A thoroughly mechanical conception of nature is the scientific ideal
of a very large and a very influential school of thinkers.[24] and the
goal towards which they strive. In so striving they follow the lead of
the earliest of modern philosophers, Descartes, who would probably have
felt no small satisfaction could he have foreseen that the doctrine of
animal automatism would be so eloquently advocated in the nineteenth
century, as well as that of a mechanical evolution of new species of
animals and plants.
[24] Thus Kirchenoff has said (_Prorectoratsrede_, Heidelberg, 1865),
“The highest object at which the natural sciences are constrained to
aim is the reduction of all the phenomena of nature to mechanics;”
and Helmholtz has declared (_Populaer Wissenschaft liche Vorträge_,
1869), “The aim of the natural sciences is to resolve themselves
into mechanics.” Wundt observes (_Lehrbuch der Physiologie des
Menschen_), “The problem of physiology is a reduction of vital
phenomena to general physical laws, and ultimately to the fundamental
laws of mechanics;” while Haëckel tells us (_Freie Wissenschaft und
freie Lehre_) that “all natural phenomena without exception, from
the motions of the celestial bodies to the growth of plants and the
consciousness of men ... are ultimately to be reduced to atomic
mechanics.”
Evidently the last-mentioned conception was necessary to render the
mechanical theory complete. As long as men believed in the action of
any mysterious intelligence hidden in nature, and working through it in
specific evolution towards foreseen and intended ends, a mechanical
conception of nature was obviously impossible. But no less impossible
was the acceptance of such a mechanical hypothesis as long as any
belief remained in the existence, in individual animals, of an innate
and mysterious _instinctive_ power directing their actions in ways
beneficial to them or to their race, yet unintended and unforeseen by
the creatures which performed those actions. A denial of the existence
of any true “instinct,” as well as of any unmechanical action in
specific evolution, was then necessary for the maintenance of the
mechanical theory, and accordingly such denials have been confidently
made, as we have already seen.
While, however, this current of thought has been gaining in volume and
velocity, another contrary current has no less made itself manifest,
and amongst its exponents Edward Von Hartmann[25] is an eloquent
advocate of the manifest action of intelligence in nature, and of what
may thus be called an “intellectual” as opposed to a “mechanical”
conception of the universe. He lays much stress upon instinct, and is
as earnest in asserting its distinct existence and nature, as are the
mechanicians in denying its existence.
[25] In his work on _The Unconscious_, a translation of which has been
lately published by Messrs. Trübner & Co.
As was said at the beginning of the former article, the great interest
just now of the study of instinct, lies in its bearings on the
Darwinian hypothesis, or rather on the philosophy therewith connected.
Let us then proceed to examine whether or not the analogies before
pointed out between instinct and other forms of vital activity can be
carried further. Let us especially examine whether the consideration of
instinct in the widest sense of that term, throws any glimmerings of
light upon that most recondite and still most mysterious process, _the
genesis of new species_.
We may be encouraged to hope that such a result is possible from the
words of one of those twin biologists who on the same night put forth
their independently-arrived-at views as to what we are all agreed to
regard as at least an important factor in the origin of species. No
less a person than Mr. Wallace has written the following significant
words:—
“No thoughtful person can contemplate without amazement the phenomena
presented by the development of animals. We see the most diverse
forms—a mollusk, a frog, and a mammal—arising from apparently identical
primitive cells, and progressing for a time by very similar initial
changes, but thereafter each pursuing its highly complex and often
circuitous course of development with unerring certainty, by means of
laws and forces of which we are totally ignorant. It is surely a not
improbable supposition that the unknown power which determines and
regulates this marvellous process may also determine the initiation of
these more important changes of structure, and those developments of
new parts and organs which characterise the successive stages of the
evolutions of animal forms.”
These words advocate and confirm what I have elsewhere antecedently
urged. Many influences doubtless may come into play in the origin of
new species; but let us look a little narrowly at certain influences
which _must_ come into play therein, and the action of which no man can
deny.
