Passage 1
Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. They are also capable of some inherited improvement, as we see in the domestic dog compared with the wolf or jackal. If it could be proved that certain high mental powers, such as the formation of general concepts, self-consciousness, etc., were absolutely peculiar to man, which seems extremely doubtful, it is not improbable that these qualities are merely the incidental results of other highly-advanced intellectual faculties; and these again mainly the result of the continued use of a perfect language. At what age does the new-born infant possess the power of abstraction, or become self-conscious, and reflect on its own existence? We cannot answer; nor can we answer in regard to the ascending organic scale. The half-art, half-instinct of language still bears the stamp of its gradual evolution.
Heredity and biological controlFree will and automatismlife is not mechanism · rejectsNature and evolutionScientific or empirical evidenceNo judgment offered
Darwin argues that human mental powers differ from those of other animals by degree rather than kind, and that faculties can show inherited improvement and gradual evolution. The passage rejects a sharp non-mechanical distinction between human and animal mental life, but it does not directly evaluate human autonomy or develop a machine argument. The fit of the vitalism claim is therefore indirect.
Local word range 59286–59710