. I wonder
what a scholar would say to the man who should undertake to criticise a
difficult passage in a Greek play, but who obviously had not acquainted
himself with the rudiments of Greek grammar. And yet, before giving
positive opinions about these high questions of Biology, people not only
do not seem to think it necessary to be acquainted with the grammar of
the subject, but they have not even mastered the alphabet. You find
criticism and denunciation showered about by persons, who, not only have
not attempted to go through the discipline necessary to enable them to
be judges, but who have not even reached that stage of emergence from
ignorance in which the knowledge that such a discipline is necessary
dawns upon the mind. I have had to watch with some attention--in fact I
have been favoured with a good deal of it myself-