subject. He lays stress on the coyness and reluctance of the female,
and illustrates it by examples derived from observation. “Thus the
female cuckoo answers the call of her mate with an alluring laugh that
excites him to the utmost, but it is long before she gives herself
up to him. A mad chase through tree-tops ensues, during which she
constantly incites him with that mocking call, till the poor fellow
is fairly driven crazy. The female kingfisher often torments her
devoted lover for half a day, coming and calling him, and then taking
to flight. But she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking
back as she flies and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he
suddenly gives up the pursuit. The bower-bird leads her mate a chase
up and down their skilfully built pleasure-house, and many other birds
behave in a similar way. The male must exercise all his arts before her
reluctance is overcome. She leads him on from limb to limb, from tree
to tree, until it seems that the tantalizing change from allurement to
resistance must include an element of mischievous playfulness.”[148]
Professor Groos regards the instinctive coyness of the female as the
most efficient means of preventing the too early and too frequent
yielding to sexual impulse.[149] He thinks it probable that “in order
to preserve the species the discharge of the sexual function must
be rendered difficult, since the impulse to it is so powerful that,
without some such arrest, it might easily become prejudicial to that
end. This same strength of impulse is,” he adds,[150] “itself necessary
to the preservation of the species; but, on the other hand, dams must
be opposed to the impetuous stream, lest the impulse expend itself
before it is made effectual, or the mothers of the race be robbed
of their strength, to the detriment of their offspring.” It has its
origin in the general fact that, before any important motor discharge
takes place, there is apt to be a preparatory and gradually increasing
excitement. But this is specially emphasized in association with the
sexual impulse. As Professor Zeigler wrote, in a private communication
to Dr. Groos,[151] “Among all animals a highly excited condition of the
nervous system is necessary for the act of pairing, and consequently we
find an exciting playful prelude very generally indulged in.”
Courtship may thus be regarded from the physiological point of view
as a means of producing the requisite amount of pairing-hunger; of
stimulating the whole system and facilitating general and special
vascular changes; of creating that state of profound and explosive
instability which has for its psychological concomitant or antecedent
an imperious and irresistible craving. This not only overcomes the
coyness of the female, but generates and strengthens the ardour of
the male--a point on which, perhaps, Professor Groos does not lay
sufficient stress. For the process is reciprocal; and though the male
leads in the ardour of courtship, yet this ardour constantly grows till
at last it overcomes the barriers of reluctance. Courtship is thus
the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its
mark in a biological end of the utmost importance in the survival of a
healthy and vigorous race.
The coyness and reluctance of the female afford the conditions under
which the bow is bent to the full. But they also afford the conditions
of the apparent act of choice. This takes the place, on the perceptual
plane of mental development, of that deliberation which precedes the
higher act of choice on the ideational plane. For psychology, as well
as for biology, then, Dr. Groos’s suggestion is a welcome and helpful
one. Both upholders of sexual selection and critics of that hypothesis,
have been apt to regard the choice of a mate in animals from too
anthropomorphic a point of view--to look upon it as the outcome of
rational deliberation, of weighing in the æsthetic balance the relative
attractiveness of this suitor and of that, and of reaching a definite
conclusion that the one is to be accepted because he behaves or is
adorned in such and such a way, while the other is to be rejected
because he falls below all reasonable standards of requirement. The
choice exercised by the female, if so we term it, is far simpler and
more naïve. Indeed, Professor Groos goes so far as to say that on his
hypothesis the element of choice is altogether abolished. “It is the
instinctive coyness of the female,” he says,[152] “that necessitates
all the arts of courtship, and the probability is that seldom or never
does the female exert any choice. She is not awarder of the prize, but
rather a hunted creature. So, just as the beast of prey has special
instincts for finding his prey, the ardent male must have special
instincts for subduing female reluctance. According to this theory,
there is choice only in the sense that the hare finally succumbs to the
best hound, which is as much as to say that the phenomena of courtship
are referred at once to natural selection.” He reaches this conclusion,
however, by gradual stages. He first urges[153] that “it would be
absurd to affirm that all bird songs originate in a conscious æsthetic
and critical act of judgment on the part of the female. A conscious
choice either of the most beautiful or the loudest singer is certainly
not the rule, and probably never occurs at all. But,” he adds, “is it
not still a choice, though unconscious, when the female turns to the
singer whose voice, whether from strength or modulation, proves most
attractive? Even if the song is primarily a means of recognition or an
invitation from the male, still the psychological effect must be that
the female follows the songster that excites her most, and so exerts a
kind of unconscious selection.”
The phrase “unconscious choice” is, however, somewhat unsatisfactory,
especially when we remember that it is used to indicate the result
of a direct appeal to the conscious situation. If, however, we say
that it is perceptual choice arising from impulse as distinguished
from ideational choice due to motive and volition, we see that the
distinction is in line with that which we have drawn again and again,
and which Dr. Stout so well emphasizes in his “Manual of Psychology.”
But we have also drawn the distinction between instinctive behaviour
prior to individual experience, and intelligent behaviour the result
of such experience. Under which of these classes does the behaviour
of the female during courtship fall? Professor Groos, in the further
development of his hypothesis, seems to place it in the instinctive
category. “Instead of a conscious or unconscious choice, of which we
know nothing certain,” he says,[154] “we have the need of overcoming
instinctive coyness in the female, a fact familiar enough, but hitherto
not sufficiently accounted for. Then the question no longer is, which
among many males will be chosen by the female, but which one has the
qualities that can overcome the reluctance of the female whom he woos.
Sexual selection would then become a special case of natural selection.”
I am unable to follow Professor Groos in this view, which I find it
rather difficult to reconcile with such statements as that already
quoted, in which he says that the female’s “tantalizing change from
allurement to resistance seems to include an element of a mischievous
playfulness.” It is more probable that instinctive coyness and
reluctance afford the conditions under which experience of the
pleasures of courtship may be gained. It is said that a flirt, when
taken to task for her conduct at ball and picnic, justified it by
asking demurely how else she was to gain that wide experience of men
which was absolutely necessary to guide her in exercising a wise and
becoming choice. Let us hope that when the fateful time arrived she
acted with due deliberation. Now the coquetry of birds affords the
opportunity of gaining just such experience in the light of which a
perceptual choice may be made.
