TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—Superscripts have been rendered as a^b or a^{bc}.
—Subscripts have been rendered as a_{b}.
—Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=.
MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
_Crown 8vo. 5s._
=JELLY-FISH, STAR-FISH, AND SEA-URCHINS.=
Being a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems.
[_International Scientific Series._
_Crown 8vo. 5s._
=ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.=
Fourth Edition.
[_International Scientific Series._
_Demy 8vo. 12s._
=MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS.=
Second Thousand.
With a Posthumous Essay on Instinct by CHARLES DARWIN, F.R.S.
LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO.
[Illustration]
MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN
_ORIGIN OF HUMAN FACULTY_
BY
GEORGE JOHN ROMANES, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
[Illustration: LOGO]
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1888
(_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved._)
PREFACE.
In now carrying my study of mental evolution into the province of human
psychology, it is desirable that I should say a few words to indicate
the scope and intention of this the major portion of my work. For it is
evident that “Mental Evolution in Man” is a subject comprehending so
enormous a field that, unless some lines of limitation are drawn within
which its discussion is to be confined, no one writer could presume to
deal with it.
The lines, then, which I have laid down for my own guidance are these.
My object is to seek for the principles and causes of mental evolution
in man, first as regards the origin of human faculty, and next as
regards the several main branches into which faculties distinctively
human afterwards ramified and developed. In order as far as possible
to gain this object, it has appeared to me desirable to take large
or general views, both of the main trunk itself, and also of its
sundry branches. Therefore I have throughout avoided the temptation
of following any of the branches into their smaller ramifications, or
of going into the details of progressive development. These, I have
felt, are matters to be dealt with by others who are severally better
qualified for the task, whether their special studies have reference to
language, archæology, technicology, science, literature, art, politics,
morals, or religion. But, in so far as I shall subsequently have to
deal with these subjects, I will do so with the purpose of arriving
at general principles bearing upon mental evolution, rather than with
that of collecting facts or opinions for the sake of their intrinsic
interest from a purely historical point of view.
Finding that the labour required for the investigation, even as thus
limited, is much greater than I originally anticipated, it appears
to me undesirable to delay publication until the whole shall have
been completed. I have therefore decided to publish the treatise in
successive instalments, of which the present constitutes the first. As
indicated by the title, it is concerned exclusively with the Origin
of Human Faculty. Future instalments will deal with the Intellect,
Emotions, Volition, Morals, and Religion. It will, however, be several
years before I shall be in a position to publish these succeeding
instalments, notwithstanding that some of them are already far advanced.
Touching the present instalment, it is only needful to remark that from
a controversial point of view it is, perhaps, the most important. If
once the genesis of conceptual thought from non-conceptual antecedents
be rendered apparent, the great majority of competent readers at
the present time would be prepared to allow that the psychological
barrier between the brute and the man is shown to have been overcome.
Consequently, I have allotted what might otherwise appear to be a
disproportionate amount of space to my consideration of this the
_origin_ of human faculty—disproportionate, I mean, as compared
with what has afterwards to be said touching the _development_ of
human faculty in its several branches already named. Moreover, in the
present treatise I shall be concerned chiefly with the psychology of
my subject—reserving for my next instalment a full consideration of
the light which has been shed on the mental and social condition of
early man by the study of his own remains on the one hand, and of
existing savages on the other. Even as thus restricted, however, the
subject-matter of the present treatise will be found more extensive
than most persons would have been prepared to expect. For it does not
appear to me that this subject-matter has hitherto received at the
hands of psychologists any approach to the amount of analysis of
which it is susceptible, and to which—in view of the general theory
of evolution—it is unquestionably entitled. But I have everywhere
endeavoured to avoid undue prolixity, trusting that the intelligence
of any one who is likely to read the book will be able to appreciate
the significance of important points, without the need of expatiation
on the part of the writer. The only places, therefore, where I feel
that I may be fairly open to the charge of unnecessary reiteration, are
those in which I am endeavouring to render fully intelligible the newer
features of my analysis. But even here I do not anticipate that readers
of any class will complain of the efforts which are thus made to assist
their understanding of a somewhat complicated matter.