One of these influences (which no one has more richly illustrated than
has the late Mr. Darwin) is that of heredity; but what _is_ heredity?
In the first place it is obviously a property, not of new individuals,
not of offspring, but of parental forms. As every one knows, it is the
innate tendency which each organism possesses to reproduce its like.
If any living creature, x, was self-impregnating and the outcome of a
long line of self-impregnating predecessors, all existing in the midst
of one uniform and continuously unvarying environment, then x would
produce offspring completely like itself. This fundamental biological
law of reproduction may be compared with the physical first law of
motion, according to which _any body in motion will continue to move on
uniformly at the same rate and in the same direction until some other
force or motion is impressed upon it_.
The fact that new individual organisms arise from both a paternal and
a maternal influence, and from a line of ancestors every one of which
had a similar bifold origin, modifies this first law of heredity only
so far as to produce a more or less complex compound of hereditary
reproductive tendencies in every individual, the effect of which must
be analogous to that mechanical law of _the composition of forces_
resulting in the production of a new creature resembling its immediate
and more remote progenitors in varying degrees, according to (1) the
amount of force springing from each ancestral strain, and (2) the
compatibility or incompatibility[26] of the prevailing tendencies,
resulting in an intensification, perpetuation, modification, or
neutralisation of ancestral characters, as the case may be.
[26] Mr. Darwin tells us that two topknotted canaries produce bald
offspring, due probably to some conflicting actions analogous to the
interference of light.
All such action is but “heredity” acting in one or other mode; but
there is another and fundamentally different action which has to be
considered, and that is the action of the environment upon nascent
organisms—an action exercised either directly upon them, or indirectly
upon them through its direct action upon their parents. That such
actions produce unmistakable effects is notorious. It will be, I think,
sufficient here to advert to such cases as the well-known brood-mare
covered by a quagga, and the peculiar effects of a well-bred bitch
being lined by a mongrel. These show how an action exercised upon the
female parent (but with no direct action on the immediate offspring)
may act indirectly upon her subsequent progeny.
As a rule, modifications accidentally or artificially induced in
parents are not transmitted to their offspring, as is well shown by
the need of the repetition of circumcision, and of pressure of Indian
children’s heads and Chinese girls’ feet, in each generation. Yet there
is good evidence that such changes are occasionally inherited. The
epileptic offspring of injured guinea-pigs is a case often referred to.
Haëckel speaks of a bull which had lost its tail by accident, and which
begot entirely tailless calves. With respect to cats,[27] I am indebted
to Mr. John Birkett for the knowledge of an instance in which a female
with an injured tail produced some stump-tailed kittens in two litters.
[27] See _The Cat_ (John Murray, 1881), p. 7.
There is evidence that certain variations are more apt to be inherited
than others. Amongst those very apt to be inherited are skin
affections, affections of the nervous system and of the generative
organs, _e.g._ hypospadias and absence of the uterus. The last case
is one especially interesting, because it can only be propagated
indirectly.
Changes in the environment notoriously produce changes in certain
cases, even in adults. The modifications which may result from the
action of unusual agencies on the embryo have been well shown by M. C.
Dareste.[28] As has been already remarked, processes of repair take
place the more readily the younger the age of the subject. Similarly,
it is probable that the action of the environment generally acts
more promptly and intensely on the embryo than in the older young.
That the same organism will sometimes assume very different forms
has been observed by Professor Lankester in the case of _Bacterium
rufescens_.[29]
[28] See _Archives de Zool. expér._ vol. ii. p. 414 vol. v. p.
174, vol. vi. p. 31; also _Ann. des Sci. Nat. 4 séries, Zoologie_,
vol. iii. p. 119, vol. xv. p. 1, vol. xvii. p. 243; and his work
_Recherches sur la production artificielle des Monstruositées ou
essais de Tératogénie expérimentale_.