Let us remember that courtship is, as Darwin said, “a prolonged
affair,” and that coyness is a means to its prolongation. And let us
remember that in simple cases, as also in more complex matters, the
intelligent exercise of choice depends upon what Dr. Stout terms the
acquisition of meaning. “The chicken does not, at first,” he says,[155]
“distinguish between what is edible and what is not. This it has to
learn by experience. It will at the outset peck at and seize all worms
and caterpillars indiscriminately. There is a particular caterpillar
called the cinnabar caterpillar. When this is first presented to the
chicken it is pecked at and seized, like other similar objects. But
as soon as it is fairly seized it is dropped in disgust. When next
the chicken sees the caterpillar, it looks at it suspiciously, and
refrains from pecking. Now, what has happened in this case? The sight
of the cinnabar caterpillar re-excites the total disposition left
behind by the previous experience of pecking at it, seizing it, and
ejecting it in disgust. Thus the effect of these experiences [what
I have termed the conscious situation] is revived. The sight of the
cinnabar caterpillar has acquired a _meaning_.” Take now the case of a
coy hen bird, to whom several males pay court. The sight of this one,
behaving after his kind, excites in small degree the sexual impulse and
emotions. Her heart beats but little the faster for all his antics,
her respiratory rhythm is scarcely affected, her feathers, like her
feelings, remain comparatively unruffled. He has acquired meaning from
the reaction to his presence; it is not, however, a very attractive
meaning. But that other, perhaps from mere persistency, perhaps because
he is more “vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome” (she, at any rate,
certainly knows not why), deeply stirs her organic being, sets her all
aglow, and breaks down the barriers of her coyness. And this he does
because he is the centre of a conscious situation which has acquired,
through her experience of his presence, a meaning and an interest that
are at last irresistibly attractive. It is a choice from impulse, not
the result of deliberation; but it is a choice which is determined
by the emotional meaning of the conscious situation. And it is the
reiterated revival of the associated emotional elements which generates
an impulse sufficiently strong to overcome her instinctive coyness and
reluctance.
And this coyness is the natural correlative of the ardour of the male,
an ardour increased by his courtship antics. If the female yielded
readily and at once, the behaviour of courtship would never have been
evolved. Superabundant vigour in the male is, no doubt, a favourable
condition of courtship, as it is of play; but neither is it a _sine
quâ non_, nor in any case does it, or can it, afford any guidance of
behaviour into just those specific channels in which we find it setting
during the breeding season. If sexual selection be not a _vera causa_
of the specific direction, we have at present no other hypothesis which
in any degree fits the facts. And to the criticism of those who, like
Mr. W. H. Hudson, urge that dance and song, and aërial evolutions in
birds, are seen at times when the immediate business of courtship forms
no part of the situation, Professor Groos’s theory of play affords
a sufficient answer. If courtship, whose biological end is of such
supreme importance, forms a central feature in the serious business of
animal life; and if play is the preparation and practice for behaviour
of biological importance; we should expect to find manifestations (with
an emotional difference, and no doubt many differences in detail) of
all those actions, the due performance of which, in the supreme hour of
courtship, will alone enable the adequately prepared and well-practised
male to overcome the reluctance of the female, and beget offspring to
transmit his instinctive and emotional tendencies.
IV.--ANIMAL “ÆSTHETICS” AND “ETHICS”
In this section we shall consider some types of behaviour which suggest
situations that contain the germs of æsthetics and ethics, with a
view to determining, so far as possible, the principles on which they
should be interpreted. This is a peculiarly difficult subject; for
we are endeavouring to get behind the behaviour, and to infer the
mental conditions which accompany it, and through which it assumes its
distinctive character. The difficulty is twofold: first, because, as
Dr. Stout puts it,[156] “human language is especially constructed to
describe the mental states of human beings, and this means that it is
especially constructed so as to mislead us when we attempt to describe
the workings of minds that differ in any great degree from the human;”
and secondly, because, to quote the same careful thinker,[157] “the
besetting snare of the psychologist is the tendency to assume that an
act or attitude which in himself would be the natural manifestation
of a certain mental process must, therefore, have the same meaning in
the case of another. The fallacy lies in taking this or that isolated
action apart from the totality of conditions under which it appears.
It is particularly seductive when the animal mind is the subject of
inquiry.”
We must, therefore, base our method of procedure on some definite
principle. The canon of interpretation which I have elsewhere
suggested[158] is, that we should not interpret animal behaviour as the
outcome of higher mental processes, if it can be fairly explained as
due to the operation of those which stand lower in the psychological
scale of development. To this it may be added--lest the range of
the principle be misunderstood--that the canon by no means excludes
the interpretation of a particular act as the outcome of the higher
mental processes, if we already have independent evidence of their
occurrence in the agent. Now, the conclusion to which we are led by
direct experiment and a critical study of the actions of animals whose
life-history is known to us is, that most of their behaviour--perhaps
all--is due to what Dr. Stout terms the perceptual, as opposed to the
ideational, exercise of cognition. Their behaviour can be explained
without having recourse to the hypothesis that they reflect, and attain
to ideal schemes as the result of abstraction and generalization
consciously directed to this end. Rather than repeat what I have
already said, I will quote Dr. Stout’s summary of the position to
which he, too, has been led. “The vast interval,” he says,[159]
“which separates human achievements, so far as they depend on human
intelligence, from animal achievements, so far as they depend on animal
intelligence, is connected with the distinction between perceptual and
ideational process. Animal activities are either purely perceptual,
or, in so far as they involve ideas, these ideas serve only to prompt
and guide an action in its actual execution. On the other hand, man
constructs ‘in his head,’ by means of trains of ideas, schemes of
action before he begins to carry them out. He is thus capable of
overcoming difficulties in advance. He can cross a bridge before he
comes to it.”
It has already been stated that in the intelligent behaviour of animals
under man’s teaching he is the rational agent, they his willing slaves.
This may be here again illustrated to enforce the distinction drawn
by Dr. Stout in the above passage. Those who have seen a shepherd’s
dog working sheep on a moorland fell, and have taken the trouble to
ascertain how the results he sees have been attained, will appreciate,
on the one hand, how well the dog knows and responds to the signals of
his master, and, on the other hand, how completely all initiation is
in the master’s mind, not that of the keenly intelligent dog. Those
who merely witness such a performance without inquiry or investigation
will probably misunderstand the whole matter. In the north of England
competitions are not uncommon where, say, three sheep have to be driven
over a definite course, between certain posts and round others,
through narrow passages and into a fold--all within a certain time
limit. At such a competition success depends on two things: first,
the training of the dog to respond at once to some six or eight
whistle-signals, often accompanied by gestures and movements of a
stick; and secondly, the judgment of the shepherd. The signals, given
in different whistle-tones and inflections, have for the dog meaning,
such as drive straight on, from this side, from that, stop, lie down,
creep, and so forth. The dog’s whole business is to obey these signals.