As no one has previously gone into this matter, I have found myself
obliged to coin a certain number of new terms, for the purpose at
once of avoiding continuous circumlocution, and of rendering aid to
the analytic inquiry. For my own part I regret this necessity, and
therefore have not resorted to it save where I have found the force of
circumstances imperative. In the result, I do not think that adverse
criticism is likely to fasten upon any of these new terms as needless
for the purposes of my inquiry. Every worker is free to choose his own
instruments; and when none are ready-made to suit his requirements, he
has no alternative but to fashion those which may.
To any one who already accepts the general theory of evolution as
applied to the human mind, it may well appear that the present
instalment of my work is needlessly elaborate. Now, I can quite
sympathize with any evolutionist who may thus feel that I have brought
steam-engines to break butterflies; but I must ask such a man to
remember two things. First, that plain and obvious as the truth may
seem to him, it is nevertheless a truth that is very far from having
received general recognition, even among more intelligent members of
the community: seeing, therefore, of how much importance it is to
establish this truth as an integral part of the doctrine of descent,
I cannot think that either time or energy is wasted in a serious
endeavour to do so, even though to minds already persuaded it may
seem unnecessary to have slain our opponents in a manner quite so
mercilessly minute. Secondly, I must ask these friendly critics to take
note that, although the discussion has everywhere been thrown into the
form of an answer to objections, it really has a much wider scope: it
aims not only at an overthrow of adversaries, but also, and even more,
at an exposition of the principles which have probably been concerned
in the “Origin of Human Faculty.”
The Diagram which is reproduced from my previous work on “Mental
Evolution in Animals,” and which serves to represent the leading
features of psychogenesis throughout the animal kingdom, will reappear
also in succeeding instalments of the work, when it will be continued
so as to represent the principal stages of “Mental Evolution in Man.”
18, CORNWALL TERRACE, REGENT’S PARK,
_July, 1888_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MAN AND BRUTE 1
II. IDEAS 20
III. LOGIC OF RECEPTS 40
IV. LOGIC OF CONCEPTS 70
V. LANGUAGE 85
VI. TONE AND GESTURE 104
VII. ARTICULATION 121
VIII. RELATION OF TONE AND GESTURE TO WORDS 145
IX. SPEECH 163
X. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 194
XI. THE TRANSITION IN THE INDIVIDUAL 213
XII. COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 238
XIII. ROOTS OF LANGUAGE 264
XIV. THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY 294
XV. THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY—_continued_ 326
XVI. THE TRANSITION IN THE RACE 360
XVII. GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 390
MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN.
CHAPTER I.
MAN AND BRUTE.
Taking up the problems of psychogenesis where these were left in my
previous work, I have in the present treatise to consider the whole
scope of mental evolution in man. Clearly the topic thus presented
is so large, that in one or other of its branches it might be taken
to include the whole history of our species, together with our
pre-historic development from lower forms of life, as already indicated
in the Preface. However, it is not my intention to write a history
of civilization, still less to develop any elaborate hypothesis of
anthropogeny. My object is merely to carry into an investigation of
human psychology a continuation of the principles which I have already
applied to the attempted elucidation of animal psychology. I desire to
show that in the one province, as in the other, the light which has
been shed by the doctrine of evolution is of a magnitude which we are
now only beginning to appreciate; and that by adopting the theory of
continuous development from the one order of mind to the other, we are
able scientifically to explain the whole mental constitution of man,
even in those parts of it which, to former generations, have appeared
inexplicable.
In order to accomplish this purpose, it is not needful that I should
seek to enter upon matters of detail in the application of those
principles to the facts of history. On the contrary, I think that
any such endeavour—even were I qualified to make it—would tend only
to obscure my exposition of those principles themselves. It is enough
that I should trace the operation of such principles, as it were, in
outline, and leave to the professed historian the task of applying them
in special cases.
