MENTAL EVOLUTION.
The phrase "mental evolution" clearly implies the existence of somewhat
concerning which evolution can be predicated; and the adjective "mental"
further implies that this somewhat is that which we term "mind." What is
this mind which is said to be evolved? And out of what has it been
evolved? Can we say that matter, when it reaches the complexity of the
grey cortex of the brain, becomes at last self-conscious? May we say
that mind is evolved from matter, and that when the dance of molecules
reaches a certain intensity and intricacy consciousness is developed? I
conceive not.
"If a material element," says Mr. A. R. Wallace,[JY] "or a combination
of a thousand material elements in a molecule, are alike unconscious, it
is impossible for us to believe that the mere addition of one, two, or a
thousand other material elements to form a more complex molecule could
in any way tend to produce a self-conscious existence. The things are
radically distinct. To say that mind is a product or function of
protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can
attach no clear conception. You cannot have in the whole what does not
exist in any of the parts; and those who argue thus should put forth a
definite conception of matter, with clearly enunciated properties, and
show that the necessary result of a certain complex arrangement of the
elements or atoms of that matter will be the production of
self-consciousness. There is no escape from this dilemma--either all
matter is conscious, or consciousness is something distinct from matter;
and in the latter case, its presence in material forms is a proof of the
existence of conscious beings, outside of and independent of what we
term 'matter.'"
There is a central core of truth in Mr. Wallace's argument which I hold
to be beyond question, though I completely dissent from the conclusion
which he draws from it. I do not believe that the existence of conscious
beings, outside of and independent of what we term "matter," is a
tenable scientific hypothesis. In which case, Mr. Wallace will reply,
"You are driven on to the other horn of the dilemma, and must hold the
preposterous view that all matter is conscious."
Now, I venture to think that the use here of the word "conscious" is
prejudicial to the fair consideration of the view which I hold in common
with many others of far greater insight than I can lay claim to. And it
seems to me that we cannot fairly discuss this question without the
introduction of terms which, from their novelty, are devoid of the
inevitable implications associated with "mind" and "consciousness" and
their correlative adjectives. Such terms, therefore, I venture to
suggest, not with a view to their general acceptance, but to enable me
to set forth, without arousing at the outset antagonistic prejudice,
that hypothesis which alone, as it seems to me, meets the conditions of
the case.
According to the hypothesis that is known as _the monistic hypothesis_,
the so-called connection between the molecular changes in the brain and
the concomitant states of consciousness is assumed to be identity.
Professor Huxley suggested the term "neuroses" for the molecular changes
in the brain, and "psychoses" for the concomitant states of
consciousness. According to materialism, psychosis is a product of
neurosis; but according to monism, neither is psychosis a product of
neurosis, nor is neurosis a product of psychosis, but _neurosis is
psychosis_. They are identical. What an external observer might perceive
as a neurosis of my brain, I should at the same moment be feeling as a
psychosis. The neurosis is the outer or objective aspect; the psychosis
is the inner or subjective aspect.
It is almost impossible to illustrate this assumption by any physical
analogies. Perhaps the best is that of a curved surface. The convex side
is quite different from the concave side. But we cannot say that the
concavity is produced by the convexity, or that the convexity is caused
by the concavity. The convex and the concave are simply different
aspects of the same curved surface. So, too, are molecular brain-changes
(neuroses) and the concomitant states of consciousness (psychoses)
simply different aspects of the same waves on the troubled sea of being.
Again, we may liken the brain-changes to spoken or written words, and
the states of consciousness to the meaning which underlies them. The
spoken word is, from the physical point of view, a mere shudder of sound
in the air; but it is also, from the conceptual point of view, a
fragment of analytic thought.
Now, we believe that the particular kind of molecular motion which we
call neurosis, or brain-action, has been evolved. Evolved from what?
From other and simpler modes of molecular motion. Complex neuroses have
been evolved from less complex neuroses; these from simple neuroses;
these, again, from organic modes of motion which can no longer be called
neuroses at all; and these, once more, from modes of motion which can no
longer be called organic. And from what have psychoses, or states of
consciousness, been evolved? Complex psychoses have been evolved from
less complex psychoses; these from simple psychoses; these, again,
from--what? We are stopped for want of words to express our meaning. We
believe that psychoses have been evolved. Evolved from what? From other
and simpler modes of--something which answers on the subjective side to
motion. We can hardly say "of consciousness;" for consciousness answers
to a _particular_ mode of motion called neurosis. So that unless we are
prepared to say that all modes of motion are neuroses, we can hardly say
that all modes of that which answers on the subjective side to motion
are conscious. I shall venture, therefore, to coin a word[JZ] to meet my
present need.
It is generally admitted that physical phenomena, including those which
we call physiological, can be explained (or are explicable) in terms of
energy. It is also generally admitted that consciousness is something
distinct from, nay, belonging to a wholly different phenomenal order
from, energy. And it is further generally admitted that consciousness is
nevertheless in some way closely, if not indissolubly, associated with
special manifestations of energy in the nerve-centres of the brain. Now,
we call manifestations of energy "kinetic" manifestations, and we use
the term "kinesis" for physical manifestations of this order. Similarly,
we may call concomitant manifestations of the mental or conscious order
"metakinetic," and may use the term "metakinesis" for all manifestations
belonging to this phenomenal order. According to the monistic
hypothesis, _every mode of kinesis has its concomitant mode of
metakinesis, and when the kinetic manifestations assume the form of the
molecular processes in the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations
assume the form of human consciousness_. I am, therefore, not prepared
to accept the horn of Mr. Wallace's dilemma in the form in which he
states it. All matter is not conscious, because consciousness is the
metakinetic concomitant of a highly specialized order of kinesis. But
every kinesis has an associated metakinesis; and _parallel to the
evolution of organic and neural kinesis there has been an evolution of
metakinetic manifestations culminating in conscious thought_.
Paraphrasing the words of Professor Max Müller,[KA] I say, "Like
Descartes, like Spinoza, like Leibnitz, like Noiré, I require two orders
of phenomena only, but I define them differently, namely, as kinesis and
metakinesis. According to these two attributes of the noumenal,
philosophy has to do with two streams of evolution--the subjective and
the objective. Neither of them can be said to be prior.... The two
streams of evolution run parallel, or, more correctly, the two are one
stream, looked at from two opposite shores." And again,[KB] "Like Noiré,
I would go hand-in-hand with Spinoza, and carry away with me this
permanent truth, that metakinesis can never be the product of kinesis
(materialism), nor kinesis the product of metakinesis (spiritualism),
but that the two are inseparable, like two sides of one and the same
substance."
According to this view, the two distinct phenomenal orders, the kinetic
and the metakinetic, are distinct only as being different phenomenal
manifestations of the same noumenal series. Matter, the unknown
substance[KC] of kinetic manifestations, disappears as unnecessary;
spirit, the unknown substance of metakinetic manifestations, also
disappears; both are merged in the unknown substance of being--unknown,
that is to say, in itself and apart from its objective and subjective
manifestations.
It will, no doubt, be objected that the final identity of neuroses and
psychoses is an assumption. It is pure assumption, it will be said, that
these molecular nervous processes, and those percepts and emotions which
are their concomitants, are simply different aspects, outer and inner,
objective and subjective, physiological and psychological, of the same
noumenal series. This must fully and freely be admitted. Any and every
explanation of the connection of mind and body is based on an
assumption. The common-place view of two distinct entities, a mind which
can act on the body and a body which influences the mind, is a pure
assumption. The philosophic view, that there are two entities, body and
mind, that neither can act on the other, but that there is a
pre-established harmony between the activities of the one and the
activities of the other, is, again, a pure assumption. The materialistic
view, that matter becomes at last self-conscious, is a pure assumption.
The idealistic view, that the world of phenomena has no existence save
as a fiction of my own mind, is, once more, a pure assumption. It is not
a question of making or of not making an initial assumption; _that we
must do in any case_. The question is--Which assumption yields the most
consistent and harmonious results?
Again, an answer will, no doubt, be demanded by some people to the
question--_How_ does that which, objectively considered, is neurosis
become subjectively felt as psychosis? Is not the identification of
neurosis and psychosis a begging of the question, unless the _how_, the
_modus operandi_, is explained? If, in the latter query, by "begging the
question" the adoption of an initial assumption is meant, I have already
answered it in the affirmative. To the direct question--How does the
objective neurosis become conscious as a subjective psychosis?--while
freely admitting that I do not know, I enter the protest that it is
philosophically an illegitimate question; for an answer is impossible
without transcending consciousness. An illustration will, perhaps, make
my meaning clear. Suppose that a sentient being be enclosed within a
sphere of opaque but translucent ground glass, into the substance of
which there are wrought certain characters. Suppose that external to
this there is another similar but larger sphere, similarly inscribed,
and that a second sentient being is enclosed in the space between the
two spheres. By an attentive study of the two spheres, this second
sentient being arrives at the conclusion that the markings on the convex
surface of the inner sphere answer to the markings on the concave
surface of the outer sphere; and he is led to the conviction that what
_he_ sees as markings on the convex, the being within the sphere sees as
markings on the concave. He is, however, perplexed by the question--How
can this be? He is acquainted with a certain inner surface and a certain
outer surface. He is led to correlate the markings of the one with the
markings of the other. But the question how the two can have such
different aspects is beyond his solution. Puzzle as he may, he can never
solve it. It can only be solved (and how simple then the solution!) by a
being _outside both spheres_, who can see what the enclosed being,
"cabin'd, cribb'd, confined," could never see, namely, that the
characters were wrought in the translucent glass of the spheres. By
which parable, imperfect as it is, I would teach that we can never learn
how kinetic manifestations have a metakinetic aspect without getting
outside ourselves to view kinesis and metakinesis from an independent
standpoint. Or, in the words of Sir W. R. Hamilton,[KD] "How
consciousness in general is possible; and how, in particular, the
consciousness of self and the consciousness of something different from
self are possible ... these questions are equally unphilosophical, as
they suppose the possibility of a faculty exterior to consciousness and
conversant about its operations."
