THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE OF FUNCTIONS
We have sketched hastily the development of the human body. This
portion of our history is marked by the successive dominance of
higher and higher functions. It is a history treating of successive
eras. There is first the period of the dominance of reproduction and
digestion, purely vegetative functions, characteristics of the plant
just as truly as of the animal. This period extends from the
beginning of life up to the time when the annelid was the highest
living form yet developed. But in insects and lower vertebrates
another system has risen to dominance. This is muscle. The
vertebrate no longer devotes all, or the larger part, of its income
to digestion and reproduction. If it did, it would degenerate or
disappear. The stomach and intestine are improved, but only that
they may furnish more abundant nutriment for building and supporting
more powerful muscles better arranged. The history of vertebrates is
a record of the struggle for supremacy between successive groups of
continually greater and better applied muscular power. Here strength
and activity seem to be the goal of animal development, and the
prize falls to the strongest or most agile. The earth is peopled by
huge reptiles, or mammals of enormous strength, and by birds of
exceeding swiftness. This portion of our history covers the era of
muscular activity.
But these huge brutes are mostly doomed to extinction, and the bird
fails of supremacy in the animal kingdom. "The race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong." All the time another system
has been slowly developing. The complicated nervous system has
required ages for its construction and arrangement. Only in the
highest mammals does the brain assert its right to supremacy. But
once established on its throne the brain reigns supreme; its right
is challenged by no other organ. The possibilities of all the other
organs, _as supreme rulers_, have been exhausted. Each one has been
thoroughly tested, and its inadequacy proven beyond doubt by actual
experiment. These formerly supreme lower organs must serve the
higher. The age of man's existence on the globe is, and must remain,
the era of mind. For the mind alone has an inexhaustible store of
possibilities.
The development of all these systems is simultaneous. From the very
beginning all the functions have been represented, all the systems
have been gradually advancing. Hydra has a nervous system just as
really as man. It has no brain, but it has the potentiality and
promise of one, and is taking the necessary steps toward its
attainment. But while the development of all is simultaneous, their
culmination and supremacy is successive, first stomach and muscle,
then brain and mind. That was not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. But now
that the mind has once become supreme, man must live and work
chiefly for its higher development. Thus alone is progress possible.
But the word mind calls up before us a long list of powers. And the
questions arise, Is one mode and line of mental action just as much
the goal of man's development as another? Is man to cultivate the
appetite for food and sense gratification just as much as the hunger
for righteousness? Or is appetite in the mind like digestion in the
body, a function, necessary indeed and once dominant, but no longer
fitted for supreme control? Is there in the development of the
mental powers or functions just as really a sequence of dominance as
in that of the bodily functions? Are there older and lower powers
and modes of action, which, though once supreme, must now be rigidly
kept down in their proper lower place? Are there lower motives, for
which the very laws of evolution forbid us to live, just as truly as
they forbid a man's living for stomach or brute strength instead of
brain and mind? Are these lower powers merely the foundation
on which the higher motives and powers are to rise in their
transcendent glory? This is the question which we now must face,
and it is of vital importance.
We have come to one of the most important and difficult subjects of
zoölogy. Let us distinctly recognize that it is not our task to
explain the origin of mind, or even of a single mental faculty. I
shall take for granted what many of you will not admit, that the
germs of all man's highest mental powers are present undeveloped in
the mind, if you will call it so, of the amoeba. The limits of
this course of lectures have required us to choose between
alternatives, either to attempt to prove the truth of the theory of
evolution, or taking this for granted, to attempt to find its
bearings on our moral and religious beliefs. I have chosen the
latter course, and here, as elsewhere, will abide by it. I should
not have followed such a course if I did not thoroughly believe that
man also, in mind as well as body, is the product of evolution. But
this is no reason for your accepting these views. You are asked only
to judge impartially of the tendencies of the theory. We take for
granted, I repeat, that all man's mental faculties are germinally,
potentially, present in protoplasm; we seek the history of their
development.
We must remember, further, that the science of animal or comparative
psychology is yet in its infancy. Even reliable facts are only
slowly being sifted and recorded in sufficient numbers to make
deductions at all safe. And even of these facts different writers
give very different explanations. As Mr. Romanes has well said, "All
our knowledge of mental faculties, other than our own, really
consists of an inferential interpretation of bodily activities--this
interpretation being founded on our subjective knowledge of our own
mental activities. By inference we project, as it were, the human
pattern of our own mental chromograph on what is to us the otherwise
blank screen of another mind." The value and clearness of our
inferences will be proportional to the similarity of the animal to
ourselves. Thus we can educate many of our higher mammals by a
system of rewards and punishments, and we seem therefore to have
good reason to believe that fear and joy, anger and desire, certain
powers of perception and inference, are in their minds similar to
our own. But fear in a fish is certainly a much dimmer apprehension
of danger than in us, even if it deserves the name of apprehension.
And the mental state which we call "alarm" in a fly or any lower
animal is very difficult to clearly imagine or at all express in
terms of our own mind.