The present work being thus a treatise on human psychology in relation
of the theory of descent, the first question which it must seek to
attack is clearly that as to the evidence of the mind of man having
been derived from mind as we meet with it in the lower animals. And
here, I think, it is not too much to say that we approach a problem
which is not merely the most interesting of those that have fallen
within the scope of my own works; but perhaps the most interesting
that has ever been submitted to the contemplation of our race. If it
is true that “the proper study of mankind is man,” assuredly the study
of nature has never before reached a territory of thought so important
in all its aspects as that which in our own generation it is for the
first time approaching. After centuries of intellectual conquest in
all regions of the phenomenal universe, man has at last begun to
find that he may apply in a new and most unexpected manner the adage
of antiquity—_Know thyself_. For he has begun to perceive a strong
probability, if not an actual certainty, that his own living nature is
identical in kind with the nature of all other life, and that even the
most amazing side of this his own nature—nay, the most amazing of all
things within the reach of his knowledge—the human mind itself, is but
the topmost inflorescence of one mighty growth, whose roots and stem
and many branches are sunk in the abyss of planetary time. Therefore,
with Professor Huxley we may say:—“The importance of such an inquiry
is indeed intuitively manifest. Brought face to face with these blurred
copies of himself, the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a
certain shock, due perhaps not so much to disgust at the aspect of
what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the awaking of a sudden
and profound mistrust of time-honoured theories and strongly rooted
prejudices regarding his own position in nature, and his relations
to the wider world of life; while that which remains a dim suspicion
for the unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught with the deepest
consequences, for all who are acquainted with the recent progress of
anatomical and physiological sciences.”[1]
The problem, then, which in this generation has for the first time been
presented to human thought, is the problem of how this thought itself
has come to be. A question of the deepest importance to every system
of philosophy has been raised by the study of biology; and it is the
question whether the mind of man is essentially the same as the mind of
the lower animals, or, having had, either wholly or in part, some other
mode of origin, is essentially distinct—differing not only in degree
but in kind from all other types of psychical being. And forasmuch as
upon this great and deeply interesting question opinions are still much
divided—even among those most eminent in the walks of science who
agree in accepting the principles of evolution as applied to explain
the mental constitution of the lower animals,—it is evident that the
question is neither a superficial nor an easy one. I shall, however,
endeavour to examine it with as little obscurity as possible, and also,
I need hardly say, with all the impartiality of which I am capable,[2]
It will be remembered that in the introductory chapter of my previous
work I have already briefly sketched the manner in which I propose to
treat this question. Here, therefore, it is sufficient to remark that
I began by assuming the truth of the general theory of descent so far
as the animal kingdom is concerned, both with respect to bodily and to
mental organization; but in doing this I expressly excluded the mental
organization of man, as being a department of comparative psychology
with reference to which I did not feel entitled to assume the
principles of evolution. The reason why I made this special exception,
I sufficiently explained; and I shall therefore now proceed, without
further introduction, to a full consideration of the problem that is
before us.
* * * * *
First, let us consider the question on purely _a priori_ grounds. In
accordance with our original hypothesis—upon which all naturalists of
any standing are nowadays agreed—the process of organic and of mental
evolution has been continuous throughout the whole region of life and
of mind, with the one exception of the mind of man. On grounds of
analogy, therefore, we should deem it antecedently improbable that the
process of evolution, elsewhere so uniform and ubiquitous, should have
been interrupted at its terminal phase. And looking to the very large
extent of this analogy, the antecedent presumption which it raises is
so considerable, that in my opinion it could only be counterbalanced by
some very cogent and unmistakable facts, showing a difference between
animal and human psychology so distinctive as to render it in the
nature of the case virtually impossible that the one could ever have
graduated into the other. This I posit as the first consideration.
Next, still restricting ourselves to an _a priori_ view, it is
unquestionable that human psychology, in the case of every individual
human being, presents to actual observation a process of gradual
development, or evolution, extending from infancy to manhood; and that
in this process, which begins at a zero level of mental life and may
culminate in genius, there is nowhere and never observable a sudden
leap of progress, such as the passage from one order of psychical
being to another might reasonably be expected to show. Therefore, it
is a matter of observable fact that, whether or not human intelligence
differs from animal in kind, it certainly does admit of gradual
development from a zero level. This I posit as the second consideration.