And the instant response of a well-trained dog is admirable. But in the
whole proceeding he is merely the executant of his master’s orders.
He originates no important step. And if you listen to the criticisms
by other shepherds during a competition you will find that they are
mainly passed on the judgment shown by the master, and only in palpable
failures in obedience on the behaviour of the dog. The intelligent
animal is what he is trained to be--one whose natural powers are under
the complete control of his master with whom the whole plan of action
lies.
Since, then, in the cognitional field we find no independent evidence
of the higher processes, we are bound, in accordance with our canon, to
interpret emotional situations on similar principles, unless we find in
them outstanding facts which cannot be explained in this way.
In considering the pairing situation we urged that the framing of an
ideal of beauty to which a given suitor approaches, or from which
he falls short, is unnecessary for the interpretation of the facts.
We should not in strictness, therefore, speak of “an appreciation
of beauty” or “a taste for the beautiful” in birds, since such
expressions almost inevitably imply that these creatures have reached
some conception of beauty as distinguished from and contrasted with
ugliness. At the same time the hen certainly appears to enjoy the
situation of which the plumed cock, attitudinizing thus, forms the
centre of interest--through which he acquires meaning. Although,
therefore, there is probably no ideal or standard of beauty, there are
afforded the data in experience from which, were the bird capable of
reflection, such an ideal might, in ideational sublimation, be derived.
Before comparison, abstraction, and generalization can be applied,
in the reflective laboratory of thought, there must be suitable
experiences to form the raw material on which these rational processes
can be exercised. Long ere, in the course of mental evolution, the
correlative conceptions implied in the phrase “beautiful or ugly” had
taken definite form, perceptual situations must have arisen, where, by
direct appeal to the senses, by the diffused effects of stimulation
and their accompanying feeling-tone, and by the natural satisfaction
of mere impulse, the foundations were laid of that appreciation of the
beautiful which forms the reflective superstructure we build upon them.
Indeed, the pleasure and satisfaction attending particular situations,
as they severally arise, appear to contain the perceptual germs of what
in later development becomes æsthetic appreciation.
The bird which, having completed its nest, eyes it with apparent
satisfaction, may well have the germs of that which, when rendered
schematic in our thought, we call taste. Dr. Gould, indeed, states that
certain humming-birds decorate their nests “with the utmost taste,”
weaving into their structure beautiful pieces of lichen. And the
gardener bower-bird collects in front of its bower flowers and fruits
of bright and varied colours. What meaning these carry in the conscious
situation we do not know; we can only suppose that they incidentally
contribute to the heightening of the sexual impulse, and have been
evolved as a means of stimulation to the biological end towards which
sexual selection is unconsciously directed. For it is probable that all
the situations with which pleasure and satisfaction are in high degree
associated are, in primary origin, closely connected with behaviour
directed, through natural or sexual selection, to some definite
biological end, or, in brief, with behaviour of biological value. And
it is, perhaps, not improbable that the states of consciousness most
highly toned with strong emotion have their origin in those situations
which arise amid the pairing, parental, and companiable relations of
animal life.
We have already said that the companion, as the nucleus of a situation,
is a thing which reacts in altogether special ways, so that it becomes
differentiated from other things as something the meaning of which, and
the interest in which, are _sui generis_ and unique in type. It becomes
the centre of emotional situations, which we ascribe to rivalry,
emulation, jealousy, and so forth. And we have also drawn attention to
the view that the genetic order, so far as there is an order, is not
first the ego and then the alter, but first the mother and companions
and then through them the self. We learn to know ourselves only through
knowing others. We must now ask the question--a question which must be
answered before we can touch on the possible ethics of animals--how
far, and in what sense, the social animal regards others as of like
nature to itself, and capable also of like feelings and emotions.
Stated in this form we must, I think, answer the question in the
negative. The expression, “of like nature to itself,” implies that the
self has already taken more or less definite form, and that the animal
infers that, since the alter behaves and reacts in like manner to the
ego, it also is an ego. This is distinctly an act of reasoning. As
Clifford phrased it, the companion becomes an _eject_. We can never by
direct experience become acquainted with the feelings of others, but we
can endow them ejectively with personality analogous to our own.
But, though it is exceedingly doubtful whether any animal can regard
its companion as an “eject,” may there not be a perceptual anticipation
of the ideational process that comes with later-developed reflection? A
decade ago I gave the following answer to this question: “For myself,
I cannot doubt that animals project into each other the shadows of
the feelings of which they are themselves conscious.”[160] Professor
Mark Baldwin speaks of the stage at which this takes place, as the
“projective stage” of development. “Now, in the fact,” he says,[161]
“of herding, common life and arrangements for the protection of the
herd, animal societies of various kinds, animal division of labour,
etc.,--whatever be the origin of it,--we have what seems to be such
an epoch in animal life. These creatures show a real recognition
of one individual by another, and a real community of life and
reaction, which is quite different from the individualism of purely
sensational and unsocial consciousness. And yet it is just as different
from the reflective organization of human society, in which the
self-consciousness and personal volition of the individual play the
most important _rôle_. I see no way of accounting for the gregarious
instinct anywhere, except on the assumption of such a projective epoch
of animal consciousness.”
Now, in endeavouring to realize how the situation feels to an animal
in this projective stage, the first difficulty we encounter is
that of divesting ourselves of those products of reflection which
characterize our own mental situation; and to avoid what Dr. Stout,
in the passage above quoted,[162] terms the psychologist’s besetting
snare. The second difficulty is to grasp that, in experience, subject
and object are inseparable, however clearly we may learn to perceive
that they are distinguishable aspects of that experience. If the
subject is eventually regarded as that which experiences, and the
object as that which is experienced, it is surely obvious that each is
necessary to the other. But, before these different aspects are clearly
distinguished, there is, in the perceptual stage of mental development,
what we may term a distribution of the items of experience among the
centres of interest.