[29] See _Quarterly Journal of Micros. Soc._, New Series, (1873), vol.
xiii. p. 408, and vol. xvi. (1876) p. 27.
The effects of changed conditions is often very striking. _Ficus
stipulata_ grown on a wall has small, thin leaves, and clings to the
surface like a large moss or a miniature ivy. Planted out, it forms a
shrub, with large, coarse, leathery leaves.
Mr. Wallace has pointed out some of the curious direct effects of
external conditions on organisms. He tells us[30] that in the small
island of Amboina the butterflies (twelve species, of nine different
genera) are larger than those of any of the more considerable islands
about it, and that this is an effect probably due to some local
influence. In Celebes a whole series of butterflies are not only of
a larger size, but have the same peculiar form of wing. The Duke of
York’s Island seems, he tells us, to have a tendency to make birds
and insects white, or at least pale, and the Philippines to develop
metallic colors; while the Moluccas and New Guinea seem to favor
blackness and redness in parrots and pigeons. Species of butterflies
which in India are provided with a tail to the wing, begin to lose
that appendage in the islands, and retain no trace of it on the
borders of the Pacific. The Æneas group of papilios never have tails
in the equatorial region of the Amazon Valley, but gradually acquire
tails, in many cases, as they range towards the northern and southern
tropics. Mr. Gould says that birds are more highly colored under a
clear atmosphere than in islands or on coasts—a condition which also
seems to affect insects, while it is notorious that many shore plants
have fleshy leaves. We need but refer to the English oysters mentioned
by Costa, which, when transported to the Mediterranean, grew rapidly
like the true Mediterranean oyster, and to the twenty different kinds
of American trees said by Mr. Meehan to differ in the _same manner_
from their nearest American allies, as well as to the dogs, cats,
and rabbits which have been proved to undergo modifications directly
induced by climatic change. But still more strange and striking
changes have been recorded as due to external conditions. Thus it
is said[31] that certain branchiopodous creatures of the crab and
lobster class (certain crustacea) have been changed from the form
characteristic of one genus (_Artemia salina_) into that of quite
another (_Branchipus_), by having been introduced in large numbers by
accident into very salt water. The latter form is not only larger than
the former, but has an additional abdominal segment and a differently
formed tail. Such changes tell strongly in favor of the existence
in creatures of positive, innate tendencies to change in definite
directions under special conditions.
[30] _Tropical Nature_, pp. 254-259.
[31] _Nature_, 1576, June 8, p. 133. Schmankevitsch at Odessa.
It is also obvious that the very same influences (_e.g._ amounts of
light, heat, moisture, &c.) will produce different effects in different
species, as also that the nature of some species is more stubborn and
less prone to variation than that of others. Such, for example, is
the case with the ass, the guinea-fowl, and the goose, as compared
with the dog, the horse, the domestic fowl, and the pigeon. Thus both
the amount and the kind of variability differ in different races, and
such constitutional capacities or incapacities tend to be inherited by
their derivative forms, and so every kind of animal must have its own
inherent powers of modifiability or resistance, so that no organism or
race of organisms _can_ vary in an absolutely indefinite manner; and if
so, then unlimited variability must be a thing absolutely impossible.
The foregoing considerations tend to show that every variation is a
function[32] of “heredity” and “external influence”—_i.e._ is the
result of the reaction of the special nature of each organism upon the
stimuli of its environment.
[32] In the mathematical sense of the word.
In addition to the action of heredity and the action of the
environment, there is also a peculiar kind of action due to an internal
force which has brought about so many interesting cases of what is
called “serial and lateral homology” which cannot be due to descent,
but which demonstrate the existence of an intra-organic activity,
the laws of which have yet to be investigated. Comparative anatomy,
pathology, and teratology combine to point out the action of this
internal force.