Again, so long as it is passing through the lower phases of its
development, the human mind assuredly ascends through a scale of
mental faculties which are parallel with those that are permanently
presented by the psychological species of the animal kingdom. A glance
at the Diagram which I have placed at the beginning of my previous
work will serve to show in how strikingly quantitative, as well as
qualitative, a manner the development of an individual human mind
follows the order of mental evolution in the animal kingdom. And when
we remember that, at all events up to the level where this parallel
ends, the diagram in question is not an expression of any psychological
theory, but of well-observed and undeniable psychological fact, I think
every reasonable man must allow that, whatever the explanation of
this remarkable coincidence may be, it certainly must admit of _some_
explanation—_i.e._ cannot be ascribed to mere chance. But, if so, the
only explanation available is that which is furnished by the theory of
descent. These facts, which I present as a third consideration, tend
still further—and, I think, most strongly—to increase the force of
antecedent presumption against any hypothesis which supposes that the
process of evolution can have been discontinuous in the region of mind.
Lastly, it is likewise a matter of observation, as I shall fully
show in the next instalment of this work, that in the history of our
race—as recorded in documents, traditions, antiquarian remains, and
flint implements—the intelligence of the race has been subject to a
steady process of gradual development. The force of this consideration
lies in its proving, that if the process of mental evolution was
suspended between the anthropoid apes and primitive man, it was again
resumed with primitive man, and has since continued as uninterruptedly
in the human species as it previously did in the animal species.
Now, upon the face of these facts, or from a merely antecedent point
of view, such appears to me, to say the least, a highly improbable
supposition. At all events, it certainly is not the kind of supposition
which men of science are disposed to regard with favour elsewhere; for
a long and arduous experience has taught us that the most paying kind
of supposition which we can bring with us into our study of nature, is
that which recognizes in nature the principle of _continuity_.
Taking, then, these several _a priori_ considerations together, they
must, in my opinion, be fairly held to make out a very strong _primâ
facie_ case in favour of the view that there has been no interruption
of the developmental process in the course of psychological history;
but that the mind of man, like the mind of animals—and, indeed, like
everything else in the domain of living nature—has been evolved. For
these considerations show, not only that on analogical grounds any such
interruption must be held as in itself improbable; but also that there
is nothing in the constitution of the human mind incompatible with the
supposition of its having been slowly evolved, seeing that not only in
the case of every individual life, but also during the whole history
of our species, the human mind actually _does_ undergo, and _has_
undergone, the process in question.
In order to overturn so immense a presumption as is thus erected on
_a priori_ grounds, the psychologist must fairly be called upon to
supply some very powerful considerations of an _a posteriori_ kind,
tending to show that there is something in the constitution of the
human mind which renders it virtually impossible—or at all events
exceedingly difficult to imagine—that it can have proceeded by way of
genetic descent from mind of lower orders. I shall therefore proceed to
consider, as carefully and as impartially as I can, the arguments which
have been adduced in support of this thesis.
* * * * *
In the introductory chapter of my previous work I observed, that the
question whether or not human intelligence has been evolved from animal
intelligence can only be dealt with scientifically by comparing the one
with the other, in order to ascertain the points wherein they agree
and the points wherein they differ. I shall, therefore, here begin
by briefly stating the points of agreement, and then proceed more
carefully to consider all the more important views which have hitherto
been propounded concerning the points of difference.
If we have regard to Emotions as these occur in the brute, we cannot
fail to be struck by the broad fact that the area of psychology which
they cover is so nearly co-extensive with that which is covered by the
emotional faculties of man. In my previous works I have given what I
consider unquestionable evidence of all the following emotions, which
I here name in the order of their appearance through the psychological
scale,—fear, surprise, affection, pugnacity, curiosity, jealousy,
anger, play, sympathy, emulation, pride, resentment, emotion of the
beautiful, grief, hate, cruelty, benevolence, revenge, rage, shame,
regret, deceitfulness, emotion of the ludicrous.[3]
Now, this list exhausts all the human emotions, with the exception
of those which refer to religion, moral sense, and perception of the
sublime. Therefore I think we are fully entitled to conclude that, so
far as emotions are concerned, it cannot be said that the facts of
animal psychology raise any difficulties against the theory of descent.
On the contrary, the emotional life of animals is so strikingly similar
to the emotional life of man—and especially of young children—that I
think the similarity ought fairly to be taken as direct evidence of a
genetic continuity between them.