In illustration of the kind of distribution which we may suppose to
come naturally to an animal, in what Professor Baldwin terms the
projective epoch, let us take three animal situations: first, a chick
pecks at a soldier-beetle, and finds it nauseous; secondly, a hen-bird
hears the joyous song of her mate; thirdly, a puppy in play bites
its companion, and receives a painful nip in return. Each of these
constitutes an experience-situation; assuming that the results of the
experience are distributed, how may we suppose them to be allocated?
In the first case, the soldier-beetle is the centre of interest in the
situation. As the situation develops, the element of nauseousness is
introduced. As Dr. Stout puts it, this is what gives the soldier-beetle
meaning. Can it be doubted that, if there be any distribution, the
nauseousness, though it is altogether what we have learnt to call
a subjective affection, attaches itself to the soldier-beetle? The
plain man, unsophisticated by Berkeleyan discussion, says simply, in
such cases, “The thing is nauseous.” And this probably indicates the
naïve and primitive distribution. Turning now to our second example,
when the hen hears the courtship song the mate is the centre of a
situation suffused with pleasurable feeling. How is the joyousness,
again essentially subjective for our later thought, distributed?
Surely, if at all, on the mate who forms the centre of interest. This
it is which gives him meaning. The joy of the bearer is projected on
to the singer. Not entirely, perhaps; the hen literally, on Professor
James’s theory of the emotions, feels her heart-beat quickened by his
presence, and the delightful ruffling of her feathers. But our aim is
not to deny that the germs of the subjective arise in the midst of such
situations, but to contend that some at least of the joyous character
of the situation attaches to the song of the singer, that some of the
feeling is projected, and that this is what gives the mate meaning. In
our third case, the playful puppy bites his companion, and is sharply
bitten in return. Pain enters into the coalescent situation as a whole.
How is it distributed? In the phraseology of association, the nip he
gives is closely linked with the pain he receives. By coalescence
the pain and the nip form parts of the developed situation. But the
companion is the centre of interest. And part of the pain is probably
projected on this centre. That such projection actually occurs is
rendered probable by such cases as the following, which was told me
some years ago. A child, whose exact age I have forgotten if I then
ascertained, was pricked by a pin, and he said, “Pin ’urted; poor pin.”
It is, indeed, not unlikely that with animals the outward projection
of feeling is widely distributed over inanimate, as well as animate,
objects, and that its due restriction comes far later in development,
of which the so-called personification of lifeless things by savages
may be a relic. In any case, the give-and-take of play in young
animals, and the after-earnest of courtship and fighting, would seem to
afford ample opportunity for the external and internal distribution of
feeling which sows the seed in perceptual life of that which blossoms
into self and alter in the reflective life of ideational thought.
Although, therefore, an animal cannot conceive its companion as another
self of similar nature, and with like passions to his own, yet a
considerable share of the feeling-element of the conscious situation
is projected on to that companion as the chief centre of interest. And
if it be said that this is his feeling and not his neighbour’s, the
objection will be seen to lose its force, so soon as it is realized
that even man has no experience of any feelings save his own. The only
way we can reach fellow-feeling is through sympathy; and sympathy has
its roots in the projective process we have endeavoured to describe.
We endow our neighbours with natures as sensitive to pain and pleasure
as our own. This is a pre-requisite to the social relationships termed
ethical. But when we hear people say, and find even Mr. Romanes
putting on deliberate record,[163] that “the feelings which prompt a
cat to torture a captured mouse can only be assigned to the category
to which, by common consent, they are ascribed--delight in torturing
for torture’s sake,” I venture to think that common consent, if such
it be, is wrong. As I said a dozen years ago,[164] before Professor
Groos had so carefully elaborated his theory of play, “the cat or
kitten plays with the mouse not from innate cruelty, but for the sake
of getting some little practice in the most important business of cat
life. Only man, who has the capacity for nobler things, can be cruel
for cruelty’s sake;” and this is the direction in which Dr. Groos’s
opinion[165] tends to set. Mr. Romanes might have learnt a lesson in
caution from his sister, who at first attributed a sense of shame to
the capuchin she so carefully studied, but subsequently was led to
adopt a simpler interpretation. “He bit me in several places to-day,”
she says, in her admirable diary,[166] “but he seemed ashamed of
himself afterwards, hiding his face in his arms, and sitting quiet for
a time.” She adds, however, in a footnote: “On subsequent observation,
I find this quietness was not due to shame at having bit me; for
whether he succeeds in biting any person or not, he always sits quiet
and dull-looking after a fit of passion, being, I think, fatigued.”
Shame is an ethical feeling. And as we have briefly discussed the
germs of æsthetics in animals, so we may now as briefly consider the
germs of ethics. In its developed form ethics is one of the “normative
sciences” involving standards of right and wrong. It is, as Professor
Mackenzie says,[167] “the science of the ideal in conduct.” It involves
a standard of “ought,” the product of reflection and generalization.
Conduct is compared with the ideal, and perceived to be either below,
up to, or perhaps beyond, the normal standard accepted by civilized
mankind. This involves a judgment; and so far as conduct is shaped in
accordance with the ideal we attribute the guidance to ethical motives.
Such ideals, such judgments, and the control of conduct through the
play of such motives, are probably beyond the mental capacities of
animals. They belong to the ideational stage of mental development,
when the conative tendency becomes volitional; not to the perceptual
stage, when it is impulsive. They do not enter into the conscious
situation as it takes form in the animal mind. Behaviour has not in
them acquired ethical meaning, since in developed ethics, as normative,
such meaning always has reference to the norm, or standard. A real
sense of shame implies that our acts have fallen below our ideal.
It may be said that we cannot prove that animals do not frame such
ideals. But, if we accept the canon of interpretation above laid
down, what has to be proved is that they do frame them. Is there any
case among the hundreds that are popularly adduced to show that dogs
are ashamed of themselves, that they possess a sense of justice,
that they feel the prick of conscience, that on the one hand they
know when they have done wrong, or on the other hand enjoy a sense
of conscious rectitude--is there any particular case so described in
the popular phraseology of anecdote, which could not be more simply
described as the direct outcome of the coalescent situation, without
the introduction of any implied reference to a standard of behaviour
reached by reflective thought? The pug that has taken a nap on the
drawing-room sofa, leaps down and slinks off with a “guilty” look on
his master’s approach. One can surely picture the previous situations,
and be tolerably certain that they contained an element of reproof or
something more energetic. The poodle that has successfully performed
his tricks bounds to his mistress with an air of duty well performed.