“Lateral homology” refers to the production of similar structures on
either side of the body, as in the similarity of our right and left
hands and feet. “Serial homology” refers to the production of similar
structures one behind the other, as in the series of similar segments
in the body of a worm or a centipede, and the similar series of limbs
in the latter animal.
These tendencies to lateral and serial repetition show themselves
in ways which cannot be accounted for by inheritance from ancestral
forms, but loudly proclaim the presence and action of some internal
force tending to produce such homologous repetitions in organisms in
different animals.
Thus even in ourselves, when we compare our leg and foot with our arm
and hand, we find that they have homologous features which cannot be
accounted for as being inheritances from supposed ancestral animals.
Our extremities resemble each other in the texture of the skin, the
shape of the nails, and other points, and these resemblances are not
due to external conditions, but exist in spite of them; and comparative
anatomy reveals to us countless similar examples in the animal kingdom.
Limbs can hardly be more unlike in form and position than are the arms
and legs of birds, and yet we meet with breeds of fowls and pigeons
the feet of which are furnished with what are called “boots,” that
is, with long feathers which grow on the side of the foot, serially
corresponding with that of the hand, which grow the feathers of the
wing.
Again, in disease, and in cases of monstrosity or congenital
malformation, nothing is more common than to find precisely similarly
diseased conditions, or similar abnormalities of structure, affecting
serially or laterally homologous parts, such as corresponding parts of
the two arms or two legs, or of the right (or left) arm and hand and
leg and foot respectively.
Altogether it seems then to be undeniable that the characters and the
variations of species[33] are due to the combined action of internal
and external agencies acting in a direct, positive, and constructive
manner.
[33] The existence of internal force must be allowed. We cannot
conceive of a universe consisting of atoms acted on indeed by external
forces, but having no internal power of response to such actions. Even
in such conceptions as those of “physiological units” and “gemmules”
we have (as the late Mr. G. H. Lewes remarked) given as an explanation
that very power the existence of which in larger organisms had itself
to be explained.
It is obvious, however, that no character very prejudicial to a species
could ever be established, owing to the perpetual action of all the
destructive forces of nature which destructive forces, considered as
one whole, have been personified under the name “natural selection.”
Its action, of course, is, and must be, destructive and negative.
The evolution of a new species is as necessarily a process which is
constructive and positive, and, as all must admit, is one due to those
variations upon which natural selection acts. Variation, which thus
lies at the origin of every new species, is (as we have seen) the
reaction of the nature of the varying animal upon all the multitudinous
agencies which environ it. Thus “the nature of the animal” must
be taken as the cause, “the environment” being the stimulus which
sets that cause in action, and “natural selection” the agency which
restrains it within the bounds of physiological propriety.
We may compare the production of a new species to the production of a
statue. We have (1) the marble material responding to the matter of the
organism; (2) the intelligent active force of the sculptor, directing
his arm, responding to the psychic nature of the organism, which
reacts according to law as surely as in the case of reflex action in
healing, or in any other vital action; (3) the various conceptions of
the artist, which stimulate him to model, responding to the environing
agencies which evoke variation; and (4) the blows of the smiting
chisel, corresponding to the action of natural selection. No one would
call the mere blows of the chisel—apart from both the active force of
the artist and the ideal conceptions which direct that force—_the_
cause of the production of the statue. They are _a_ cause—they help
to produce it and are absolutely necessary for its production. They
are a _material_ cause, but not the _primary_ cause. This distinction
runs through all spheres of activity. Thus the inadequacy of “natural
selection” to explain the origin of species runs parallel with its
inadequacy to explain the origin of instinct, as before pointed out.
