The Progress of the Race
an extraordinary but unchanging instinct. "Show us," they say, "a single case where the pressure of events has inspired them with the idea, for instance, of substituting clay or mortar for wax or propolis; show us this, and we will admit their capacity for reasoning."
This argument, that Romanes refers to as the "question-begging argument," and that might also be termed the "insatiable argument," is exceedingly dangerous, and, if applied to man, would take us very far. Examine it closely, and you find that it emanates from the "mere common-sense," which is often so harmful; the "common-sense" that replied to Galileo: "The earth does not turn, for I can see the sun move in the sky, rise in the morning and sink in the evening; and nothing can prevail over the testimony of my eyes." Common-sense makes an admirable, and necessary, background for
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