And so it is with regard to Instinct. Understanding this term in
the sense previously defined,[4] it is unquestionably true that in
man—especially during the periods of infancy and youth—sundry
well-marked instincts are presented, which have reference chiefly to
nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, and the rearing of progeny.
No one has ventured to dispute that all these instincts are identical
with those which we observe in the lower animals; nor, on the other
hand, has any one ventured to suggest that there is any instinct which
can be said to be peculiar to man, unless the moral and religious
sentiments are taken to be of the nature of instincts. And although it
is true that instinct plays a larger part in the psychology of many
animals than it does in the psychology of man, this fact is plainly of
no importance in the present connection, where we are concerned only
with identity of principle. If any one were childish enough to argue
that the mind of a man differs in kind from that of a brute because
it does not display any particular instinct—such, for example, as
the spinning of webs, the building of nests, or the incubation of
eggs,—the answer of course would be that, by parity of reasoning, the
mind of a spider must be held to differ in kind from that of a bird. So
far, then, as instincts and emotions are concerned, the parallel before
us is much too close to admit of any argument on the opposite side.
With regard to Volition more will be said in a future instalment of
this work. Here, therefore, it is enough to say, in general terms,
that no one has seriously questioned the identity of kind between the
animal and the human will, up to the point at which so-called freedom
is supposed by some dissentients to supervene and characterize the
latter. Now, of course, if the human will differs from the animal will
in any important feature or attribute such as this, the fact must be
duly taken into account during the course of our subsequent analysis.
At present, however, we are only engaged upon a preliminary sketch of
the points of resemblance between animal and human psychology. So far,
therefore, as we are now concerned with the will, we have only to note
that up to the point where the volitions of a man begin to surpass
those of a brute in respect of complexity, refinement, and foresight,
no one disputes identity of kind.
Lastly, the same remark applies to the faculties of Intellect.[5]
Enormous as the difference undoubtedly is between these faculties
in the two cases, the difference is conceded not to be one of kind
_ab initio_. On the contrary, it is conceded that up to a certain
point—namely, as far as the highest degree of intelligence to which
an animal attains—there is not merely a similarity of kind, but an
identity of correspondence. In other words, the parallel between
animal and human intelligence which is presented in my Diagram, and to
which allusion has already been made, is not disputed. The question,
therefore, only arises with reference to those superadded faculties
which are represented above the level marked 28, where the upward
growth of animal intelligence ends, and the growth of distinctively
human intelligence begins. But even at level 28 the human mind is
already in possession of many of its most useful faculties, and these
it does not afterwards shed, but carries them upwards with it in the
course of its further development—as we well know by observing the
psychogenesis of every child. Now, it belongs to the very essence of
evolution, considered as a process, that when one order of existence
passes on to higher grades of excellence, it does so upon the
foundation already laid by the previous course of its progress; so that
when compared with any allied order of existence which has not been
carried so far in this upward course, a more or less close parallel
admits of being traced between the two, up to the point at which
the one begins to distance the other, where all further comparison
admittedly ends. Therefore, upon the face of them, the facts of
comparative psychology now before us are, to say the least, strongly
suggestive of the superadded powers of the human intellect having been
due to a process of evolution.
Lest it should be thought that in this preliminary sketch of
the resemblances between human and brute psychology I have been
endeavouring to draw the lines with a biased hand, I will here quote
a short passage to show that I have not misrepresented the extent
to which agreement prevails among adherents of otherwise opposite
opinions. And for this purpose I select as spokesman a distinguished
naturalist, who is also an able psychologist, and to whom, therefore,
I shall afterwards have occasion frequently to refer, as on both these
accounts the most competent as well as the most representative of my
opponents. In his Presidential Address before the Biological Section of
the British Association in 1879, Mr. Mivart is reported to have said:—
“I have no wish to ignore the marvellous powers of animals, or the
resemblance of their actions to those of man. No one can reasonably
deny that many of them have feelings, emotions, and sense-perceptions
similar to our own; that they exercise voluntary motion, and perform
actions grouped in complex ways for definite ends; that they to a
certain extent learn by experience, and combine perceptions and
reminiscences so as to draw practical inferences, directly apprehending
objects standing in different relations one to another, so that, in
a sense, they may be said to apprehend relations. They will show
hesitation, ending apparently, after a conflict of desires, with what
looks like choice or volition; and such animals as the dog will not
only exhibit the most marvellous fidelity and affection, but will
also manifest evident signs of shame, which may seem the outcome of
incipient moral perceptions. It is no great wonder, then, that so many
persons, little given to patient and careful introspection, should fail
to perceive any radical distinction between a nature thus gifted and
the intellectual nature of man.”
