All races of men are capable of progress in civilization. Many, indeed, remain in a savage state for thousands of years, and we cannot positively prove that any particular race which has always been uncivilized is capable of civilization. But we are led to believe it from having known of so many tribes of men who have emerged from apathy, ignorance, and barbarism into the light of science and art. So it was with all the Teutonic races,--the Goths, Germans, Kelts, Lombards, Scandinavians. So it was with the Arabs, who roamed for thousands of years over the deserts, a race of ignorant robbers, and then, filled with the great inspiration of Islam, flamed up into a brilliant coruscation of science, literature, art, military success, and profound learning. What great civilizations have grown up in China, India, Persia, Assyria, Babylon, Phœnicia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Etruria! But no such progress has ever appeared among the animals. As their parents were, five thousand years ago, so, essentially, are they now. Nor are animals religious, in the sense of worshiping unseen powers higher than themselves. My horse showed a sense of the supernatural, but this is not worship. These are some of the most marked points of difference between man and all other animals. Now these can all be accounted for by the hypothesis in which Locke and Leibnitz both agreed; namely, that while animals are capable of reasoning about facts, they are incapable of abstract ideas. Or, we may say with Coleridge, that while animals, in common with man, possess the faculty of understanding, they do not possess that of reason. Coleridge seems to have intended by this exactly what Locke and Leibnitz meant by their statement. When my dog Don heard the word "apple," he thought of the particular concrete apple under the tree; and not of apples in general, and their relation to pears, peaches, etc. Don understood me when I told him to go and get an apple, and obeyed; but he would not have understood me if I had remarked to him that apples were better than pears, more wholesome than peaches, not so handsome as grapes. I should then have gone into the region of abstract and general ideas. Now it is precisely the possession of this power of abstract thought which will explain the superiority of man to all other animals. It explains the use of tools; for a tool is an instrument prepared, not for one special purpose, but to be used generally, in certain ways. A baboon, like a man, might pick up a particular stone with which to crack a particular nut; but the ape does not make and keep a stone hammer, to be used on many similar occasions. A box of tools contains a collection of saws, planes, draw-knives, etc., not made to use on one occasion merely, but made for sawing, cutting, and planing purposes generally.