The only course open to us, then, in this difficult but important
problem is to make certain assumptions, and see how far a consistent
hypothesis may be based upon them. I make, therefore, the following
assumptions: First, that there is a noumenal system of "things in
themselves" of which all phenomena, whether kinetic or metakinetic, are
manifestations. Secondly, that whenever in the curve of noumenal
sequences kinetic manifestations (convexities) appear, there appear also
concomitant metakinetic manifestations (concavities). Thirdly, that when
kinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity
of the nerve-processes in certain ganglia of the human brain, the
metakinetic manifestations assume the integrated and co-ordinated
complexity of human consciousness. Fourthly, that what is called "mental
evolution" is the metakinetic aspect of what is called brain or
interneural evolution.
It would require far more space than I can here command to deal
adequately with these assumptions, and meet the objections which have
been and are likely to be raised against them. I must content myself
with drawing attention to one or two which seem at once obvious and yet
easily met.
It may be asked--What advantage has such a view over realistic
materialism? Why not assume that neural processes, when they reach a
certain complexity, give rise to or produce consciousness?
First of all, I think, the objection raised by Mr. Wallace, in the
passage before quoted, to materialism is unanswerable. Secondly,
realistic materialism ignores the fact that kinetic manifestations for
us human-folk are phenomena of consciousness. To this we will return
presently. Thirdly, realistic materialism, and any view which regards
the physical series as one which is independent of the psychical
accompaniments, and which regards consciousness as in any sense a
by-product of neural processes, are open to an objection which was
forcibly stated by the late Professor Herbert.[KE] "It is clearly
impossible," he says, "for those ... who teach that consciousness is [a
by-product and] never the cause of physical change, to dispute that the
actions, words and gestures of every individual of the human race would
have been exactly what they have been in the absence of mind; had mind
been wanting [had the by-product never emerged], the same empires would
have risen and fallen, the same battles would have been fought and won,
the same literature, the same masterpieces of painting and music would
have been produced, the same religious rites would have been performed,
and the same indications of friendship and affection given. To this
absurdity physical science [realistic materialism] stands committed." I
believe that Professor Herbert's argument, of which this passage is a
summary, is, as against realistic materialism, sound and unanswerable.
Finally, as Professor Max Müller has well observed,[KF] "Materialism may
in one sense be said to be a grammatical blunder; it is a misapplication
of a word which can be used in an oblique sense only, but which
materialists use in the nominative. In another sense it is a logical
blunder, because it rests on a confusion between the objective and the
subjective. Matter can never be a subject, it can never know, because
the name was framed to signify what is the object of our knowledge or
what can be known." Materialism, then, for more than one sufficient
reason, stands condemned.
It should be stated, however, that Professor Herbert seems to regard the
monistic view I am advocating as committed to the absurdity indicated in
the passage I have quoted. I am convinced that he was here in error.
Indeed, he seems to have failed to see the full bearing of the monistic
hypothesis; for while he combats it, he comes very near adopting it
himself. With this, however, I have no concern. I have only to show
that, on the assumptions above set down, we are not committed to the
"absurdity" of supposing that intelligence and consciousness have had no
influence on the course of events in organic evolution--that they have
only felt the inevitable sequence of physical phenomena without in any
way influencing it. According to the monistic hypothesis, kinesis and
metakinesis are co-ordinate. The physiologist may explain all the
activities of men and animals in terms of kinesis. The psychologist may
explain all the thoughts and emotions of man in terms of metakinesis.
They are studying the different phenomenal aspects of the same noumenal
sequences. It is just as absurd to say that kinetic manifestations would
have been the same in the absence of metakinesis, as to say that the
metakinetic manifestations, the thoughts and emotions, would have been
the same in the absence of kinesis. It is just as absurd to say that the
physical series would have been the same in the absence of mind, as to
say that the mental series would have been the same in the absence of
bodily organization. For on this view consciousness is no mere
by-product of neural processes, but is simply one aspect of them. You
cannot abstract (except in thought and by analysis) metakinesis from
kinesis; for when you have taken away the one, you have taken the other
also. To speak of the organic activities being conceivably the same in
the absence of consciousness, is like saying that the outer curve of a
soap-bubble would be the same in the absence of the inner curve.
Whatever hypothetical existences this statement may be true of, it
assuredly is not true of soap-bubbles.
To pass on from this point to another, it is possible--I trust not
probable, but still not impossible--that some one may say, "But how, on
this view, can perception be accounted for? Granted that in the neural
processes of the individual organism kinesis is accompanied by those
metakinetic manifestations which we term 'consciousness,' how will this
account for our perception of a distant object? Yonder scarlet geranium
is a centre of kinetic manifestations; it is fifty yards and more away.
How can I here, by any metakinetic process, perceive the kinesis that is
going on out there?"
For one who can ask this question, I have written the chapter on "Mental
Processes in Man," and have used the term "construct," in vain. In vain
have I endeavoured to explain that the seat of all mental processes is
somewhere within the brain; in vain have I indicated the nature of
localization and outward projection; in vain have I reiterated that the
object is a thing we construct through a (metakinetic) activity of the
mind; in vain have I insisted that our knowledge is merely _symbolic_ of
the noumenal existence; and perhaps in vain shall I again endeavour to
make my meaning clear.
When we say that we perceive an object, the mental process (perception)
is the metakinetic equivalent of certain kinetic changes among the
brain-molecules. The object, _as an object_ (as a phenomenon or
appearance), is there generated. As before stated, I assume the
existence of a noumenal system of which the noumenal existence,
symbolized as object, is a part. But what we term the object is a
certain phase of metakinesis accompanying certain kinetic
nerve-processes in the brain. In other words, phenomena are states of
consciousness, and cannot, for the percipient, be anything else.
"It comes to this, then," an idealist will interpose: "states of
consciousness are metakinetic; phenomena are states of consciousness;
therefore phenomena are metakinetic. Your kinesis vanishes, and you are
one with us, a pure idealist."
Before showing _wherein_ I am not a pure idealist, let me state _why_ I
am not. For the pure idealist, phenomena being states of consciousness,
_and nothing more_, the world around resolves itself into an individual
dream. Were I to hold this view, this pen which I hold, this table at
which I write, the spreading trees outside my window, my little sons
whose merry voices I can hear in the garden, my very body and limbs, all
are merely states of my own consciousness. This I am not prepared to
accept. Do what I will, I cannot believe that such an interpretation of
the facts is true.
For this reason I make my first assumption that there is a noumenal
system of things in themselves, of which all phenomena, whether kinetic
or metakinetic, are manifestations. I differ from the pure idealist in
that I believe that phenomena, besides being states of consciousness,
_have another, namely, a kinetic, aspect_. What are for me states of
consciousness are for you neural processes in my brain. These are,
again, for you states of consciousness; but still for some one else they
are kinetic processes. And an ordinary extraneous object, like this
table, is the phenomenal aspect to me of a noumenal existence; and since
that noumenal existence appears to you also in like phenomenal guise,
the table is an object for you as well as for me, and not only for us,
but for all sentient beings similarly constituted. The world we live in
is a world of phenomena; and it has a phenomenal reality every whit as
valid as the noumenal reality which underlies it. And that phenomenal
reality has two aspects--an inner aspect as metakinesis, and an outer
aspect as kinesis.
I must not here further develop the manner in which the hypothesis of
monism presents itself to my mind. I will only, before passing on to
consider mental or metakinetic evolution, draw passing attention to two
matters. We have seen that Professor Hering and Mr. Samuel Butler have
suggested "organic memory" as a conception useful for the comprehension
of embryonic reconstruction in development and other such matters (see
p. 62). On the hypothesis of monism, this may be regarded as a kinetic
manifestation of that which in memory rises to the metakinetic level of
consciousness.
The other matter is of far wider import. Monism affords a consistent and
comprehensible theory of the ego, or conscious self--that which endures
amid the flux and reflux of our conscious states. The ego, or self, is
that metakinetic unity which answers to, or is the inner aspect of, the
kinetic unity of the organism.[KG] Only here and there, in fleeting and
changing series, does the metakinesis rise to the level of
consciousness. But the metakinetic unity is as completely one,
indivisible, and enduring, as is the physical organism which is its
kinetic counterpart. No one questions that there is an enduring organism
of which certain visible activities are occasional manifestations; no
one who has adequately grasped the teachings of monism can question that
the enduring ego, of which certain states of consciousness are
occasional manifestations, is the metakinetic equivalent of the organic
kinesis. This solution of a problem which baffles alike materialists and
idealists is, as it seems to me, as satisfactory as it is simple.
And now let us pass on to consider the question of mental or metakinetic
evolution. What, on the principles above laid down, can we be said to
know or have learnt about it?