* * * * *
We may now turn to consider the points wherein human and brute
psychology have been by various writers alleged to differ.
The theory that brutes are non-sentient machines need not detain us,
as no one at the present day is likely to defend it.[6] Again, the
distinction between human and brute psychology that has always been
taken more or less for granted—namely, that the one is rational and
the other irrational—may likewise be passed over after what has been
said in the chapter on Reason in my previous work. For it is there
shown that if we use the term Reason in its true, as distinguished
from its traditional sense, there is no fact in animal psychosis more
patent than that this psychosis is capable in no small degree of
_ratiocination_. The source of the very prevalent doctrine that animals
have no germ of reason is, I think, to be found in the fact that reason
attains a much higher level of development in man than in animals,
while instinct attains a higher development in animals than in man:
popular phraseology, therefore, disregarding the points of similarity
while exaggerating the more conspicuous points of difference,
designates all the mental faculties of the animal instinctive, in
contradistinction to those of man, which are termed rational. But
unless we commit ourselves to an obvious reasoning in a circle, we must
avoid assuming that all actions of animals are instinctive, and then
arguing that, because they are instinctive, therefore they differ in
kind from those actions of man which are rational. The question really
lies in what is here assumed, and can only be answered by examining
in what essential respect instinct differs from reason. This I have
endeavoured to do in my previous work with as much precision as the
nature of the subject permits; and I think I have made it evident, in
the first place, that there is no such immense distinction between
instinct and reason as is generally assumed—the former often being
blended with the latter, and the latter as often becoming transmuted
into the former,—and, in the next place, that all the higher animals
manifest in various degrees the faculty of inferring. Now, _this is the
faculty of reason, properly so called_; and although it is true that in
no case does it attain in animal psychology to more than a rudimentary
phase of development as contrasted with its prodigious growth in man,
this is clearly quite another matter where the question before us is
one concerning difference of kind.[7]
Again, the theological distinction between men and animals may be
passed over, because it rests on a dogma with which the science of
psychology has no legitimate point of contact. Whether or not the
conscious part of man differs from the conscious part of animals in
being immortal, and whether or not the “spirit” of man differs from
the “soul” of animals in other particulars of kind, dogma itself would
maintain that science has no voice in either affirming or denying.
For, from the nature of the case, any information of a positive kind
relating to these matters can only be expected to come by way of a
Revelation; and, therefore, however widely dogma and science may differ
on other points, they are at least agreed upon this one—namely, if the
conscious life of man differs thus from the conscious life of brutes,
Christianity and Philosophy alike proclaim that only by a Gospel could
its endowment of immortality have been brought to light.[8]
Another distinction between the man and the brute which we often find
asserted is, that the latter shows no signs of mental progress in
successive generations. On this alleged distinction I may remark,
first of all, that it begs the whole question of mental evolution in
animals, and, therefore, is directly opposed to the whole body of facts
presented in my work upon this subject. In the next place, I may remark
that the alleged distinction comes with an ill grace from opponents of
evolution, seeing that it depends upon a recognition of the principles
of evolution in the history of mankind. But, leaving aside these
considerations, I meet the alleged distinction with a plain denial of
both the statements of fact on which it rests. That is to say, I deny
on the one hand that mental progress from generation to generation is
an invariable peculiarity of human intelligence; and, on the other
hand, I deny that such progress is never found to occur in the case of
animal intelligence.
Taking these two points separately, I hold it to be a statement
opposed to fact to say, or to imply, that all existing savages, when
not brought into contact with civilized man, undergo intellectual
development from generation to generation. On the contrary, one of the
most generally applicable statements we can make with reference to the
psychology of uncivilized man is that it shows, in a remarkable degree,
what we may term a _vis inertiæ_ as regards upward movement. Even
so highly developed a type of mind as that of the Negro—submitted,
too, as it has been in millions of individual cases to close contact
with minds of the most progressive type, and enjoying as it has in
many thousands of individual cases all the advantages of liberal
education—has never, so far as I can ascertain, executed one single
stroke of original work in any single department of intellectual
activity.
