in this stage. We cannot by any process develop the lower mind of an
animal into the higher mind of man, and prove the steps of the
evolution.[1] It is important to remember that the power of _directing
the attention by a voluntary process of abstraction_, is one that
distinctively belongs to man. It is an effort of will, of a kind that no
animal has any capacity for. By it alone have we any power of abstract
reasoning, and it is intimately concerned with our self-consciousness
and memory, and with our language. I am quite aware that animals possess
something analogous to a language of their own; they can indicate
certain emotions and give warning, and so forth, to their fellows. But
that language could never develop into human language, or the animal
will (such as it is) ever rise to a human will, or animals become
endowed with self-consciousness, unless they could acquire the power of
voluntarily abstracting the mind from one subject or part of a subject
and fixing the attention on another. We cannot formulate any process of
change whereby the lower state could pass on to or attain to the higher
in this respect.


[Footnote 1: We can of course follow the sort of mental development
which is traceable when we consider the origin of our own sagacious and
faithful dogs in the wild prairie dog: but this development is always in
contact with the mind of man, and is, as it were, the result of man's
action, as man's development in mind and soul is the result of God's
action.]

Therefore again we conclude that the higher reason is a gift _ab
externo_.

If we take a step further to the "spiritual" or "moral" faculties of