The inevitable isolation of the individual mind has long been
recognized. "Such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts," says
Bishop Berkeley, "that it cannot be itself perceived, but only by the
effects that it produceth." "Thinking things, as such," writes Kant,
"can never occur in the outward phenomena; we can have no outward
perception of their thoughts, consciousness, desires; for all this is
the domain of the inward sense." How comes it, then, that there is
nothing of which, practically speaking, we are more firmly convinced
than that our neighbours have each a consciousness more or less similar
to our own? Certain it is that no one can come into sensible contact
with his brother's personality and essential spirit. My brother's soul
can never stand to me in the relation of object. Subject he never can be
to any but himself. What, then, is he--his metakinetic self, not his
kinetic material body--to me? In Clifford's convenient phrase, he is an
eject. And what is an eject? An eject is a more or less modified image
of myself, that I see mirrored, as in a glass darkly, in the human-folk
around me. Into every human brother I breathe the spirit of this eject,
and he becomes henceforth to me a living soul. Or, if this mode of
presentation does not meet with approval, I will say that an eject is
that metakinetic unity I infer as identically associated with the
organic and kinetic unity of my brother's living body. And I base the
close metakinetic correspondence that I infer on the close kinetic
correspondence that I observe. But since the only form or kind of
metakinesis that I know is that of human self-conscious personality, it
is certain that the metakinetic eject is an image of myself; it is and
must be, in a word, anthropomorphic.
Too much stress can scarcely, I think, be laid on the human, nay, even
the individual, nature of the eject. All other-mind I am bound to think
of in terms of my own mind. The men and women I see around me are like
curved mirrors, in which I see an altered reflection of my own mental
features. By certain signs I may be able to infer in this or that human
mirror graces or imperfections that I lack. But throughout my survey of
human nature, every estimate of intellectual or moral elevation or
degradation that I form must ever be measured in terms of my own
subjective base-line. My conception of humanity must always be, not only
anthropomorphic, but idiomorphic.
Once more, let it be remembered that the metakinesis that rises to the
level of consciousness is that which forms the inner aspect of the
neural kinesis of my brain or yours. For each of us, then, that
metakinesis is the only possible metakinesis which we can know as such
and at first-hand. And for the pure idealist it is the only metakinesis
which he can know at all. Not so with us. We have assumed a noumenal
system of "things in themselves," of which all phenomena, whether
kinetic or metakinetic, are manifestations. We have assumed that kinesis
cannot emerge into the light of being without casting its inseparable
metakinetic shadow. We have assumed that when the kinetic manifestations
assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of nerve-processes in
certain ganglia of the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations
assume the integrated and co-ordinated complexity of human
consciousness. Human physiology is teaching us more clearly every day
that all human activities are, physically speaking, the outcome of
neural processes. Such neural processes are in us conscious. Therefore,
granting our assumptions, the conclusion that my neighbour is a
conscious self, just as I am, is not only legitimate, but (as we see
from the daily conduct of men) inevitable. In other words, certain
kinetic phenomena have for us inevitable metakinetic implications.
Now, when we pass from man to the lower animals, the metakinetic
implications become progressively less inevitable and less forcible as
the kinesis becomes more dissimilar from that which obtains in the human
organism. The only metakinesis that we know directly is our own human
consciousness. In terms of this we have to interpret all other forms of
metakinesis.
It is unnecessary to go over again the ground that has already been
covered in previous chapters, in which we have endeavoured to give some
account of what seem to us the legitimate inferences concerning the
mental processes in animals. The point on which I wish here to insist is
that, outside ourselves, we can only know metakinesis in and through its
correlative kinesis. Underlying kinetic evolution, we see that, on the
hypothesis of monism, there must have been metakinetic evolution. But of
this mental or metakinetic evolution we neither have nor can have
independent evidence. Such evolution is the inevitable monistic
corollary from kinetic evolution. More than this it is not and cannot
be. And only on the monistic hypothesis, as it seems to me, is it
admissible to believe in mental evolution,[KH] properly so called.
But does not, it may be asked, the hypothesis of monism, if carried to
its logical conclusion, involve the belief in a world-consciousness on
the one hand, and a crystal-consciousness on the other? If, according to
the hypothesis, every form of kinesis has also its metakinetic aspect,
"must we not maintain," in the words of Mr. J. A. Symonds, "that the
universe being in one rhythm, things less highly organized than man
possess consciousness in the degree of their descent, less acute than
man's? Must we not also surmise that ascending scales of existence, more
highly organized, of whom we are at present ignorant, are endowed with
consciousness superior to man's? Is it incredible that the globe on
which we live is vastly more conscious of itself than we are of
ourselves; and that the cells which compose our corporeal frame are
gifted with a separate consciousness of a simpler kind than ours?" To
such questions W. K. Clifford replied with an emphatic negative. "Unless
we can show," he said, as interpreted by Mr. Romanes,[KI] "in the
disposition of the heavenly bodies some morphological resemblance to the
structure of a human brain, we are precluded from rationally
entertaining any probability that self-conscious volition belongs to the
universe."
I conceive that both parties, opposed as they seem, are logically right;
and I venture to think that the terms I have suggested will help us
here. Mr. Symonds used the word "consciousness" to signify metakinesis
in general; Clifford used it to signify that particular kind of
metakinesis which in the human brain rises to the level of
consciousness. Not only is it not inconceivable, but it is a logical
necessity on the hypothesis of monism, that answering to the kinetic
rhythm of the universe there is a metakinetic rhythm; but unless the
gyrations of the spheres have some kinetic resemblance to the dance of
molecules in the human brain, the metakinesis cannot be inferred to be
similar to the consciousness of man.
Similarly, with regard to the supposed self-consciousness of the
so-called social organism. Mr. Romanes, in his article on "The World as
an Eject,"[KJ] leads up to his conception of a world-eject through the
conception of a society-eject--an eject, he tells us, that, for aught
that any one of its constituent personalities can prove to the contrary,
may possess self-conscious personality of the most vivid character. Its
constituent human minds may be born into it, and die out of it, as do
the constituent cells of the human body; it may feel the throes of war
and famine, rejoice in the comforts of peace and plenty; it may
appreciate the growth of civilization in its passage from childhood to
maturity.
This, of course, may be so; or it may not. Who can tell? But Clifford
was on firm monistic ground when he maintained that, unless the kinesis
be similar, we have no grounds for inferring similarity of metakinesis.
The study of kinesis leads us to recognize different kinds or modes of
its manifestation. There is one mode of kinesis in the circling of the
planets around the sun, another mode of kinesis in the orderly
evolutions of a great army, another mode in the throb of a great
printing-press; there is one mode of kinesis in the quivering molecules
of the intensely heated sun, another in the wire that flashes our
thought to America, and yet another in the molecular vibrations of the
human brain. All are of the same order, all are kinetic. But they differ
so widely in mode that each requires separate, patient, and
long-continued study. So is it, we may conclude, with metakinesis. There
may be, nay, there must be, many modes. But our knowledge is confined to
one mode--that in which the metakinesis assumes the form of human
consciousness.
I have been led to discuss this matter in order further to indicate the
inevitable limits of our knowledge of metakinetic evolution. Our
conclusions may be thus summarized: First, we can know directly only one
product of metakinetic evolution--that revealed in our own
consciousness. Secondly, the process of metakinetic evolution must be
reached, if reached at all, indirectly through a study of kinetic
evolution. Thirdly, we have no right to infer a mode of metakinesis
analogous to human consciousness, unless the mode of kinesis is
analogous to that which is observed in neural processes. And, fourthly,
the closer the kinetic resemblance we observe, the closer the
metakinetic resemblance we may infer.
* * * * *
The last point we have to notice, and it is by no means an unimportant
one, is that, just as the kinetic evolution of the organism must be
studied in reference to its kinetic environment, so, too, must the
metakinetic evolution of mind be studied in reference to its metakinetic
or mental environment.
Of course, in ordinary speech, and even in careful scientific
description, we are forced, if we would avoid pedantry, to skip
backwards and forwards from the kinetic to the metakinetic. We speak of
a kinetic cow giving rise to metakinetic fear, and this determining
certain kinetic activities. Why we thus interpose a mental link in a
physical series has already been explained. The physical cow we know,
the physical activities we know, the physical neuroses we scarcely know
at all. On the other hand, fear we have ourselves experienced, and know
well. Hence we introduce the mental link that we know in place of the
physical link of which we are ignorant. And there can be no harm in our
doing so when we are working on the practical, and not the philosophical
plane. But when we are striving to go deeper, and are employing that
gift of analysis which is man's prerogative, in order to proceed to a
higher and more complete synthesis,--then we must be careful to keep
separate those processes which analysis discloses to be distinct. And I
repeat that, on the philosophical plane of thought, we must remember
that _metakineses are determined by other metakineses, and by them
alone_.
The reader who has kept his head among these slippery places will at
once see that this is and must be so; for, as we have already seen (p.
474), all phenomena are states of consciousness, whatever else they may
also be. The cow, as a phenomenon, is a _construct_, a product of mental
activity, and woven out of states of consciousness. For the pure
idealist she is this and nothing more. But for us she is a real external
entity, manifested through phenomenal kineses. Hence in ordinary speech
we separate the kinetic cow from its metakinetic symbols in
consciousness (the convex from the concave aspect), and call the former
the cow itself, and the latter our idea of the cow. But, as before
maintained, my idea of an object is for me the object. And this is now
justified by our deeper analysis.