Has he never been petted and patted under such circumstance? Routine in
many animals--so often creatures of habit--begets a customary sequence,
the breach of which is at once felt. To this I ventured[168] to
ascribe the conduct of the turnspit dog reported by Arago. He refused
with bared teeth to enter out of his turn the drum by which the spit
was rotated. The companion dog was put in for a few moments and then
released; whereupon the dog which before had been so refractory seemed
satisfied that his turn for drudgery had come, and, entering the wheel
of his own accord, began turning the spit as usual. The bared teeth may
be here perhaps ascribed to an outraged sense of justice. But is it not
a more simple, and just as probable, supposition that the behaviour
was due to breach of customary routine. A trainer with whom I had some
conversation on this matter pointed out a collie bitch, and said, “If
I put her through her tricks in the usual order she does them like an
angel; but if I try and make her alter the order she snaps and sulks
like the devil.”
I have elsewhere[169] expressed my opinion that, though animals may
behave in ways which may tend to mislead us, they do not act with
intent to deceive. A dog is described[170] as “showing a deliberate
design of deceiving” because he hobbled about the room as if lame and
suffering from pain in his foot. But may not this be simply due to the
fact that chance experience had led to a situation through which a
hobbling gait had acquired the meaning of more petting and attention
than usual? To behave with deceit as a deliberate motive implies the
idea that the action will be interpreted as having a significance
different from that which it really has. It is only possible on the
ideational plane of mental development. It implies, too, from the
ethical standpoint, a conscious departure from the standard of truth.
The black that is acted has conscious reference and relation to the
white that is not black. Few, however, will credit animals with deceit
of this fully conscious and deliberate kind. Like the fibs of little
children, the apparent deceit of animals is probably merely behaviour
which has been associated in experience with pleasant results.
The case of shamming sickness, quoted from K. Russ, is thus interpreted
by Professor Groos.[171] And yet he adds, “When we see deception used
so effectively to serve practical ends, examples of which are very
common, it can hardly be doubted that there is in all probability
more consciousness of shamming in play than we have any means of
demonstrating.” And elsewhere in the same work he observes,[172]
“Many a grown animal still takes pleasure in the mock combats that he
learned in youth. From a psychological point of view this phenomenon
is especially noteworthy, from the fact that the adult animal, though
already well acquainted with real fighting, still knows how to keep
within the bounds of play, and must therefore be consciously playing
a _rôle_, making believe.” I fail, however, to see the justification
for the “therefore.” Surely the difference of behaviour in this
example, and in other such examples, is sufficiently explained
as the outcome of diverse situations, without having recourse to
anything so psychologically complex as the conscious self-illusion of
make-believe--interesting and important as this is in the psychology
of children. To suppose that a monkey who nurses a bit of blanket has
any ideas about its being a make-believe baby is _not_ to interpret the
behaviour of animals in accordance with the canon we have adopted for
our guidance.
To return to the “ethics” of animals. I have urged that ethical ideas,
properly so called, have no place in their psychology. But just as the
pleasure and satisfaction attending particular situations, as they
severally arise, appear to contain the perceptual germs of what in
later development becomes æsthetic appreciation; so, too, do they also
contain the perceptual germs of what becomes, through reflection in
man, ethical approbation. And the situations in which these ethical
germs must be sought are those which entail behaviour for the good
of the social community. Indeed, we may go so far as to say that the
perceptual foundations of ethics are laid in the social instincts.
The satisfaction or dissatisfaction arising from the performance or
non-performance of instinctive behaviour, evolved for the biological
end of the preservation of the social community, is the perceptual
embryo from which conscience is developed. Professor Mackenzie has
indicated the ambiguities in the use of the term “conscience.” “It is,”
he says,[173] “sometimes used to express the fundamental principles
on which the moral judgment rests; at other times it expresses the
principles adopted by a particular individual; at other times it
means ‘a particular kind of pleasure or pain felt in perceiving our
own conformity or nonconformity to principle.’[174] This last seems
to me,” adds Mr. Mackenzie, “the most convenient acceptation of the
term, except that I should prefer to say simply that it is a feeling of
pain accompanying and resulting from our nonconformity to principle.”
According to this definition the existence of a principle or ideal is
presupposed; and the fact that Professor Mackenzie lays stress upon the
pain of nonconformity, shows that the ideal is a high one. In the case
of the animal, however, such an ideal of right conduct has probably not
taken form. But Mr. Mackenzie also speaks of the “quasi-conscience”
begotten of custom. This comes nearer to the feeling which animals may
be supposed to have when their behaviour does not accord with that
which through instinct or habit is the usage of the community. And
if, as seems to be shown by observation, animals sometimes punish the
breaches of such usage--when, for example, cats punish their kittens
for uncleanliness--the quasi-conscience will assume a more developed
form.
We may say, then, that the perceptual data are given in animal
experience from which, in ideational sublimation, ethical ideals may be
derived by a process of reflection and generalization. As in the case
of æsthetics, so in that of ethics; long ere, in the course of mental
evolution, the correlative conceptions implied in the phrase “right or
wrong” had taken definite form, perceptual situations must have arisen
in which behaviour carried with it the feelings of satisfaction or the
reverse which laid the foundations of that approbation of the right
which forms the superstructure we build upon them by the exercise of
reflective thought.
V.--THE EVOLUTION OF FEELING AND EMOTION
“Whatever conditions,” says Dr. Stout,[175] “further and favour
conation in the attainment of its end, yield pleasure. Whatever
conditions obstruct conation in the attainment of its end, are sources
of displeasure. This is the widest generalization which we can frame,
from a purely psychological point of view, as regards the conditions of
pleasure and displeasure respectively.” Here Dr. Stout seems carefully
to avoid the commonly accepted and much advertised conclusion, that
pleasure and pain (to use this more familiar word as the antithesis
of pleasure) are themselves the end of conative endeavour. And he is
so far right that they by no means constitute the sole or indeed the
primary end of all conative process. Attention is a conative act; but
its primary end is not pleasure, but rather, as Dr. Stout says,[176]
the fuller presentation of the object. No doubt this brings pleasure;
but the fuller presentation comes first, and carries the pleasure with
it. Instinctive response to felt stimulus falls within the conative
attitude. In it there is that “inherent tendency to pass beyond itself
and become something different,” which Dr. Stout assigns to conation as
its chief characteristic. But the end is not pleasure, but simply the
instinctive behaviour. And if we say that the attainment of this end
does bring satisfaction, which is a form of pleasure, Dr. Stout would
probably reply that this is rather a result of the process than its
true end.