The _formal_ discoverer of a new fossil is the naturalist who first
sees it with an instructed eye, appreciates and describes it, not the
laborer who accidentally uncovers but ignores it, and who cannot be
accounted to be, any more than the spade he handles, other than a mere
_material_ cause of its discovery. So we must regard the sum of the
destructive agencies of nature, as a material cause of the origin of
new species, their formal cause being the reaction of the nature of
their parent organisms upon the sum of the multitudinous influences
of their environment. This kind of action of “the organism”—this
formal cause—has been compared by Mr. Alfred Wallace, and by me, with
the action of the organism in its embryonic development; and this, I
have further urged, is to be likened to the processes of repair and
reproduction of parts of the individual after injury, and this, again,
to reflex action, and, finally, this last to instinct as manifested in
ourselves and in other animals also.
The phenomena, then, exhibited in the various processes which have been
passed in review—nutrition, growth, repair, reflex action, instinct,
the evolution of the individual and of the species—will, I think,
abundantly serve to convince him who carefully considers them, that a
mechanical conception of nature is inadequate and untenable. For it
cannot be denied that in all these various natural processes, performed
by creatures devoid of self-conscious intellect, there is somehow and
somewhere a latent rationality, by the imminent existence of which
their various admirably calculated activities are alone explicable.
We are compelled to admit that the merely animal and vegetable worlds
which we regard as irrational, possess a certain rationality. This
innate mysterious rationality blindly executes the most elaborately
contrived actions in order to effect necessary or useful ends not
consciously in view. We have here to consider the question, “How is
this blind rationality, this practical but unconscious intelligence,
explicable?”
Edward Von Hartmann, the eloquent prophet of the unconscious
intelligence of nature, teaches us that such intelligence is the
attribute of the very animals and plants themselves.
But can we limit the manifestations of intelligence and
quasi-instinctive purpose to the organic world? By no means. The
phenomena of crystallisation, the repair in due form of the broken
angle of a crystal, the inherent tendencies of chemical substances to
combine in definite proportions, and other laws of the inorganic world,
speak to us of unconscious intelligence and volition latent in it also.
A perception of this truth has led to the conception of the universal
presence of true intelligence, as it were in a rudimentary form,
throughout the whole material universe—the universal diffusion of what
the late Professor Clifford called “mind-stuff” in every particle of
matter.
Such a belief can, however, be entertained only by those who neglect
to note the differences of objects presented to the senses, attending
solely to their resemblances, and describing them by inadequate and
misleading terms. The habit of perverting language in this manner,
has been lately well spoken of as using intellectual false coin. By
such an abuse of language and disregard of points of unlikeness, all
diversities may easily be reduced to identity. Against such abuse the
scientific biologist must energetically protest. The expression “life”
refers to definite phenomena which are not found but in animals and
plants. The crystal is not really alive, because it does not undergo
the cycle of changes characteristic of life. It does not sustain itself
by alimentation, reproduce its kind, and die. Anyone choosing to
stretch terms may say that molecules of inorganic matter live, because
molecules exist. But in that case we shall have to create a new term to
denote what we now call life. We might as well say a lamp-post “feels”
because we can make an impression on it, or that crystals “calculate”
because of their geometrical proportions, or that oxygen “lusts” after
that which it rusts. As the late Mr. G. H. Lewes has said: “We deny
that a crystal has sensibility; we deny it on the ground that crystals
exhibit no more signs of sensibility than plants exhibit signs of
civilisation, and we deny it on the ground that among the conditions
of sensibility there are some positively known to us, and these are
demonstrably absent from the crystal. We have full evidence that it
is only special kinds of molecular change that exhibit the special
signs called sentient; we have as good evidence that only special
aggregations of molecules are vital, and that sensibility never appears
except in a living organism, disappearing with the vital activities,
as we know that banks and trades-unions are specifically human
institutions.”
The considerations which are here applied to vital activity, may be
paralleled by others applied to intelligence. They will show us that
however profoundly rational may be that world which is commonly spoken
of as irrational, yet that its rationality is not truly the attribute
of the various animals which perform such admirably calculated actions,
but truly belongs to what is the ultimate and common cause of them all,
and to that only.
