Human civilization is an embodiment of reason, a product of reflection, a realization of ideals conceived by the leaders of mankind. All this forms the environment of each one of us. And it is this environment which is undergoing progressive evolution and playing on the rational faculties of those which are submitted to its moulding influence. There is no sufficient evidence of anything of the kind in the social communities of animals. This, of course, must be accepted merely as an expression of opinion. But on the hypothesis that animals are rational beings, capable of reflection, it is difficult to understand why they should remain at so low a level of social achievement. The absence of powers of descriptive intercommunication is often assigned as the cause of their comparatively unprogressive condition; but it may be regarded as the sign, rather than the cause, of their lack of reason in the more restricted sense of the term. We cannot, however, enter into the much-disputed question whether reason is the product of language, or language the outcome of reason. Perhaps the safest position is to assume that rationality and true speech are in large measure different aspects of one evolutionary movement--speech arising out of such preceding modes of communication as were considered in the second section of this chapter; reason developing out of intelligence which supplies its necessary data. It is sometimes said that, notwithstanding their powers of speech, savages in their social relations show little advance on animal communities. But surely such statements must be made in forgetfulness of the fact that savage customs almost invariably indicate the presence and sway of ideals which puzzle us from their quaintness, and from the fact that they seem contrary to the dictates of intelligence and due to motives and conceptions the nature and force of which we find it difficult to estimate. The passage from intelligent social behaviour to the rationality which has assumed such strange aspects among existing savages took place somewhere at some time in the past; and the stages of its evolution are hidden from our view. All we can say is, that it is possible to trace in animal behaviour some of the instinctive tendencies and intelligent modes of accommodation to social circumstances, together with the germs of imitation, intercommunication, and tradition, and the establishment of bonds of sympathy, without which the subsequent stages of evolution would be inconceivable. CHAPTER VI _THE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS_ I.--IMPULSE, INTEREST, AND EMOTION