Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a
creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial
slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the
first vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from
the mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action,
memory, habit, rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the
course of the climb, thanks to natural selection, instinct was
evolved. Habit is a development in the individual. Instinct is a
race-habit. Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was
the dividing of the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect
culmination of instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive.
Instinct proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of reason,
led on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me.
There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs
does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types,
and to compare human mind with bird mind.
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