Again, if we look to the whole history of man upon this planet as
recorded by his remains, the feature which to my mind stands out
in most marked prominence is the almost incredible slowness of his
intellectual advance, during all the earlier millenniums of his
existence. Allowing full weight to the consideration that “the
Palæolithic age, referring as the phrase does to a stage of culture,
and not to any chronological period, is something which has come and
gone at very different dates in different parts of the world;”[9]
and that the same remark may be taken, in perhaps a smaller measure,
to apply to the Neolithic age; still, when we remember what enormous
lapses of time these ages may be roughly taken to represent, I think
it is a most remarkable fact that, during the many thousands of years
occupied by the former, the human mind should have practically made no
advance upon its primitive methods of chipping flints; or that during
the time occupied by the latter, this same mind should have been so
slow in arriving, for example, at even so simple an invention as that
of substituting horns for flints in the manufacture of weapons. In my
next volume, where I shall have to deal especially with the evidence
of intellectual evolution, I shall have to give many instances, all
tending to show its extraordinarily slow progress during these æons of
pre-historic time. Indeed, it was not until the great step had been
made of substituting metals for both stones and horns, that mental
evolution began to proceed at anything like a measurable rate. Yet
this was, as it were, but a matter of yesterday. So that, upon the
whole, if we have regard to the human species generally—whether over
the surface of the earth at the present time, or in the records of
geological history,—we can no longer maintain that a tendency to
improvement in successive generations is here a leading characteristic.
On the contrary, any improvement of so rapid and continuous a kind as
that which is really contemplated, is characteristic only of a small
division of the human race during the last few hours, as it were, of
its existence.
On the other hand, as I have said, it is not true that animal species
never display any traces of intellectual improvement from generation
to generation. Were this the case, as already remarked, mental
evolution could never have taken place in the brute creation, and
so the phenomena of mind would have been wholly restricted to man:
all animals would have required to present but a vegetative form of
life. But, apart from this general consideration, we meet with many
particular instances of mental improvement in successive generations of
animals, taking place even within the limited periods over which human
observations can extend. In my previous work numerous cases will be
found (especially in the chapters on the plasticity and blended origin
of instincts), showing that it is quite a usual thing for birds and
mammals to change even the most strongly inherited of their instinctive
habits, in order to improve the conditions of their life in relation
to some change which has taken place in their environments. And if it
should be said that in such a case “the animal still does not rise
above the level of birdhood or of beasthood,” the answer, of course,
is, that neither does a Shakespeare or a Newton rise above the level of
manhood.
On the whole, then, I cannot see that there is any valid distinction to
be drawn between human and brute psychology with respect to improvement
from generation to generation. Indeed, I should deem it almost more
philosophical in any opponent of the theory of evolution, who happened
to be acquainted with the facts bearing upon the subject, if he were to
adopt the converse position, and argue that for the purposes of this
theory there is _not a sufficient_ distinction between human and brute
psychology in this respect. For when we remember the great advance
which, according to the theory of evolution, the mind of palæolithic
man must already have made upon that of the higher apes, and when we
remember that all races of existing men have the immense advantage of
some form of language whereby to transmit to progeny the results of
individual experience,—when we remember these things, the difficulty
appears to me to lie on the side of explaining why, with such a start
and with such advantages, the human species, both when it first appears
upon the pages of geological history, and as it now appears in the
great majority of its constituent races, should so far resemble animal
species in the prolonged stagnation of its intellectual life.
I shall now pass on to consider the views of Mr. Wallace and Mr.