There is, indeed, a logic in mere “feeling,” there is a logic even in
insentient nature; but that logic is not the logic of the crystal nor
of the brute; its true position must be sought elsewhere. It is _in_
them, but it is not _of_ them.
However, let us patiently consider a little this hypothesis of an
innate, _unconscious_ intelligence as the cause of the various
strictly, or analogically, instinctive actions of animals.
It is in the first place plain that no intelligence could exist so as
to adjust “means” to “ends,” except by the aid of memory; and “memory”
has therefore been freely attributed even to the lower animals. Let us
see, then, what the term “memory” really denotes. Now we cannot be said
to _remember_ anything unless we are conscious that what is again made
present to our mind has been present to our mind before. An image might
recur to our imagination a hundred times, but if at each recurrence
it was for us something altogether new and unconnected with the past,
we could not be said to remember it. It would rather be an example of
extreme “forgetfulness” than of “memory.” In “memory,” then, there are
and must be two distinct elements. The first is the reproduction before
the mind of what has been before the mind previously, and the second
element is the recognition of what is so reproduced as being connected
with the past.
There is yet a further distinction which may be drawn between acts of
true recollection.
We are all aware that every now and then we direct our attention to try
and recall something which we know we have for the moment forgotten,
and which we instantly recognise when we have recalled it. But besides
this voluntary memory we are sometimes startled by the flashing into
consciousness of something we had forgotten, and which we were so far
from trying to recollect that we were thinking of something entirely
different.
There are, then, two kinds of true memory—one in which the will
intervenes, and which may be spoken of as _recollection_, and the other
in which it does not, and which may be termed _reminiscence_. Neither
of these can exist in a creature destitute of true self-consciousness.
There are, however, two other kinds of repeated action which take place
even in ourselves, and which should be carefully distinguished.
The first of these are practically automatic actions, which are
repeated unconsciously after having been learned, as in walking,
reading, speaking, and often in playing some musical instrument. In
a certain vague and improper sense we may be said—having learned how
to do these things—to _recollect_ how to do them; but unless the mind
recognises the past in the present while performing them they are not
instances of memory, but merely a form of habit in which consciousness
may or may not intervene.
The second class of repeated actions just referred to are, on the other
hand, those in which consciousness cannot be made to intervene, and are
mere acts of organic habit. Thus a man wrecked on an island inhabited
by savages, and long dwelling there, may at first have the due action
of his digestive organs impeded by the unwonted food on which he may
have to live. After a little while, however, the evil diminishes, and
in time his organism may have “learnt” how to correspond perfectly with
the new conditions. Then with each fresh meal the alimentary canal
and glands must practically “recognise” a return of the recently
obtained experience, and repeat its freshly acquired power of healthy
response thereto. Can “memory” be properly predicated of such actions
of the alimentary glands? It can be so predicated only by a perversion
of language. It is not memory, because not only is it divorced from
consciousness as it occurs, but it cannot anyhow be made present to
consciousness. Again, a boy at school has had a kick at football,
which has left a deep scar on his leg. That boy, now become an old
man, still bears the same scar, though all his tissues have been again
and again transformed in the course of seventy years. Can the constant
reproduction of the mark, in any reasonable sense, be said to be an
act of, or due to, memory? Evidently it cannot, and neither can it be
reasonably predicated of any of the actions of plants or of the lowest
animals.
As, then, “memory” cannot be predicated, except by an abuse of
language, of the lower forms of life, it would appear that neither
intelligence nor rationality can truly exist in them, so as to preside
over all those actions of nutrition, repair, reproduction, and instinct
which we have examined and distinguished.
Nevertheless, Hartmann and his followers do not on this account
hesitate to ascribe true intelligence to unconscious nature, and though
such ascription may seem too absurd to deserve serious consideration,
it would nevertheless be a great mistake to despise such opinions. For,
as Mr. Lewes truly says,[34] “As there are many truths which cease to
be appreciated because they are never disputed,” so there are many
errors which are best exposed by allowing them to run to a head. Mr.
