Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

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D. Appleton, 1889 - 452 pages

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Page 385 - The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that 'this is I :' But as he grows he gathers much, And learns the use of 'I,' and 'me,' And finds 'I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch.
Page 21 - ... a distance. For if they have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines (as some would have them), we cannot deny them to have some reason. It seems as evident to me that they do some of them in certain instances reason as that they have sense, but it is only in particular ideas, just as they receive them from their senses.
Page 215 - When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Dammara to take two sheep and give him four sticks.
Page 21 - For it is evident, we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs, for universal ideas ; from which we have reason to imagine, that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words or any other general signs.
Page 195 - As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
Page 199 - But how can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shewn by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures or pains in the chase ? And this would be a form of self-consciousness.
Page 449 - College. $1.50. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 5 Bond Street.
Page 366 - When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing, as do some of the gibbon-apes at the present day; and we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy, that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes — would have expressed various emotions, such as love, jealousy, triumph — and would have served as a challenge to rivals.
Page 340 - Metaphors are her stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the FleshGarment, Language, — then are Metaphors its muscles and tissues and living integuments.
Page 17 - ... fertile islands. He has discovered the art of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots can be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs innocuous. This discovery of fire, probably the greatest ever made by man, excepting language, dates from before the dawn of history. These several inventions, by which man in the rudest state has become so pre-eminent, are the direct results of the development of his powers of observation, memory, curiosity, imagination, and reason. I cannot, therefore,...

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