The physiologist, dealing with organic phenomena in terms of motion
(kinesis), proclaims that the physical series is complete, that there is
no necessity for the introduction of feeling which is at best but a
by-product. The idealist, dealing with the processes of thought and
emotion in terms of consciousness, proclaims that his series is
complete--an external material universe is an unnecessary encumbrance.
Each proclaims a half-truth; each sees that half of the truth which
alone is visible from his special standpoint. Monism combines the two
(and is, of course, scouted by both). It sees not only that the one
series does not in any case interfere with the other, but that the
conception of such an interference involves an impossibility and
incongruity. As soon could one speak of the convexities of one side of a
curved surface interfering with the corresponding concavities of the
other side, as of the metakinetic series interfering with the kinetic
series, which is its other aspect. But if the one cannot interfere with
the other, neither can the one exist without the other. To apply the
same analogy, as well might one speak of the convexities of a curved
surface existing without the concavities of its other side, as of the
kinetic phenomena of organic life as being conceivably the same in the
absence of conscious intelligence.
Remembering, then, that just as the environment of kinetic phenomena is
itself kinetic, with which consciousness can in no wise interfere, so is
the environment of metakinetic phenomena, perception, thought, and
emotion, itself metakinetic. Let us now proceed to consider some of the
implications.
We have already seen that, in what we may regard as the earlier phases
of organic and mental life, the series between stimulus and activity is
a simple one, which may be kinetically represented thus--
Stimulus-->neural processes-->motor-activities;
but that when inhibition is developed, there arises an alternative, thus--
/ motor-activities.
Stimulus-->neural processes
\ inhibition thereof.
And we further saw that, as a result of this inhibition, the entering
stimuli, instead of, as it were, rapidly running out of the organism in
motor-activities, set up a more and more complex series of diffused and
reverberating neural processes in the brain or other central ganglia.
From the metakinetic view-point these diffused and reverberating neural
processes in the brain culminate in consciousness as thought, æsthetic
emotion, and the higher conceptual mental activities. Deeply as these
influence conduct, they are, to a large extent, independent of conduct.
A man's thoughts and æsthetic yearnings may be of the truest and purest;
but in the moment of temptation and action, when stimuli crowding in run
through rapidly to action, he falls away. His conduct belies his ideals.
Nevertheless, the ideals were there, but too far away in the region of
thought and abstract æsthetics to be operative in action.
Now, we may divide the metakinetic concomitants of neural processes into
two categories: first, those which are intimately associated with neural
processes directly leading to motor-activities; secondly, those which
are, so to speak, floated off from these into the region of thought and
æsthetic emotion, and which are therefore associated with neural
processes only indirectly or remotely leading to motor-activities. Both
have, of course, kinetic equivalents in neural processes, but the former
are directly associated with activities and conduct, and the latter are
not.
Let me exemplify. Interpretations of nature, theories, hypotheses,
belong to the latter class. Their association with activities is in the
main indirect. Whether we believe in materialism, idealism, or monism,
our conduct is much the same. People got out of the way of falling
stones, and guarded against being caught by the incoming tide, before
science comprised both phenomena under the theory of gravitation. The
conduct of human-folk was not much altered by the replacement of the
geocentric by a heliocentric explanation of the solar system. It matters
not much how a man explains the lightning's flash so long as he avoids
being struck. The bird continues to soar quite irrespective of man's
prolonged discussion of how it can be explained on mechanical
principles. And in general the practical activities of mankind remain
much the same (I do not say quite the same, for there are remote and
indirect results of the greatest importance in the long run) whatever
their particular theory of the universe may be.
Now, let us note the implication. We have said a good deal in earlier
chapters about natural elimination and selection. To which category of
neural kineses do they apply--to those associated with practical
results; or to those associated with theoretical results (supposing
these to obtain below the level of man); or to both? Clearly to those
associated with practical results. It matters not what theories a lion,
or an adder, or a spider hold (supposing, again, that they are capable
of theorizing, which I doubt). Its practical activities determine
whether it survives or not. So, too, with men, _so far as they are
subject to natural elimination_. It matters not what may be the nature
of their thoughts, their æsthetic yearnings, their ideals. According to
their practical conduct, they are eliminated or escape elimination. In
other words, elimination or natural selection applies only remotely or
indirectly to the human race regarded as theorists, æsthetes, or
interpreters of nature.
Before proceeding to indicate to what laws our theories and
interpretations of nature and moral ideals are subject, we may note that
there are sundry activities of man, the outcome of his conceptual
thought and emotion, which are also, under the conditions of social
life, to a large extent beyond the pale of elimination. I refer to the
æsthetic activities--music, painting, sculpture, and the like; in a
word, the activities associated with art, literature, and pure science.
These, in the main, take rank alongside the ideas of which they are the
outward expression. Natural selection, which deals with practical,
life-preserving, and life-continuing activities, has little to say to
them. They are neutral variations which, so far as elimination is
concerned, are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous, and, therefore,
remain unmolested.
We may, therefore, fully agree with Mr. Wallace, when he says,[KK] "We
conclude, then, that the present gigantic development of the
mathematical faculty [as also of the musical and artistic faculties] is
wholly unexplained by the theory of natural selection, and must be due
to some altogether distinct cause." Nay, we may go further, and say that
it is only by misunderstanding the range of natural selection as an
eliminator that any one could suppose that these faculties could be
explained by that theory.
We must admit, then, that there are certain neural kineses which, from
the fact that they are unassociated with life-preserving and
life-continuing activities, are not subject to the law of elimination;
and in the development of which natural selection cannot have been an
essential factor. These, in their metakinetic aspect, are conceptual
thoughts, emotions, and ideas. Remembering the distinction drawn in the
chapter on "Organic Evolution" between _origin_ and _guidance_, let us
proceed to inquire, first, how these ideas have been guided to their
present development; and, secondly, how we may suppose these special
variations to have originated.
To understand their development, we must understand their environment.
The environment of metakineses is, as we have already seen, constituted
by other metakineses. What we have now to note is that the environment
of conceptual ideas, as such, is constituted by other ideas. The
immediate environment of an hypothesis is other hypotheses; of a moral
ideal, other moral ideals; of an æsthetic thought, other æsthetic
thoughts; of a religious conception, other religious conceptions. But
not only are ideas environed by ideas of their own order; they are
environed by ideas of other orders. Thus a scientific hypothesis or a
moral ideal may be in harmony or conflict with religious conceptions,
and its fate may be thereby determined; or a religious conception may be
in harmony or conflict with psychological principles, and its acceptance
or rejection thereby determined. So that we may say, in general, that
_the environment of an idea is the system of ideas among which it is
introduced_.
Of course, it must be clearly understood that it is with the individual
mind that we are dealing. The scientific ideas, moral ideals, æsthetic
standards, religious conceptions, of a tribe, nation, or other
community, are simply representative, either of the general views of the
majority of the individuals, or more frequently of a majority among a
cultivated minority. In any case, we have seen that metakineses are and
must be an individual matter. For each individual there is a separate
ideal world.
Through certain activities, notably language spoken or written, men can
symbolize to each other the ideas that are taking metakinetic shape in
their own minds. All-important, however, as is this power of
intercommunication by means of language, it does not a whit alter the
fact that the idea and its environment have to work out their relations
to each other separately in each individual mind. My neighbour may
symbolize, through language, his ideas in such a form that similar ideas
may be called up in my mind; but it is there that they have to make good
their claim for acceptance in the environment of the system of ideas
among which they are introduced.
Now, what is the guiding principle of the evolution and development of
ideas in the world of their metakinetic environment? Is there any
principle analogous to that of elimination which we have seen to be of
such high importance in organic evolution? I believe that there is. _An
idea is accepted or rejected according to its congruity or incongruity
with the system of ideas among which it is introduced._ The process has,
perhaps, closer analogy with elimination than with selection, inasmuch
as it would seem to proceed by the rejection of the incongruous, leaving
both the congruous and the neutral. An idea or hypothesis may be
accepted, at any rate provisionally, so long as it is not in
contradiction to the theories and beliefs already existing in the mind.
It may, however, be objected that this view is at variance with the
familiar observation that there are many excellent people who hold and
maintain theories which are exceedingly incongruous, which seem, indeed,
to us mutually antagonistic. Yes, _to us_. Brought into the environment
of _our_ system of ideas, one or other of these antagonistic views would
be eliminated through incongruity. Not so, however, with those who hold
both. Amid the environment of a less logical and less coherent system of
ideas, both can find admission, if not as congruous, still as neutral. A
sense of their incongruity is not aroused.
But there are some people, it may be said, who consciously hold views
which they admit to be incongruous; who base all their scientific
reasonings on a continuity of causation, but who, nevertheless, believe
in miraculous interruptions of that continuity. In this case, however,
the incongruity is made congruous in a higher synthesis. They belie
themselves when they suppose that they are holding incongruous views.
Stated at length, what they admit is that miraculous interventions are
incongruous, not for them, but for those whose whole system of thought
is cast in another mould than theirs--for the materialist and the
infidel.
I cannot discuss the matter further here. This is not the place to show,
or attempt to show, how the evolution of systems of thought has caused,
or is causing, certain ideas, such as that of slavery, religious
persecution, the moral and physical degradation of our poor, to reach
that degree of incongruity which we signify as abhorrent; or how that
evolution has caused yet more primitive ideas to seem positively
repulsive. Nor is it the place to show, or attempt to show, how the
advance of scientific knowledge has been constantly accompanied by the
elimination of incongruous conceptions. I must content myself with the
brief indication I have given of the principle of elimination through
incongruity as applied to ideas.