Some investigators have made the mistake of projecting into the
animal mind all our emotions and complicated trains of thought. Thus
Schwammerdam apparently credits the snail with remorse for the
commission of excesses. Others go to the other extreme and make
animals hardly more than mindless automata. We are warned,
therefore, by our very mode of study, to be cautious, not too
absolutely sure of our results, nor indignant at others who may take
a very different view. And yet by moving cautiously and accepting
only what seems fairly clear and evident we may arrive at very
valuable and tolerably sure results.
The human mind, and the animal mind apparently, manifests itself in
three states or functions. These are intelligence, the realm of
knowledge; susceptibility, the realm or state of feelings or
emotions; will, the power or state of choice. Let us trace first the
development of intelligence or the intellect in the animal. Let us
try to discover what kinds of knowledge are successively attained
and the mode and sequence of their attainment. Hydra appears to be
conscious of its food. It recognizes it partially by touch, perhaps
also by feeling the waves caused by its approach. It seems also to
recognize food at a little distance by a power comparable to our
sense of smell. Stronger impacts cause it to contract. It neither
sees nor hears; it probably does little or no thinking. Its
knowledge is therefore limited to the recognition of objects either
in contact with, or but slightly removed from, itself. And its
recognition of the objects is very dim and incomplete, obtained
through the sense of touch and smell.
A little higher in the animal world a rude ear has developed, first
as a very delicate organ for feeling the waves caused by approaching
food or enemies; only later as an organ of hearing. Meanwhile the
eye has been developing, to perceive the subtle ether vibrations.
The eye of the turbellaria distinguishes only light from darkness,
that of the annelid is a true visual organ. Now the brain can begin
to perceive the shape of objects at a little distance. Touch and
smell, hearing, sight; such is sequence of sense perceptions. The
sense-organs respond to continually more delicate and subtle
impacts, and cover an ever-widening range of more and more distant
objects. Up to this point intelligence has hardly included more than
sense-perceptions.
But these sense-perceptions have been all the time spurring the mind
to begin a higher work. At first it is conscious merely of objects,
and its main effort is to gain a clearer and clearer perception of
these.
Now it is led to undertake, so to speak, the work of a sense-organ
of a higher grade. It begins to directly see invisible relations
just as truly as through the eye it has perceived light. First
perhaps it perceives that certain perceptions and experiences,
agreeable or disagreeable, occur in a certain sequence. It begins to
associate these. It learns thus to recognize the premonitory
symptoms of nature's favor or disfavor, and thus gains food or
avoids dangers. The bee learns to associate accessible nectar with a
certain spot on the flower marked by bright dots or lines,
"honey-guides," and the chimpanzee that when a hen cackles there is
an egg in the nest. But association is only the first lesson;
inference and understanding follow.
The child at kindergarten receives a few blocks. It admires and
plays with them. Then it is taught to notice their form. After a
time it arranges them in groups and learns the first elements of
number. But when it has advanced to higher mathematics, the blocks,
or figures on the blackboard, become only symbols or means of
illustrating the great theorems and propositions of that science.
Thus the animal has begun in the kindergarten way to dimly perceive
that there are real, though intangible and invisible, relations
between objects. But what is all human science but the clearer
vision, and farther search into, and tracing of these same
relations? And what is all advance of knowledge but a perception of
ever subtler relations? What is even the knowledge of right but the
perception of the subtlest and deepest and widest relations of man
to his environment? The animal seems to be steadily advancing along
the path toward the perception of abstract truth, though man alone
really attains it.
And the higher power of association and inference which we call
understanding, aided by memory, results in the power of learning by
experience, so characteristic of higher vertebrates. The hunted bird
or mammal very quickly becomes wary. A new trap catches more than a
better old one until the animals have learned to understand it, and
young animals are trapped more easily than old. Cases showing the
limitations of mammalian intelligence are interesting in this
connection. A cat which wished to look out and find the cause of a
noise outside, when all the windows were closed by wooden blinds,
jumped upon a stand and looked into a mirror. Her inference as to
the general use of glass was correct; all its uses had not yet come
within the range of her experience. A monkey used to stop a hole in
the side of a cage with straw. The keeper, to tease him, used to
pull this out. But one day the monkey tugged at a nail in the side
of his cage until he had pulled it out, and thrust it into the hole.
But when it was pushed back he fell into a rage. His inference that
the nail-head could not be pulled through was entirely correct; he
had failed to foresee that it could be pushed back. Many such
instances have probably come within the range of your observation,
if you have noticed them. But many of the facts which Mr. Romanes
gives us concerning the intelligence of monkeys, apes, and baboons
would not disgrace the intelligence of children or men.