Butler, who carries this hypothesis of unconscious intelligence to its
last consequences, asks,[35] “What is to know how to do a thing?” His
answer is, “Surely, to do it.” And he represents how, when many things
have been perfectly learnt, they may be performed unconsciously. In a
very amusing chapter on “Conscious and unconscious knowers,” he says,
“Whenever we find people knowing they know this or that ... they do not
yet know it perfectly.” In another place he says,[36] “We say of the
chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched ...
but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? It grew eyes, feathers,
and bones; yet we say it knew nothing about all this.... What, then,
does it know? Whatever it knows so well as to be unconscious of knowing
it. Knowledge dwells on the confines of uncertainty. When we are very
certain we do not know that we know. When we will very strongly, we do
not know that we will.”
[34] _Problems of Life and Mind_, ii. iii. iv. of Third Series, p. 85.
[35] _Life and Habit_, p. 55.
[36] _Unconscious Memory_, p. 30.
Now the fact is that there is great ambiguity in the use of the word
_know_. Just as before with the term memory, so also here, certain
distinctions must be drawn if we would think coherently.
A. To “know,” in the highest sense which we give to the word, is to be
aware (by a reflex act) that we really have a certain given perception.
It is a voluntary, intelligent, self-conscious act, parallel to that
kind of memory which we before distinguished as “recollection.”
B. We also say we “know” when we do not use a reflex act, but yet have
a true perception—a perception accompanied by consciousness—as when we
teach, and in most of our ordinary intellectual acts.
C. When we so “know” a thing that it can be done with perfect
unconsciousness, we cannot be said to “know” it intellectually,
although in doing that thing our nervous and motor mechanism acts (in
response to sensational stimuli) as perfectly as, or more perfectly
than, in our conscious activity. The “knowledge” which accompanies
such “unconscious action” is improperly so called, except in so far as
we may be able to direct our minds to its perception, and so render
it worthy of the name—as we have seen we may direct attention to our
unconscious reminiscences, and so make them conscious ones. In the same
way then in which we have already distinguished such acts of memory
(while unconscious) as sensuous memory, so we may distinguish such acts
of apprehension (while unconscious) as _sensuous cognition_. By it we
can understand, to a certain extent, what may be the “knowledge” or
“sensuous cognition” of mere animals.
D. Besides the above three kinds of apprehensions, we may distinguish
others which can be only very remotely, if at all, compared with
knowledge, since they can never, by any effort, be brought within the
sphere of consciousness. Such are the actions of our organism by which
it responds to impressions in an orderly and appropriate but unfelt
manner—the intimate actions of our visceral organs, which can be
modified, within limits, according to the influence brought to bear on
them, as we may see in the oarsman’s hand, the blacksmith’s arm, and
the ballet-dancer’s leg.
If such actions could be spoken of as in any sense apprehensive,
they would have to be spoken of as “organic cognitions,” but they
may be best distinguished as “_organic response_” or “_organic
correspondence_.”
That the inorganic world, no less than the organic, is instinct with
reason, and that we find in it objective conditions which correspond
with our subjective conceptions, is perfectly true; but when once
the profound difference between mere organic habit and intellectual
memory is apprehended, there will be little difficulty in recognising
the yet greater difference between “organic correspondence” and the
faithfulness of inorganic matter to the laws of its being.
That the _absence_ of consciousness in actions which are perfectly
performed, does not make such actions into acts of “perfect knowledge,”
is demonstrated by every calculating machine. No sane person can say
that such a machine “possesses” knowledge, though it is true that it
“exhibits” it. Similarly we must refuse to apply the terms “memory” and
“intelligence” to the merely organic activity of animals and plants.
The assertion that in the vegetal and lowest animal forms of life
there is an innate but unconscious intelligence, is an assertion which
contains an inherent contradiction, and is therefore fundamentally
irrational. Anyone who says that blind actions (in which no end is
perceived or intended) are truly intelligent ones, abuses language.