Now, in such cases, what we are really dealing with is a class of
_organic_ processes having conscious accompaniments. No doubt the
conscious accompaniments are of importance; they certainly cannot
be neglected by the psychologist: but their feeling-tone does not
constitute that which makes instinct run its course. And I have
introduced the subject for present discussion in this way to reinforce
what has already been repeatedly urged in the foregoing pages, that
individual behaviour, in its first intent, is a biological legacy
with ends predetermined through heredity. The inherent tendency to
pass beyond itself and become something different, which for the
old psychology was a heaven-sent impulse, or, as Addison said, “an
immediate impression from the first Mover and the Divine energy acting
in the creatures,” becomes for the new psychology an organic bequest.
But the attainment of ends thus already predetermined has feeling-tone,
both as process and in its resulting consciousness, and this
feeling-tone serves to modify, through the situation it introduces,
future behaviour, and thus, in a sense, affords a new end to subsequent
conation.
“Life,” wrote James Martineau,[177] “is a cluster of wants physical,
intellectual, affectional, moral, each of which may have, and all
of which may miss, the fitting object. Is the object withheld or
lost? there is pain: is it restored or gained? there is pleasure:
does it abide or remain constant? there is content. The two first
are cases of disturbed equilibrium, and are so far dynamic that they
will not rest till they reach the third, which is their posture of
stability and their true end.” This is an adequate description of the
essential features in conative process. But in genetic precedence,
as in individual development, the physical wants come first, and,
at the outset of behaviour, the satisfaction or content is not and
cannot be foreseen, since it has never yet entered into experience.
To adopt a distinction suggested by Professor Mackenzie,[178] the
conation is _purposive_, since we see that an end is involved, but not
_purposeful_, since there is no definite consciousness of the end aimed
at. But when experience has introduced feeling-tone into the situation,
we may say that this, in a sense, introduces a new end to subsequent
behaviour.
Mr. Herbert Spencer has said[179] that pleasure is that which we seek
to bring into consciousness and retain there; pain, that which we seek
to get out of consciousness and keep out. May we assert, then, that,
in the modification of behaviour due to experience, the pleasure to be
gained or the pain to be avoided is the psychological end? Certainly
not without qualification, unless we be among those who are content
to accept any form of words which gives a general sort of notion of
the kind of thing which we suppose is meant, and which is probably
more or less correct. We want here and now to get clear ideas, and to
express them with some approach to accuracy. To say that pleasure is
the psychological end of intelligent behaviour is to put the matter
too subjectively and in too abstract a form. Professor Mackenzie has
clearly indicated the ambiguity in the word “pleasure.” “Pleasure,” he
says,[180] “is sometimes understood to mean agreeable _feeling_, or
the feeling of satisfaction, and sometimes it is understood to mean an
_object_ which gives satisfaction. The hearing of music is sometimes
said to be a pleasure, but of course the hearing of music is not a
feeling of satisfaction; it is an object that gives satisfaction.
Generally, it may be observed that when we speak of ‘pleasures’ in
the plural, or rather in the concrete, we mean objects that give
satisfaction; whereas when we speak of ‘pleasure’ in the abstract, we
more often mean the feeling of satisfaction which such objects bring
with them.” May we not go a step further, but entirely in the same
direction, and say that pleasure is a constituent part of the concept
self as an object of thought or desire; that its proper sphere is in
the ideational consciousness; and that, as we interpret the animal
mind, it has no place as such therein? The hedonist regards pleasure as
the most excellent and distinctive characteristic of his ideal self and
his ideal community. But animals have not risen or fallen to the level
of hedonism. Pleasure is not for them a motive of conduct, though nice
objects, as such, are attractive, and through them impulse acquires
direction and force.
If, in animal psychology, we are to use the words pleasure and pain
(as the antithesis of pleasure)--and they seem more properly to belong
to a plane of mental development to which animals probably have not
attained--we may say that the pleasure or the pain which attaches
to any centre of interest in the situation is that which gives it
attractive or repellent meaning; it furthers conation either towards
or, as Hobbes would say, fromwards. But if we put the matter in this
somewhat abstract form, let us keep in view, if it be only in the
background of our thought, the kind of concrete example which may
be adduced in its illustration--the dog with his attractive bone,
the kitten that has raced off at sight of him, the cock-sparrow with
trailing wings hopping after his mate, the falcon stooping on her
quarry, the rabbit diving into his burrow at sight of the fox, and so
forth. If we have such cases in view, where the centre of the situation
has acquired or is acquiring meaning, a meaning which in large degree
attaches to the external nucleus of the situation with only the germs
of subjective reference, we may, perhaps, summarize the position by
saying that in each case some pleasure to be gained or some pain to be
avoided is the psychological end of conation.
But in each case the conation has also a biological end--the
preservation and conservation of the race. “An animal,” said
Darwin,[181] “may be led to pursue that course which is most beneficial
to the species by suffering, such as pain, hunger, thirst, or fear; or
by pleasure, as in eating and drinking, and in the propagation of the
species; or by both combined, as in the search for food.” The important
point here to notice is that the two ends agree--the psychological
end of the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, and the
biological end of race preservation. Under the joint influence of
pleasure and pain, the needle of animal life sets towards the pole of
beneficial action.
This consonance of end was in old days ascribed to the beneficent
foresight of the Creator. The modern view, that it is a product of
evolution, does not necessarily ascribe it to any other ultimate cause.
For many still piously hold that evolution is only a name which we give
to the method of creation. And there is not a fact or generalization in
science by which such a conclusion can be disproved, for the premises
lie outside the field of scientific inquiry. But the consonance of
end is, for science, a remarkable fact, and one worthy of attentive
consideration.
We have already seen that, if the claim for the inheritance of acquired
characters be, on the evidence, judged unproven, and if instinct cannot
be ascribed to transmitted habit, or regarded as a legacy of that which
has been ancestrally acquired, the only scientific explanation of
instinctive behaviour is one which involves the principle of natural
selection. But no one doubts that, in the course of experience, animals
acquire modes of procedure which are beneficial to the race. This is
well seen in the play of animals as interpreted by Professor Groos.