Mivart on the distinction between the mental endowments of man and of
brute. Both these authors are skilled naturalists, and also professed
evolutionists so far as the animal world is concerned: moreover, they
further agree in maintaining that the principles of evolution cannot
be held to apply to man. But it is curious that, so far as psychology
is concerned, they base their arguments in support of their common
conclusion on precisely opposite premisses. For while Mr. Mivart
argues that human intelligence cannot be the same in kind as animal
intelligence, because the mind of the lowest savage is incomparably
superior to that of the highest ape; Mr. Wallace argues for the same
conclusion on the ground that the intelligence of savages is so little
removed from that of the higher apes, that the fact of their brains
being proportionately larger must be held to point prospectively
towards the needs of civilized life. “A brain,” he says, “slightly
larger than that of the gorilla would, according to the evidence before
us, fully have sufficed for the limited mental development of the
savage; and we must therefore admit that the large brain he actually
possesses could never have been developed solely by any of the laws of
evolution.”[10]
Now, I have presented these two opinions side by side because I deem it
an interesting, if not a suggestive circumstance, that the two leading
dissenters in this country from the general school of evolutionists,
although both holding the doctrine that man ought to be separated
from the rest of the animal kingdom on psychological grounds, are
nevertheless led to their common doctrine by directly opposite reasons.
The eminent French naturalist, Professor Quatrefages, also adopts
the opinion that man should be separated from the rest of the animal
kingdom as a being who, on psychological grounds, must be held to
have had some different mode of origin. But he differs from both
the English evolutionists in drawing his distinction somewhat more
finely. For while Mivart and Wallace found their arguments upon the
mind of man considered as a whole, Quatrefages expressly limits his
ground to the faculties of conscience and religion. In other words, he
allows—nay insists—that no valid distinction between man and brute
can be drawn in respect of rationality or intellect. For instance, to
take only one passage from his writings, he remarks:—“In the name of
philosophy and psychology, I shall be accused of confounding certain
intellectual attributes of the human reason with the exclusively
sensitive faculties of animals. I shall presently endeavour to answer
this criticism from the standpoint which should never be quitted by
the naturalist, that, namely, of experiment and observation. I shall
here confine myself to saying that, in my opinion, the animal is
intelligent, and, although an (intellectually) rudimentary being, that
its intelligence is nevertheless of the same nature as that of man.”
Later on he says:—“Psychologists attribute religion and morality to
the reason, and make the latter an attribute of man (to the exclusion
of animals). But with the reason they connect the highest phenomena of
the intelligence. In my opinion, in so doing they confound, and refer
to a common origin, facts entirely different. Thus, since they are
unable to recognize either morality or religion in animals, which in
reality do not possess these two faculties, they are forced to refuse
them intelligence also, although the same animals, in my opinion, give
decisive proof of their possession of this faculty every moment.”[11]
Touching these views I have only two things to observe. In the first
place, they differ _toto cælo_ from those both of Mr. Wallace and Mr.
Mivart; and thus we now find that the _three_ principal authorities
who still stand out for a distinction of kind between man and brute
on grounds of psychology, far from being in agreement, are really in
fundamental opposition, seeing that they base their common conclusion
on premisses which are all mutually exclusive of one another. In the
next place, even if we were fully to agree with the opinion of the
French anthropologist, or hold that a distinction of kind has to be
drawn only at religion and morality, we should still be obliged to
allow—although this is a point which he does not himself appear
to have perceived—that the superiority of human intelligence is a
necessary _condition_ to both these attributes of the human mind. In
other words, whether or not Quatrefages is right in his view that
religion and morality betoken a difference of kind in the only animal
species which presents them, at least it is certain that neither of
these faculties could have occurred in that species, had it not also
been gifted with a greatly superior order of intelligence. For even the
most elementary forms of religion and morality depend upon ideas of a
much more abstract, or intellectual, nature than are to be met with
in any brute. Obviously, therefore, the first distinction that falls
to be considered is the intellectual distinction. If analysis should
show that the school represented by Quatrefages is right in regarding
this distinction as one of degree—and, therefore, that the school
represented by Mivart is wrong in regarding it as one of kind,—the
time will then have arrived to consider, in the same connection, these
special faculties of morality and religion. Such, therefore, is the
method that I intend to adopt. The whole of the present volume will
be devoted to a consideration of “the origin of human faculty” in
the larger sense of this term, or in accordance with the view that
distinctively human faculty begins with distinctively human ideation.
When this matter has been thoroughly discussed, the ground will have
been prepared for considering in subsequent volumes the more special
faculties of Morality and Religion.[12]