The meaning of words is due to convention, and anyone who calls such
actions truly intelligent, divides himself from the rest of mankind by
refusing to speak their language.
What experience have we which can justify such a conception as that
of “unconscious intelligence?” We are indeed aware of a multitude of
actions which are evidently the outcome of intelligence, but which
(like the analogous action of a calculating machine) are performed by
creatures really unconscious, though they may possess consentience.
But consciousness is the accompaniment of all those actions which we
_know_ to be intellectual and rational. Our experience then contradicts
the hypothesis of the existence of any such thing as “unconscious
intelligence.” Such a thing is indeed no true concept, for it is
incapable not only of being imagined but also of being really conceived
of. It resembles such unmeaning expressions as “a square pentagon” or a
“pitch-dark luminosity.”
Nevertheless, our experience is _in favor_ of the existence of an
intelligence which can implant in and elicit from unconscious bodies
activities which are intelligent in appearance and result. Thus we
can construct calculating machines and train animals to perform many
actions which have a delusive semblance of rationality.
“Truly intelligent action” we know as being intelligent and rational
in its _foresight_, and therefore as necessarily conscious in the very
principle of its being.
“Unconsciously intelligent action,” improperly called “intelligent” or
“wise,” is that which is intelligent and wise only as to its results,
and not in the innermost principle of the creatures (whether living
or mere machines) which perform such action. To speak technically, we
have “formal” and “material” intelligence, as we have “formal” and
“material” vice and virtue.[37] We have already distinguished between
the “formal” and the merely “material” discoverer of a new fossil, and
this distinction is one which it is most important to bear in mind.
It is the failure to apprehend this distinction which is the root of
a vast number of modern philosophical errors, and the error which
consists in asserting the reality of “unconscious intelligence” is one
of them.
[37] Thus a man wishing to aid another, but who by miscalculation
causes his death, does an action which is “materially” homicidal,
though “formally” his action is a virtuous one. Similarly a man may be
“materially” a bigamist but not “formally,” as when he has married a
second wife being honestly convinced that his first wife was dead.
In fact “intelligence” exists very truly, in a certain sense, in the
admirably directed actions blindly performed by living beings. It is
not, however, “formally” in them, but exists formally in their ultimate
cause. Nevertheless that intelligence is so implanted within them that
it truly exists in them “materially” though it is not “formally” in
them.
We have here, then, the answer to the question, “What is the
rationality of the irrational?” It is a rationality which is very
really, though not materially, present in the irrational world, while
it is formally present in that world’s cause and origin.
To every Theist this answer will be a satisfactory one. To him who
is not a Theist there is no really satisfactory answer possible.
This is a question not of theology but of pure reason antecedent to
all theology. To reason, and to reason only, I appeal when I affirm
that the existence of a constant, pervading, sustaining, directing,
and all-controlling but unfathomable Intelligence which is not the
intelligence of irrational creatures themselves, is the supreme truth
which nature eloquently proclaims to him who with unprejudiced reason
and loving sympathy will carefully consider her ways. He can hardly
fail to discover, immanent in the material universe, “an action the
results of which harmonize with man’s reason; an action which is
orderly, and disaccords with blind chance, or ‘a fortuitous concurrence
of atoms,’ but which ever eludes his grasp, and which acts in modes
different from those by which we should attempt to accomplish similar
ends.”[38] For myself, I am bound humbly to confess that the more
I study nature the more I am convinced that in the action of this
all-pervading but inscrutable and unimaginable intelligence, of which
self-conscious human rationality is the utterly inadequate image,
though the image attainable by us, is to be sought the sole possible
explanation of the mysterious but undeniable presence in nature of a
rationality in that which is in itself irrational.—_Fortnightly Review._
[38] _Lessons from Nature_, ch. xii. p. 374. John Murray, 1876.