It may be said that such a principle does not account for the origin of
the new congruous ideas, but only for the getting rid of old incongruous
ideas. Quite true. But I have grievously failed in my exposition of
natural selection through elimination if I have not made it evident that
this objection (if that can be called an objection which, in truth, is
none) lies also at the door of Darwin's generalization.[KL]
Now, from all that has been said in this chapter, it will be seen that,
on the hypothesis of monism, we cannot regard organic and mental
evolution as continuous the one into the other, but rather as parallel
the one with the other--as the kinetic and metakinetic manifestations of
the same process. Organic evolution is a matter of structure and
activity. If the structure or the activity be not attuned to the
environing conditions, it will be eliminated, those sufficiently well
attuned surviving. Turning to the metakinetic aspect, we have seen that
there are certain mental processes which are directly and closely
associated with activities. Their evolution will be intimately
associated with organic evolution. For if these processes lead to
ill-attuned activities, the organism will be eliminated; and thus the
evolution of well-attuned activities and their corresponding mental
states will proceed side by side. We may, therefore, say, not
incorrectly, that these lower phases of mental evolution are subject to
the law of natural selection.
But when the neural processes which intervene between stimulus and
activity become more complex and more roundabout; when, instead of being
directly and closely associated with life-preserving activities, they
are associated indirectly and remotely;--then they become, step by step,
removed from their subjection to natural selection. And when, in man,
the metakineses associated with these neural kineses assume the form of
hypotheses, theories, interpretations of nature, moral ideals, and
religious conceptions, these are, except in so far as they lead to
activities which may conduce to elimination, no longer subject to the
law of natural selection, unless we use this term in a somewhat
metaphorical, or at least extended, sense. They are subject, as we have
seen, to a new process of elimination through incongruity.
Similarly with that wide range of conduct in man which is the outcome of
his conceptual life, and is removed from those merely life-preserving
activities which are still, to some extent, under the influence of
natural elimination. Conduct is here modified in accordance with the
conceptual system of which it is the outcome and outward expression. And
this higher conduct is subject, not to elimination through natural
selection, but to elimination through incongruity. Slavery would never
have been abolished through natural selection; by this means the modest
behaviour of a chaste woman could not have been developed. To natural
selection neither the Factory Acts nor the artistic products in this
year's Academy were due; by this process were determined neither the
conduct of John Howard nor that of Florence Nightingale. Some
evolutionists have done no little injury to the cause they have at heart
by vainly attempting to defend the untenable position that natural
selection has been a prime factor in the higher phases of human conduct.
I believe that natural selection has had little or nothing to do with
them as such. They are the outcome of conceptual ideas, and are subject
to the same process of elimination through incongruity.
So soon as, in the course of mental evolution, the idea of slavery
became incongruous, and in certain minds abhorrent and repulsive, steps
were taken to check the conduct which was the outward expression of this
idea. So, too, in other cases. The reformer must not, however, be too
far in advance of his generation, if his reform is to be practically
carried out. When his ideas are so "advanced" as to be incongruous with
those of all but a very small minority of his contemporaries, even they
are forced to confess that the nation is not yet ripe for the changes
they contemplate.
No one will question that artistic products are the outcome of artistic
ideas. In the slow and difficult progress of a new school of painting or
of music, we see exemplified the rejection of the new ideas through
their incongruity with the old-fashioned artistic systems. Only
gradually do there grow up new generations for whom these new ideas are
not incongruous. For them the old-fashioned systems become incongruous;
and if the school becomes dominant, artistic products embodying the old
ideas are eliminated through incongruity.
We are not all alike. Our mental systems are different. One artist will
introduce into his canvas effects which, to the eye of another, will at
once strike a jarring note of incongruity. To some minds the institution
of slavery presents no incongruity. There are not wanting men for whom
the degrading moral and physical conditions under which many of our poor
are forced to live and work present little or no incongruity. To the
Russian, English fidelity to the marriage vow is said to be as
incongruous as, to an English woman, is the harem of an Eastern
potentate.
In the higher phases of human conduct, then, the activities are subject
to the law of the ideas of which they are the outcome--the law of
elimination through incongruity.
I have said that natural selection has little or nothing to do with
these higher phases of conduct. But has not human selection through
preferential mating? I believe that it has; and I trust that it will
have a still greater influence in the future. It is one of the noblest
privileges of woman, for with her mainly lies the choice, that she may
aid in raising humanity to a higher level. If once the idea of marrying
for anything but pure affection could become utterly incongruous to
woman's mental nature; and if once the idea of perpetuating any form of
moral, intellectual, or physical deformity could become equally
incongruous; the bettering of humanity, through the exclusion of the
deformed in body and mind from any share in its continuance must
inevitably follow. Here, again, ideas would determine conduct.
And what, we may now proceed to ask, is the physiological or kinetic
aspect of this metakinetic process? The answer to this question involves
the conception of what I would term "interneural evolution." Just as the
environment of a conceptual idea is constituted by other conceptual
ideas, so is the environment of its neural concomitant constituted by
the other neural processes in the brain. Just as no idea can get itself
accepted if it be in incongruity with the system of ideas among which it
is introduced, so, too, can no neural process become established if it
be not in harmony with the other neural processes of the cerebral
hemispheres. The brain is a microcosm; its neural processes are
interrelated; and _the environment of any neural process is constituted
by other neural processes_.
A little consideration will show that this must be so; that it is only
the physical or kinetic aspect of what is freely admitted when the
mental or metakinetic aspect is under consideration. If it be admitted
that states of consciousness are determined by other states of
consciousness, and that states of consciousness are the concomitants of
certain neural processes in the brain, it follows as a logical necessity
that brain-neuroses, however originating, are determined in their
evolution by other brain-neuroses; and that there has been a brain or
interneural evolution, distinct from and yet intimately associated with
the evolution of other bodily structures and activities. The more
closely and directly brain-neuroses are associated with immediate
activities, the more closely implicated is interneural evolution in the
process of organic elimination through natural selection. But when long
trains of neuroses take place in only remote and distant connection with
other bodily activities, they are removed from the process of
elimination through natural selection, and interneural evolution is
allowed to proceed comparatively untrammelled.
I have already indicated my belief that abstraction (isolation),
analysis, and conceptual ideas have been rendered possible through
language, and are excellences unto which the lower animals do not
attain. Hence I regard this comparatively untrammelled phase of
interneural evolution as something essentially human, something which
differentiates man from brute. And I would correlate man's greatly
developed brain--inexplicable, I think, by natural selection alone--with
this later and special phase of interneural evolution. Even in the
lowest savage this brain-evolution has proceeded a long way. I am not
fitted in this matter to offer an opinion which would carry much weight.
But from all that I have read I gather that savages have in all cases
elaborated a complex--often a highly complex--interpretation of nature
and theory of things. The interpretation may seem _bizarre_ and
incongruous enough _to us_, full of fetishism and strange superstitions,
but it is an interpretation; to the savage it presents no incongruity;
to him the incongruity is in the oddly assorted beliefs of the
missionary. His system of ideas is, in fact, one of the many possible
systems to which mental evolution may give rise.
For what we call systems of thoughts, interpretations of nature,
theories of things, are so many genera and species which have resulted
from this later phase of metakinetic evolution. Our methods are at
present too coarse, our powers too limited, to enable us to determine
these species from their kinetic aspect. The brains of Kaffir and Boer,
of ploughboy and merchant, of materialist and idealist, are too subtly
wrought to enable us to trace the systems of kineses which were the
concomitants of their scheme of beliefs. But we can learn something of
the genera and species from their metakinetic aspect as symbolized
through language and other bodily activities. They fall into certain
groups, fetishistic, spiritualistic, materialistic, idealistic,
monistic, and so on, and within these groups there are sub-divisions.
This is not the place to consider them or discuss their characteristics.
What I wish to note about them is that, diverse as they seem and are,
each is a coherent product of mental evolution. In each, all that is
incongruous to itself has been or is being eliminated.
There are some people, however, who are surprised at the incongruity of
interpretations of nature among each other. Fetishism, they say, has
been proved to be utterly false. It constitutes a hideous and grotesque
delirium. How can that which is utterly and completely false to nature
have had a natural evolution? Now, for the _élite_ of the Aryan race,
whose systems of ideas have been moulded in accordance with the
conceptions of modern science, no doubt the fetishism of the poor savage
seems sufficiently incongruous and grotesque. So, too, does the system
of ideas of the Right Rev. Bishop of ---- appear no doubt, to the
learned and eminent Professor ----, and _vice versâ_. And so, too, no
doubt, does the system of ideas of the white man (who introduces
firearms and firewater, and preaches the gospel of forgiveness and
temperance) appear to the poor savage. Each in his degree wonders how
this falsity, this incongruity, can have had a natural genesis. But in
each case the falsity and the incongruity is not within the system
itself, but between different systems.
Once more, I repeat that if the individual nature of the systems of
ideas be not adequately grasped, the nature of mental evolution will not
be apprehended. States of consciousness can only be determined by other
states of consciousness; and states of consciousness are for the
individual subject, and for him alone. Conceptual ideas are states of
consciousness; and "falsity to nature" means, and can only mean,
incongruity with the environing states of consciousness in the
individual mind. For the savage there is no falsity to nature in his
fetishism. The idea presents no incongruity with his system of ideas; no
more incongruity than filed teeth, flattened head, or pierced nose do to
his standard of beauty. It is with _our_ system of ideas (i.e. mine or
yours) that his fetishism is false and incongruous. The falsity or
incongruity, I repeat, is not within the system itself, but between
different systems.