Now, why do animals play? From the psychological point of view, because
they like it; from the biological point of view, because they thus gain
practice and preparation for the serious business of their after-life.
But why do they like it? because, under natural selection, those who
did not like it, and therefore did not play, proved unfit for life’s
struggle, and were eliminated. Suppose that an animal were born with a
rooted hereditary aversion to everything nutritious and an inherited
hunger for anything harmful and unfit for food. What chance would it
stand of survival? Hereditary likes and dislikes determine the general
course of acquired behaviour, just as hereditary nerve-connections
determine the course of instinctive behaviour. Wherein, then, lies
the difference between the two? In the fact that in the one case the
nerve-connections are transmitted ready-made, while in the other they
result from association or coalescence in the course of individual
life. But in both cases the pursuit and attainment of the beneficial
brings satisfaction.
Now, the consonance of end has long been regarded as an inevitable
deduction from the hypothesis of evolution. “That pains are
correlatives of actions injurious to the organism,” wrote Mr. Herbert
Spencer in his “Principles of Psychology,”[182] “while pleasures are
the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare, is an induction
not based on the vital functions only. It is an inevitable deduction
from the hypothesis of evolution, that races of sentient creatures
could have come into existence under no other conditions. Those
races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average,
agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to
the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually avoided
feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive
of life, and there must ever have been, other things being equal, the
most numerous and long-continued survivals among races in which these
adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, tending ever to
perfect adjustment.” And he safeguards the position by adding: “It is
frequently taken for granted that the beneficial actions secured must
be actions beneficial to the individual; whereas the only necessity is
that they shall be beneficial to the race.”
This aspect of the consonance is now quite familiar; but let us
carefully note how completely dependent it is on natural selection. Mr.
Herbert Spencer’s testimony is especially valuable, since he has always
laid much stress on the hereditary transmission of acquired characters
and still holds[183] “that the inheritance of functionally-caused
alterations has played a larger part than Darwin admitted even at the
close of his life; and that, coming more to the front as evolution has
advanced, it has played the chief part in producing the highest types.”
Now, in these types we certainly find a wide range of consonance
between the psychological and the biological ends of behaviour; of
which the phenomena of play may again be adduced as an example. Hence
the special value of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s testimony to the part played
by natural selection in establishing the consonance. “Only those races
of beings,” he says, “_can have survived_ in which, on the average,
agreeable feelings went along with activities conducive to life;” and
again, “The most numerous _survivals_ must ever have been among races
in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best.” The
stress is here laid on the survival of those in which the consonance
has obtained; the elimination of those in which it was absent: that
is to say, on natural selection. And where else can it be laid? It is
not the sort of thing which could be acquired. Suppose that, as we
suggested above, an animal were born with a rooted hereditary aversion
to everything nutritious and an inherited hunger for anything harmful
and unfit for food. Under what conceivable conditions could such an
animal acquire a complete change of its affective nature? Animals like
things or they do not like them; only to a very limited extent, if at
all, under natural conditions, can they learn to like them. We, indeed,
can in some degree learn to take pleasure in that which at first, and
by nature, is distasteful; but we do so by some external constraint, or
from some motive of ideational origin. We put pressure upon ourselves,
or have pressure put upon us, repeatedly to perform some irksome task;
we fall into routine and custom; and the performance becomes so far
second nature that its discontinuance produces an uncomfortable sense
of something lacking in the daily round. Perhaps domestic animals learn
to like the good offices we force them to perform for us. But here we
have the element of external constraint, which is wholly, or almost
wholly, absent under natural conditions. And there is no evidence
that such acquired likings are inherited. That, however, is another
question. Our present point is that, under nature, the conditions of
such acquisition are lacking; so that, there being no acquisition,
there is, in this case, nothing acquired to be transmitted.
But, so far as behaviour is concerned, “functionally caused
alterations” are those due to the exercise of intelligence, by which
the behaviour acquires direction and character in reference to the
meaning introduced into the situations. See, then, the position
to which we are logically driven. The acquisition of that which
has beneficial value in behaviour depends on a consonance between
psychological and biological end. But this consonance is dependent
on survival, and, apart from special creation, or some kindred
hypothesis such as Leibnitzian harmony, can be due to nothing else.
Even if we grant, therefore, that the effects of acquisition are
inherited, the conditions of beneficial acquisition are dependent on
natural selection. And thus the inheritance of acquired characters,
which is so often urged as a principle of evolution independent of
natural selection, is, so far as intelligent behaviour is concerned,
indirectly, if not directly, due to this very natural selection of
which it is said to be independent. Surely, under these circumstances,
the hypothesis in question may be said to be not only unproven, but
altogether unnecessary.
And what is true of those diverse feelings which we group under
the concepts pleasure and pain respectively, is true also of those
more complex dispositions which we call emotional--using this term
in a broad and comprehensive sense. We say that in their primary
manifestations they are instinctive; and they certainly seem to
accompany organic behaviour due to co-ordinated reflex actions. But
the emotion, as instinctive, is a matter only of its first occurrence.
In the course of experience it enters into conscious situations, the
centres of interest in which have acquired meaning.
Take a particular case.[184] Your dog is dozing on the lawn in the
sunshine. Suddenly he raises his head, pricks his ears, scents the air,
looks fixedly at a gap in the hedge, and utters a low growl. Place
your hand on his shoulder, and you will find that his muscles are all
a-tremble; on his ribs, and you will feel how strongly his heart is
beating. Soon the growing excitement leads to vigorous action, and he
darts through the gap. You follow him across the lawn, look over the
hedge, and see him facing his old enemy, the butcher’s cur. They are
moving slowly past each other, head down, teeth bared, back roughened.
You whistle softly. Such a call would generally bring him bounding to
your feet; but now it is apparently unheard, at any rate unheeded. The
two dogs have a short scuffle, and the cur slinks off. Your dog races
after him; and he flees, yelping. The situation is over. Spot returns,
wagging his short tail, jumps up at you playfully, and then lies down
again on the grass. But now and then, for ten minutes or so, he raises
his head and growls softly.
