The native races of the Pacific states of North America
The primary indication of an absolute superiority in man over other animals is the faculty of speech; not those mute or vocal symbols, expressive of passion an demotion, displayed alike in brutes and men; but the power to separate ideas, to generate in the mind and embody in words, sequences of thought. True, upon the threshold of this inquiry, as in whatever relates to-primitive man, we find the brute creation hotly pursuing,and disputing for a share in this progressional power.In common with man, animals possess all the organs of sensation.
They see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. They have even the organs of speech; but they have not speech. The source of this wonderful faculty lies further back, obscured by the mists which ever settle round the immaterial. Whether brutes have souls, according to the Aristotelean theory of soul, or whether brute-soul is immortal, or of quality and destiny unlike and inferior to that of man-soul, we see in them unmistakable evidence of mental faculties.
The higher order of animals possess the lower order of intellectual perceptions. Thus
pride is manifested by the caparisoned horse, shame by
the beaten dog, will by the stubborn mule. Brute shave memory; they manifest love and hate, joy and sorrow, gratitude and revenge. They are courageous or cowardly, subtle or simple, not merely up to the measure of what we commonly term instinct, but with evident exercise of judgment; and, to a certain point, weight even claim for them foresight, as in laying in store of food for winter. But with all this Themistocles be a lack of true or connected thought, and of the faculty of abstraction, whereby conceptions are analyzed and impressions defined.
SOME CONTENTS:
Difference between Man and Brutes — Mind-Language and Soul-Language—Origin of Language: A Gift of the Creator, a Human Invention, or an Evolution — Nature and Value of Myth — Origin of Myth: The Divine Idea, a Fiction of Sorcery, the Creation of designing Priesthood — Origin of Worship, of Prayer, of Sacrifice— Fetishistic and the Origin of Animal- Worship — Religion and Mythology
Quiche Creation-Myth — Aztec Origin-Myths — The Papagos — Montezuma and the Coyote — The Moquis — The Great Spider's Web of the pimas — ^Navajo and Pueblo Creations — Origin of Clear Lake and-lake Tahoe — Chareya of the Cahrocs— Mount Shasta, the Wigwam of the Great Spirit — Idaho Springs and Water Falls — How Differences in Language Occurred — Yehl, the Creator of the Thlinkeets— The Raven and the Dog
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