It may still, however, be said--Only one interpretation of nature can be
true; all others must be false. And the falsity is not merely
incongruity with other ideas in other systems of thought or belief; it
is falsity to the plain and obvious facts of nature.
We may freely admit that only one interpretation of nature can be true.
But who is to determine which? Who can decide the question between
monist and materialist? Who dare arbitrate between the bishop and the
professor? The criterion of fitness in this case, as in others, is
survival; and who can say what existing interpretation of nature (if
any) shall outlive all its competitors? Who can say what will be the
nature of the further evolution of any existing philosophical creed? The
elimination of the false is a slow and gradual process; and many
degenerate systems of ideas may linger on in the darker corners of the
world of men. False or out of harmony as they seem to be with the higher
phases of development; false or out of harmony as they would be with a
different and more exalted environment; they are not false or out of
harmony with the environment in the midst of which we find them; they
are not false or out of harmony with "the plain and obvious facts of
nature," as these exist for the ill-developed or savage mind.
The plain and obvious facts of nature, as interpreted by men of science
in 1890, have simply no existence for the untutored or the savage
intellect. For him they have not emerged into the light of
consciousness. But while we cannot blame the savage for entertaining
ideas which are false to facts which for him have no existence, we may
none the less believe that his system of ideas is not among those which
are destined to become predominant species. So far as we can judge, the
winning species among systems of ideas and interpretations of nature are
those in which the greatest number of ideas are fused into harmonious
synthesis; in which all the ideas are congruous, few or none neutral;
and in which the abstract or conceptual ideas, when brought into contact
with concrete or perceptual states of consciousness, are found to be in
harmony and congruity therewith.
There is one more question in this connection on which I must say a few
words. How, it may be asked, has the world become peopled, for many
primitive and savage folk, with a crowd of immaterial spiritual
essences, so that it is scarcely too much to say that, for some of these
peoples, everything has its double; and there is no material existence
that has not its spiritual counterpart?
I would connect this almost universal tendency with the origin of
abstract ideas (isolates) through language. When the named predominant
gave rise to the isolate (see p. 374), it could scarcely fail that the
primitive speakers and thinkers should tend to regard those qualities or
properties which they could isolate in thought (conceptually) as also
isolable in fact (perceptually). And we may well suppose, though this
is, of course, hypothetical, that one of the earliest severances to be
thus effected through isolation was the severance of mind and body. The
first phenomena that the nascent reason would endeavour to explain would
probably be those of daily life and almost hourly experience. Many
familiar facts would seem to point to the temporary or permanent divorce
of the part which is conscious and feels, from the part which is
tangible and visible. During wakeful life the two are closely
associated. The visible part, or body, is conscious. But during sleep,
or under the influence of a heavy blow, the visible part, which before
was conscious, is conscious no longer. The conscious part is, therefore,
absent, but returns again after a while. On death the conscious part
returns no more. The divorce of the two has become permanent.
And then comes in the confirmatory testimony of dreams. In dreams the
savage has seen his enemy, though that enemy's body was far away. Here,
then, is the spirit which has left the body during sleep. In dreams also
the slain enemy or the dead chief appears. The spirit, permanently
divorced from the body, still walks the earth in spirit-guise.
Many occurrences would seem like the fulfilled threats of dead enemies
or the fulfilled promises of dead ancestors. How can these be explained?
Are they not produced by the ghost of the departed enemy, by the spirit
of the deceased ancestor? And if these spirits are still powerful to
act, why not petition them to act in certain ways?
Probably primitive man would explain all activities anthropomorphically.
What knows he of gravitation or the laws of the winds? He knows himself
as agent, and attributes his activities to the immaterial spirit within
him; for when this is absent during sleep or in death these activities
cease. All acting things might, therefore, come to be regarded as dual
in their nature--possessed of a sensible material bodily part, and an
insensible active spiritual part. And thus the whole world might be
peopled with living existences of the spiritual order.
Now, whether the fetishistic faith arose in some such way as this or
not--and we can never know how it arose, but can only guess--there would
be nothing in such primitive explanations which would violate the law of
congruity. They would have, therefore, a perfectly natural genesis. The
attempted interpolation at such a stage of primitive reason of any
modern scientific conception would be futile. It would at once be
rejected through incongruity.
The history of scientific conceptions seems to show that they were first
adopted with regard to phenomena on the very horizon of thought--in
regions, that is to say, most remote from the central citadel of the
soul. Only gradually have they, little by little, encroached upon this
centre; and the application of them to physiology and psychology is a
matter of quite modern times. Even to-day only a minority, but an
increasing minority, of thinkers are prepared indissolubly to unite the
mind and body, so long divorced in thought, so completely united, as
many of us believe, in their essential being.
I have now, I trust, illustrated at sufficient length the principle of
elimination through incongruity in interneural and its associated
metakinetic or mental evolution. This, however, like natural selection,
is a matter of guidance; we have still to consider the question of
origin.
In truth, we know too little on the subject to enable us to discuss it
with much profit. From the kinetic or organic point of view, neural
variations take their place among the other variations, the origin of
which, as we have already found, is so hard to account for. There may be
a tendency for neural vibrations to mutually influence each other (like
two clocks placed side by side), and thus gradually to drag each other
into one harmonious and congruous rhythm. But this, though not
improbable, is purely hypothetical. There is the hypothesis of the
inheritance of acquired variations, the increased congruity acquired by
the parent being in some degree transmitted to the offspring. There is
the view which Mr. Wallace adopts[KM] with regard to the origin of
accessory plumes, that such variations may be due to "a surplus of
strength, vitality, and growth-power, which is able to expend itself in
this way without injury," and not without profit. The development of the
social habit, the mutual aid and protection thus afforded, may well have
left a balance of the life-energy, previously employed in individual
self-preservation, available for this purpose. And then there is always
the hypothesis of favourable fortuitous variations to fall back upon.
On only one of these points do I propose to say a few words--that of the
possible inheritance of acquired variations.
Let us restate the problem here for the sake of clearness. There is,
according to the suggestion put forward in this chapter, an interneural
evolution, leading to an harmonious development of the neuroses in the
individual brain. But this special evolution of the brain is nowise
independent of the more general evolution of the body. The human being,
as an organism, is still subject to natural elimination and human
selection. Elimination through the action of surrounding physical
conditions, although it has played some part in the evolution of man, is
not a factor of the first importance. Elimination through enemies is
more important, but has not much bearing on the question at present
before us--the evolution of the conceptual. Elimination by competition,
again, though a factor of yet greater importance in human evolution,
has, nevertheless, so far as individuals are concerned, but little
bearing on our present question. Few are eliminated through the absence
of the conceptual faculty. Natural elimination, then, is, as Mr. Wallace
well pointed out, practically excluded in this matter. No doubt, in the
struggle between tribes and nations, that community is most likely to be
successful in which there is rational guidance. No doubt, during the
earlier phases of the development of man on our islands, the elimination
of the irrational was a factor in progress. But if we take the last
three centuries of English history, I doubt whether it can be shown that
there has been much elimination determined by the relative absence of
conceptual ideas and emotions.
Human selection has been a much more important factor. Those individuals
which showed the higher types of intellectual thought have been
constantly selected. Riches, rank, and social position have been
bestowed upon them. Of course, there have been exceptions; great
intellects have been allowed to languish in their lifetime, and have
only obtained recognition through their works after death. But every day
there is less chance of a genius dying in a garret. And the best
intellects, being thus selected and chosen out from among their
fellow-men, form to some extent a distinct social class. Segregation is
thus effected; and intermarriage takes place within this intellectual
caste, with the result that the conditions are eminently favourable for
the inheritance of intellectual qualities.
Now, is this process of selection of the intellectual, this segregation
into a caste, and the inheritance of innate intellectual qualities
sufficient to account for the facts of intellectual progress; or must we
call in to our aid the inheritance of individual increments? I confess I
cannot say. Direct and satisfactory evidence, one way or the other, is
almost impossible to obtain.
Must we, then, leave the question undecided? I think we must so far as
direct evidence is concerned. I may have a general belief that there has
been some transmission of acquired increment of intellectual faculty.
But unless I can substantiate it by definite facts, I cannot expect to
convince any one who holds the opposite view. And definite facts of
sufficient cogency I am unable to adduce. It is practically impossible
to exclude the influence of human selection; and unless we can do this
the followers of Dr. Weismann will not be satisfied.
Still, general belief--which means the net result of one's consideration
of the subject--counts for something. We must remember the question is
one of origin, and not of guidance. The guidance of human selection is
unquestioned and unquestionable. But when we consider the intellectual
progress of the last three centuries, and ask whether all this has
originated in fortuitous brain-variations, which human selection has
simply picked out from the total mass of available material, an
affirmative answer seems to me a little difficult of acceptance. There
seems to have been a definite tendency to vary in this particular
direction, a general raising of the intellectual level, which is
difficult to account for unless it be due to the persistent employment
of the intellectual faculties.