Let us briefly analyze the dog’s condition and actions, reading into
them, conjecturally, the accompaniments in consciousness. As he lies
on the lawn, he receives a sense-stimulus, auditory or olfactory. It
has already acquired meaning, from many a tussle with the butcher’s
cur. It has organic effects, and it generates a conscious situation
which has acquired complexity through coalescence. As the result of
this situation the head is raised, the ears pricked, and so on. The
dog is on the alert. His attention is aroused. The muscles of neck,
eyes, ears, are brought into play in such a way as to bring the senses
to bear on the exciting object. He probably sees the cur through the
gap in the hedge. The muscles of the frame are innervated so as to be
in a state of preparation to act rapidly and forcibly. At the same
time the vaso-motor system is disturbed, the heart-beat is quickened,
respiration is altered; there is probably hardly an organ in the body
which remains unaffected. Then the dog rushes through the hedge,
and stands with bared teeth before his antagonist. A whole set of
appropriate muscles are now strongly innervated. There is, perhaps,
a double innervation, stimulating to activity and yet restraining
from action. He bares his teeth and growls deeply. Attention is so
concentrated that he heeds not, perhaps does not hear, his master’s
whistle. He is keenly on the alert. The blood-system, respiratory
organs, and all his inner machinery are still pulsating with nervous
thrills; his back is up. Then he sees his chance, and flies at his
opponent. Much that he has learnt in play, and all that he has learnt
in earnest, comes to his aid in the short angry scuffle. And what we
call his emotion of anger spurs him on to the fight; the cowardly dog
in which this is lacking or is replaced by fear is spurred to flight.
Each may contribute to self-preservation, but in different ways.
Now, we shall not attempt to determine how the distinctively emotional
elements arise. Some think they arise by a sort of irradiating nervous
diffusion in the nerve-centres as a direct result of the originating
stimulus. Mr. Rutgers Marshall regards them as due to the motor
activities in fight or flight; Professor William James contends that
they have their source in the visceral affections of heart, lungs,
glands, and so forth; Professor Lange attributes them to vaso-motor
effects. The problem is a difficult one, and hard to determine by
experiment; for we have to deal with a matter of primary genesis, of
how they are at the outset introduced into the conscious situation.
Experiments on animals which have already gained emotional experience
cannot decide the question of genesis. Professor Sherrington, for
example, has shown[185] that, after severance of the spinal cord in
the lower region of the neck, and of the vagus nerves, by which “a
huge field of vascular, visceral, cutaneous, and motor reaction”
were “deprived of all connection with the nervous centre necessary
to conscious response,” “the emotional states of anger, delight at
being caressed, fear and disgust were developed with, as far as could
be seen, unlessened strength.” But the avenues of connection were
closed _after_ the motor and visceral effects had played their parts
in the _genesis_ of the emotion on the hypothesis that the emotion is
thus generated. Although new presentative data of this type were thus
excluded, their re-presentative after-effects in the situation were
not excluded. It is, moreover, an essential part of Professor James’s
doctrine, as I provisionally accept it, that the “expression” and the
visceral and vascular efforts are independent results of stimulation in
certain ways, and that these independent results are conjoined through
natural selection. Suppose we sever the connection through which the
one takes effect, there is no reason to expect that the manifestation
of the other would cease. Professor Sherrington cut off the channels of
communication with the visceral and vascular apparatus: if the channels
of expression remained open there is no reason why such expression
should cease.
We need not, however, for our present purpose, attempt to ascertain how
the distinctively emotional characteristics arise. It is sufficient
that they are presumably present in the situation. Now, as Dr. Stout
well points out,[186] the emotions generally presuppose the existence
of certain specific tendencies. “The anger produced in a dog by
taking away its bone presupposes the specific appetite for food. The
anger produced in it by interfering with its young presupposes the
specific tendency to guard and tend its offspring. So the presence of
a rival who interferes with its wooing causes anger because of the
pre-existence of the sexual impulse.” In general, we may say that
emotional states are, under natural conditions, closely associated with
behaviour of biological value--with tendencies which are beneficial
in self-preservation or race-preservation--with actions that promote
survival, and especially with the behaviour which clusters round the
pairing and parental instincts. The value of the emotions in animals
is that they are an indirect means of furthering survival. But how has
the close association between emotional condition and the biological
end it furthers been established? Again, we must say that under natural
conditions it is not the sort of thing which could be acquired. And
again we must urge that natural selection through survival is, apart
from some theory of pre-established harmony, the only hypothesis in the
field on which the close association can be explained.
There is one more point to which attention may be drawn. If there be
one thing, and there certainly are not many, on which all writers on
the emotions are agreed, it is as to their vagueness. They do not
readily submit to definition, and cannot be described in a sentence.
This is not due to any indefiniteness of biological end, nor to much
indefiniteness in the mode of “expression;” it is due, rather, to
an inherent dimness and haziness of psychological outline. We seem
unable to focus them and get a clear-cut result. This is, no doubt,
in part due to the complexity of emotional states. But, may it not be
largely due to the fact that there is no necessity for definiteness?
They fulfil their purpose just as well if they are vague. It is quite
necessary for the dog to have a clear-cut impression of his antagonist;
and, on the cognitive side of consciousness, meaning must be in some
degree definite to be of real value. But, so long as the emotion raises
the temperature, so to speak, to the boiling-point of vigorous action,
it matters little what the psychological source of heat may be. If this
be so, we should expect an emotional vagueness, since natural selection
puts no premium upon emotional definiteness. And from this it follows,
as a corollary, that, whereas we may infer that an animal’s perceptual
products are probably closely similar to our own, since sight, touch,
hearing, smell, and taste are of value in so far as they convey
definite meaning, in interpreting their feelings and emotions we have
less secure grounds of inference, since all that is requisite is that
there should be a sufficiently high emotional temperature to afford the
conditions for definite and vigorous action.
In conclusion, then, we may say that the primary purpose of the
evolution of feeling and emotion is to promote beneficial behaviour,
and that the observed consonance of the psychological end of attaining
satisfaction, and the biological end of securing survival, seems to be
due to natural selection--is, indeed, scarcely explicable on any other
naturalistic hypothesis.
A word of warning may be added. We have repeatedly spoken of biological
and psychological ends. By this we mean what seems to the observer, as
an interpreter of natural processes, the purpose and object of their
existence. But the word “end” is often used in such a way as to imply
foresight and contrivance on the part of a rational being. We have not
used it in this sense. Whether the whole of nature, including animal
behaviour, is driven onwards to definite ends by an underlying Cause,
is a metaphysical question. It is not one on which science has any
right to express an opinion one way or the other. Science deals with
the phenomena; the causes of their being lie outside her province.