It is also erroneous to regard the gradual development of the psychical
capacities at the different levels of animal evolution as the development
of and preparation for the human spirit. It is not the spirit, but the raw
material of it, that is thus being prepared and developed. It is as if, in
the history of colour manufacture, an “evolution” of colour were taking
place. The quality of the colour gradually becomes better and better. Each
generation learns to make it purer and more brilliant. But the painting
which is painted with the most brilliant colour cannot be regarded as a
link in the evolutionary sequence, and is certainly not the crown and
culmination of the pigment; the latter is only the gradual perfecting of a
necessary preliminary condition.
It is only of secondary interest to point out the immense leaps in the
evolution of colour and colour-technique, and especially the vast
difference between the last stage and the one before it, or, to drop the
metaphor, the enormous psychological differences between the animal and
the human mind.
There is no doubt that an apologetic which interests itself in such
matters would find abundant opportunity for work, and could find a
powerful argument against a too hasty naturalism in the differences
between animal and human psychical capacities, which have been recognised
much more sanely and clearly through recent investigation than they
usually were in earlier times. But the question has no special interest
for us here.
Personality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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