To put the matter in another way. I do not think that, during the last
three centuries, there has been a large amount of elimination of the
unintellectual. Such elimination as there has been of this nature has
probably been more than compensated by the slower rate of multiplication
of the intellectual classes. Elimination, then, in this matter may be
practically disregarded. But it is obvious that selection, without the
removal or exclusion of the non-selected, does nothing to alter the
_general level_[KN] with regard to the particular quality or faculty
concerned. It is merely a classification of the individuals in
order of merit in this particular respect. It is, in a word, a
segregation-factor. It arranges the individuals in classes, but it does
not alter the position of the mean around which they vary.
Let me explain by means of an analogous case. Fifty boys, who have been
admitted to a public school, await examination in a class-room. They are
at present unclassified, but there is a mean of ability among the whole
fifty. A week afterwards they are distributed in different forms. Some
are selected for a higher form, others have to take a lower place. But
though selection has classified the material, it has not altered the
position of the mean of ability among the fifty boys. This can only be
done by expelling a certain number or excluding them from the school.
Granted, therefore, that elimination is practically excluded, human
selection can at most classify the individuals according to their
intellectual faculties. It cannot raise the mean standard of
intellectuality. If, therefore, this mean standard has been raised
during the last three centuries, there has been a tendency to vary in
this particular direction, which _may_,[KO] to say the least of it, be
due to the inheritance of individual increment.
I am, of course, aware that the matter is complicated by the increased
and increasing diffusion of knowledge through the printing-press and by
the extension and improvement of education. But education, to take that
first, though it may raise the level of each generation, can have no
cumulative effect. For the effects of education cannot, on Professor
Weismann's hypothesis, be inherited. You may educate brain and muscle in
the individual, but his heir will inherit no good or ill effects
therefrom. Each generation goes back and starts from the old level.
There is no summation of effect; or, if there is, it tells so far
against Professor Weismann.
And with regard to the diffusion of knowledge, this, though it brings
more grist to the intellectual mill, can have no effect in raising the
mean standard of excellence in the mill itself. There is more to grind;
but this does not improve the grinding apparatus; or, if it does, it
tells so far against Professor Weismann's hypothesis. To vary the
analogy, the diffusion of knowledge increases the store of available
food; but it does not bring with it any additional power of digesting
the food; or, if it does, it may be through inherited increments of mean
digestive power.
It may, however, be maintained that there is no conclusive proof that
the mean intellectual level of Englishmen to-day is any higher than it
was in the days of the Tudors. If so, of course, my argument falls to
the ground. I have no desire to dogmatize on the subject. I merely set
down the reasons, such as they are, and for what they are worth, which
lead me to entertain a general belief that the intellectual progress of
Englishmen during the past three hundred years has been in part due to
the inheritance of individually acquired faculty.
* * * * *
Mental evolution, then, is the metakinetic equivalent of interneural,
or, in us vertebrates, brain-evolution. The brain forms a kinetic system
in some sense independent of, and yet in constant touch with, the
kinetic system of the world around. Its kineses, though they do not
resemble, yet more or less accurately represent or symbolize, the
kineses of the surrounding universe. As the kineses of the world around
are interdependent and harmonious, so are the neural kineses of the
brain interdependent and harmonious. And no modification of this kinesis
which is out of harmony with the kinetic system already established in
the brain can be incorporated with that existing system. Such attempted
modification is eliminated through incongruity.
Associated with this brain-kinesis, and forming its inner aspect, is a
metakinetic system in which the higher manifestations rise to the level
of full consciousness; others form sub-conscious states; others are
unconscious. But the whole form a coherent system answering to the
coherent kinetic system.
Consciousness is thus associated only with the phenomena of that kinetic
microcosm which we call the brain (or other interneural system).
Obviously, therefore, it does not and cannot deal directly with anything
outside the brain. Its knowledge is solely and entirely a knowledge of
the representative occurrences of the interneural system. But out of
these occurrences a surrounding world of phenomena is constructed in
mental symbolism.
The brain itself, however, is part of the world of phenomena thus
constructed in mental symbolism; and the world, therefore, dissolves in
pure idealism, leaving only a fleeting series of states of
consciousness, if we do not assume the existence of a system of "things
in themselves" (noumena), of which kineses and metakineses are the
phenomenal manifestations. Whether the "things in themselves" in any
sense resemble their phenomenal manifestations, we cannot say. It is as
difficult philosophically to conceive that they can as it is practically
to conceive that they do not. And since, whether they do or do not, the
world we live in is phenomenal; since it is to phenomena that we have to
adapt our conduct; since it is with phenomena that all our thoughts and
emotions have reference; since the world we construct in mental
symbolism is the world in which we live and move and have our being; it
is not only convenient, but logically justifiable, to call this world of
phenomena the really existing world for us human-folk and other sentient
organisms.
As in the kinetic interneural system, or brain, so, too, in the
metakinetic system, no modification of the metakinesis which is out of
harmony with the existing metakinesis can be incorporated therewith.
Such attempted modification is eliminated through incongruity.
In the lower stages of mental evolution, those which belong to the
perceptual sphere, where the neuroses are closely connected with the
life-preserving activities of the organism, the survival or non-survival
of the system of neuroses is largely dependent on the fitness of the
associated activities to the conditions of life. But in the higher
stages of mental evolution, those which belong to the conceptual sphere,
the connection of certain brain-neuroses with life-preserving
motor-activities becomes less close and direct. The corresponding ideas,
thoughts, and emotions become floated off into a more abstract region.
Here the system of ideas, as such, that is to say, so far as they are
removed from life-preserving activities, is determined mainly by the law
of congruity. But there are several such systems. There are, indeed, as
many systems as there are minds; but these may be classified in several
distinct groups, which we may liken to genera and species. These are the
various interpretations of nature, theories of things, and the like; the
systems of ideas, thoughts, conceptions, emotions, beliefs, which, as we
say, belong to us, each and all, and which determine to which
metakinetic species we belong. These are the highest products of mental
evolution; and among them there is, so to speak, a struggle, if not for
existence, at any rate for prevalence. Which shall eventually prevail--a
spiritual interpretation of nature, a material interpretation, a
monistic interpretation, or other, who shall say? But, so far as we can
judge, the winning species among systems of ideas and interpretations of
nature are likely to be those in which the greatest number of ideas are
fused into harmonious synthesis; in which all the ideas are congruous;
and in which the abstract or conceptual ideas, when brought into contact
with concrete or perceptual states of consciousness, are found to be in
harmony and congruity therewith.
NOTES
[JY] "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 365.
[JZ] I consider that an apology is needed for the coinage of this and
of two or three other words, such as "construct," "isolate," and
"predominant." I can only say that in each case I endeavoured to
avoid them, but found that I could not make my meaning clear, or
bring out the point I wished to emphasize without them.
[KA] "Science of Thought," pp. 286, 287.
[KB] "Science of Thought," p. 279.
[KC] I use "substance" here in its philosophical sense.
[KD] Quoted in Professor Veitch's "Hamilton," p. 77.
[KE] T. M. Herbert, "The Realistic Assumptions of Modern Science
Examined," 2nd edit., p. 123.
[KF] "Science of Thought," p. 571.
[KG] Strictly speaking, of the brain; but since the brain has no
organic independence of the body, it is best here to focus
attention on the unity of the organism.
[KH] I ought not to pass over without notice the "psychological scale"
which Mr. Romanes introduces in a table prefixed to "Mental
Evolution in Animals." It would be unjust to criticize this too
closely, for it is admittedly provisional and tentative. If such a
scheme is to be framed, I would suggest that the various phyla of
the animal kingdom be kept distinct. I question, however, whether
any one can produce a scheme which any other independent observer
will thoroughly endorse. And I am inclined to think that the
wisest plan is to tabulate the kinetic manifestations which we can
actually observe rather than the metakineses of which we can have
no independent knowledge.
[KI] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1886. See Clifford's "Lectures and
Essays," vol. i. pp. 72 and 248; vol. ii. p. 67.
[KJ] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1886.
[KK] "Darwinism," p. 467.
[KL] In both cases, the question to which an answer is suggested is
not--What variations will arise? but--What variations will
survive?
[KM] "Darwinism," p. 293. It is strange that Mr. Wallace did not apply
this view to the mathematical and artistic faculties discussed in
his last chapter. It is true that such application tends to
undermine the argument there developed. But Mr. Wallace is far too
great and conscientious a thinker to be influenced by such a
consideration.
[KN] If elimination of the unintellectual (not necessarily of the
unintelligent) may be excluded, and if the unintellectual increase
by natural generation more rapidly than the intellectual, the
general level of intellectuality must, on Professor Weismann's
principles, be steadily _falling_.
[KO] It _may_ also, in part, be due to "organic combination."
INDEX.
A
Abstract ideas, 322, 363
Acceleration, sense of, 269
Acceleration and retardation, 221
_Achirus pellucidus_, 83
Acquired characters, are they transmitted? 147;
habits, are they inherited? 436;
variations in the intellectual sphere, 497
_Acræa_, 203
Activities, organic basis of comparative psychology, 337;
of animals, 415;
voluntary and involuntary, classification of, 462
Adaptation, analogous, 117;
modes of, 119;
special, examples of, 179;
to varying environment, 183
Advantage must be particular, 184;
must be immediate and not prospective, 186;
must be "available," 188, 211
_Æschna_, 289
Æsthetic preferences in insects and birds, 207;
aspect of sensation, not primary, 243;
motive not present to animal consciousness, 409
ALEXANDER, Mr. S., "Moral Order and Progress," 463
ALLEN, Mr. Grant, on evolution of flowers, 206;
on pleasure and pain, 380
ALLEN, Mr. J. A., on colour and humidity, 164
Alternation of generations, 46
_Amblyopsis spelæus_, 271
American school of evolutionists, 221
Am[oe]ba, how it feeds, 5;
reproduction of, 12, 38;
diagram of, 12;
protoplasmic functions of, 142
Amphibia, labyrinthodont, 288
Anabolism, constructive process, 32
Analysis (mental), 321
Ancon sheep, 226
ANDERSON, Mr., on one-eared rabbits, 226
Anemone, sea, reproduction of, 41;
marginal beads of, 298;
discrimination by, 359
Anger and rage, 389
Animal life, nature of, 1;
diversity of, 177
Animal intelligence, differs generically from man's reason, 350
Animals, characteristics of, 1;
divided into protozoa and metazoa, 15;
and plants, their relation to food-stuffs, the atmosphere,
and energy, 15;
intelligent not rational, 373;
capacities for pleasure and pain, 391
Animistic ideas of savages, how developed, 494
_Anisognathus_, 226
_Anomia_, 265
Ant, sauba, of South America, 213;
sense of taste in, 253;
sense of smell in, 258;
auditory organ of, 267;
intelligence of, 357;
activities often described as instinctive, 425;
neuter insects, 440;
Siamese, 449
Antagonism, advantages of, 394
Antennæ of insects, modifications of, 178;
of emperor moth, 199;
organ of hearing in, 267;
modified hairs of, 297
Antennule of crayfish, 259
_Anthophora_, 438
Anticipation, 327
Antlers of deer in illustration of growth, 28
Aphides, absence of fertilization in reproduction, 44
Appetence and aversion, 343, 384
_Apus_, 46
Aquatic organisms, respiration in, 4;
sense of smell in, 256
ARAGO, M., observation on turnspit dog, 404
Arctic hare and fox, 84;
animals, colours of, 165;
fox, cunning of, 366
ARGYLE, Duke of, on humming-birds, 110
_Artemia salina_ and _milhausenii_, 164
Artistic faculties and natural selection, 484;
products, evolution of, 489
Association a tendency to integration, 183;
perceptual and mimicry, 202;
and recognition marks, 203
_Ateles_, 210
Atmosphere, relations of animals and plants to, 15
Attacus, 179
Attention, 342
_Attidæ_, 208
Auditory apparatus in man, 262
Aurelia, life-cycle of, 45
Australian mammals and others convergent, 117
Automatic action, 415
Available advantage, 188, 211
Aversion and appetence, 343, 384
B
Baboon, experiments with, 352
Bacilli attacked by leucocytes, 439
_Bacillus violaceus_, 80
BAILEY, Mr. E. H. S., on taste, 251
BALBIANI on _Chironomus_, 137
_Balistes_, 179
BARRETT, Mr. W. F., on sensitive-flame experiment, 298
Barrier, geographical, 99;
time, in physiological isolation, 105
BARRINGTON, The Hon. Daines, on song of linnet, 454
BATESON, Mr. W., on lateral line, 252;
on fishes hunting by scent, 256;
on smell in shrimps, etc., 260;
on hearing in fishes, 264;
on hearing in _Anomia_, 265;
on sight in fishes, 286;
on rockling and sole, 352;
on fascination in fishes, 388
Bats, tabulated measurements of wing-bones of, 65-73;
wings, fortuitous variations in, 235;
experiment with, 247
Beauty, standard of, 206;
sense of, 407
Beaver, change of habit in, 445
BECCARI on gardener bower bird, 408
BECKER, Alexander, on variations in the balance of life, 112
Bees, divergent development of, 58;
cuckoo, 90;
latency in, 228;
sense of taste, 253;
sense of smell, 257;
smell-hollows, 259;
eyes and eyelets of, 289;
intelligence of, 357;
colour preferences in, 408;
homing faculty in, 428;
neuter insects, 440
Beetles of Madeira, 81;
stag-, variability of male, 180;
observations on dung-, 368
Begging in dogs, 345
BERKELEY, Bishop, quoted, 475
BERT, M. Paul, limits of sensibility to light, 296
BIDIE, Mr. George, anecdote of cat, 370
BINET, M., "Psychic Life of Micro-organisms," 360
Birds, influence of food-yolk on development of, 56;
divergence among, 97;
breeding area of comparatively restricted, 101;
humming, Duke of Argyle on, 110;
destruction of eggs of, 189;
game-, white and black crossed, 225;
taste in, 251;
smell in, 256;
hearing in, 264;
sight in, 284;
colour-vision in, 285;
gardener bower, 408;
humming, nests of, 408;
perfect instincts of pr[oe]coces, 424;
love antics of satin bower, 450;
nests of, 453;
song of, 454
BLOCHMANN on the development of the drone, 153
Blood, circulation of, 22
Body as distinguished from reproductive cells, 131
BOLL and KÜHNE, Messrs., on retinal purple, 276
BOLTON, Miss Caroline, on the bat, 247
_Bombus muscorum_, 90;
_lapidarius_, 91
_Bombyx quercus_, 258
Bower bird, 408, 450
Brain, 31;
decreased, of rabbits and ducks, 171;
a microcosm, 491
BREHM'S, Thierleben, quotation from, 405
Brine shrimp, modified by salinity of water, 164
BROOKS, Prof. W. K., his modification of pangenesis, 134;
on the greater variability of the male, 237
BROWN, Prof. Crum, on sense of acceleration, 270
BROWNE, Sir J. Crichton, on ducks, 171
Budding, reproduction by, 42;
in relation to heredity, 128
Bull, "Favourite," prepotent, 227;
reversion in, 229
BUNYAN, John, on gateways of knowledge, 311
BUTLER, Mr. Samuel, on organic memory, 62, 475
Butterfly, protective resemblance in, 86;
mimicry in, 87
C
Camel, wounded, 392
Canary, crested, 225;
nest building of, 453
Capon, taking to sitting, 228
Capuchin monkey, Miss Romanes's observation on, 367;
sympathy in, 397
CARLYLE, quoted, 331, 335
Carp at Potsdam, 265
CARTER, Dr. Brudenell, quoted, 285
Caste, idea of, in dog, 400
Cat, effect of African climate on, 164;
defining its percept, 339;
communication, 345;
intelligence of, 370;
and mouse, 399;
punishing kitten, 405
Caterpillars, protective resemblance in, 82
Cattle of Falkland Islands, 203
Causation, 327
Cell, diagram of animal, 10;
controlled explosions in, 31
Cessation of selection, effects of, 172
_Chætodon_, 83
_Chætogaster limnæi_, reproduction of, 42
Chaffinch, nest of New Zealand, 454
Chamæleon, 286
Chance, 236
Change of conditions, 163
Characters, specific, 110
CHARBONNIER, Mr, Henry, measurements of bats, 63
CHATTOCK, Mr. A. P., his experiments on colour-vision, 280;
letter to, on dog and picture, 341
CHESHIRE, Mr., on smell-hollows in bees, 259
Chickens' aversion to protected caterpillars, 352;
perfectly instinctive activities, 424
_Chironomus_, reproductive cells of, 137
Choice, 458
Circulation of the blood, 22
Classification, 323
CLIFFORD, W. K., on human consciousness, 341;
on the eject, 476;
on "world-consciousness," 479
Clover and bees, 113
_Clytus arietis_, 87
Cockchafer, smell-hollows of, 259
COCKERELL, Mr., on variations in snails, 75;
on effects of moisture, 239
Cockroach, diagram of trachea or air-tubes of, 3;
sense of taste in, 253;
sense of smell in, 258
Cocoon, collective, 429
_Colobus_, 210
Colour, protective resemblance in, 82;
warning of inedibility, 82;
dependent on humidity, 164;
direct action of climate on, 164;
development of, 202;
blindness, 273, 279;
phenomena of, 278
Combination, organic, hypothesis of, 150, 240
Communication in dogs, 345;
in bees, 358
Compensation of growth, 155
Competition, elimination through, 89
Concept, 325, 326
Conception, 325
Conceptual conduct and evolution, 488
Condor, rate of increase of, 57
Conduct, 463;
influence of thought and æsthetics on, 483;
conceptual, and natural selection, 488
Congruity, principle of, 486
Conjugation in protozoa, 39;
of ovum and sperm-cell, 42
Consciousness, 32;
and consentience, 326, 362;
as a criterion of instinct, 432
Consentience, 326, 362
Construct and construction (mental), 312;
three stages of, 324;
inevitable nature of, 332;
in mammals, 338
Continuity of reproductive cells, 131;
germ-plasm, 138;
cellular, 142;
in mental development, 373
Convergence, phenomena of, 117
Co-ordinants, 303
COPE, Prof., on the effects of use, 210;
and HYATT, Prof., on retardation and acceleration, 221
Correlated variation, 59, 216
CORTI, organ of, 263
_Coryne_, Prof. Weismann on, 139
COUCH, Mr., on goldfinch song, 454
Crab, protective resemblance in, 87;
hermit, 195;
habit of decking itself, 457
Crayfish, smell in, 259;
auditory organ of, 266
Crossing, effect on reversion, 230
Cruelty in cat, objective, 400
Crustacea, eyes of, 292
_Ctenomys_, 194
Cuckoo, the name onomatopoetic, 322;
habits intelligent, 436;
ejecting young birds, 437