Mr. Romanes relates the following account of a little capuchin
monkey from Brazil:
"To-day he obtained possession of a hearth-brush, one of the kind
which has the handle screwed into the brush. He soon found the
way to unscrew the handle, and having done that he immediately
began to try to find out the way to screw it in again. This he in
time accomplished. At first he put the wrong end of the handle
into the hole, but turned it round and round the right way for
screwing. Finding it did not hold he turned the other end of the
handle and carefully stuck it into the hole, and began again to
turn it the right way. It was of course a difficult feat for him
to perform, for he required both his hands in order to screw it
in, and the long bristles of the brush prevented it from
remaining steady or with the right side up. He held the brush
with his hind hand, but even so it was very difficult for him to
get the first turn of the screw to fit into the thread; he worked
at it, however, with the most unwearying perseverance until he
got the first turn of the screw to catch, and he then quickly
turned it round and round until it was screwed up to the end. The
most remarkable thing was, that however often he was disappointed
in the beginning, he never was induced to try turning the handle
the wrong way; he always screwed it from right to left. As soon
as he had accomplished his wish he unscrewed it again, and then
screwed it in again the second time rather more easily than the
first, and so on many times. When he had become by practice
tolerably perfect in screwing and unscrewing, he gave it up and
took to some other amusement. One remarkable thing is that he
should take so much trouble to do that which is no material
benefit to him. The desire to accomplish a chosen task seems a
sufficient inducement to lead him to take any amount of trouble.
This seems a very human feeling, such as is not shown, I believe,
by any other animal. It is not the desire of praise, as he never
notices people looking on; it is simply the desire to achieve an
object for the sake of achieving an object, and he never rests
nor allows his attention to be distracted until it is done....
"As my sister once observed while we were watching him conducting
some of his researches, in oblivion to his food and all his other
surroundings--'When a monkey behaves like this it is no wonder
that man is a scientific animal!'"[A]
[Footnote A: Romanes: Animal Intelligence, pp. 490, 498.]
In the highest mammals we find also different degrees of attention
and concentration of thought and observation. This difference can
easily be noticed in young hunting dogs. A trainer of monkeys said
that he could easily select those which could most easily be taught,
by noticing in the first lesson whether he could easily gain and
hold their attention. This was easy with some, while others were
diverted by every passing fly; and the latter, like heedless
students, made but slow progress.
It is interesting to notice that one of the perceptions which we
class among the highest is apparently developed comparatively early.
I refer to the æsthetic perception of the beautiful. Now, the
perception of beauty is generally considered as not very far below
or removed from the perception of truth and right. But some insects
and birds apparently possess this perception and the corresponding
emotion in no low degree. The colors of flowers seem to exist mainly
for the attraction of insects to insure cross-fertilization, and
certain insects seem to prefer certain colors. But you may say that
these afford merely sense gratification like that which green
affords to our eyes or sugar to our tastes.
But does not the grouping of colors in the flower appeal to some
æsthetic standard in the mind of the insect? What of the tail of the
peacock? Its iridescent rings and eyes evidently appeal to something
in the mind of the female. Do form and grouping minister to pure
sense gratification? What of the song of the thrush? Does not the
orderly and harmonious arrangement of notes and cadences appeal to
some standard of order of arrangement, and hence idea of harmony, in
the mind of the bird's mate?
Now, I grant you readily that the A B C of this training is mere
sense gratification at the sight of bright colors. Most insects and
birds have probably not advanced much beyond this first lesson.
Savages have generally stopped there or reverted to it. But any
appreciation of form and harmonious arrangement of cadence and
colors seems to me at least to demand some perception which we must
call æsthetic, or dangerously near it. But here you must judge
carefully for yourselves lest you be misled. For remember, please,
that those schemes of psychology farthest removed from, and least
readily reconcilable to, the theory of evolution maintain that
perception of beauty is the work of the rational faculty, which also
perceives truth and right in much the same way that it perceives
and recognizes beauty. If the animal has the æsthetic perception, it
has the faculty which, at the next higher stage of development, will
perceive, and recognize as such, both truth and right. We are
considering no unimportant question; for on our answer to this
depends our answer to questions of far greater importance.
Does it look as if the animal had begun to learn the first rudiments
of the great science of rights, of his own rights and those of
others? This is an exceedingly difficult question, though often
answered unhesitatingly in the negative. But what of the division of
territory by the dogs in oriental cities, a division evidently
depending upon something outside of mere brute strength and power to
maintain, and their respect of boundaries? The female is allowed, I
am told by an eye-witness long resident in Constantinople, to
distribute her puppies in unoccupied spots through the city without
interference. But when she has once located them, she is not allowed
to return and visit them, or pass that way again. So the account by
Dr. Washburn of platoons of dogs coming in turn, and peaceably, to
feed on a dead donkey in the streets of Constantinople, would seem
to be most naturally explained by some dim recognition of rights.
Rook communities have not received the attention and investigation
which they deserve, but their actions are certainly worthy of
attention. Concerning the sense of ownership in dogs and other
mammals opinions differ, and yet many facts are most naturally
explained on such a supposition.
Just one more question in this connection, for we are in the
borderland or twilightland where it is much safer to ask questions
than to attempt to answer them. How do you explain the "instinctive"
fear of man on the part of wild and fierce animals? They certainly
do not quail before his brute strength, for a blow at such a time
breaks the charm and insures an attack. They quail before his eye
and look. Is not this the answering of a personality in the animal
to the personality in man; a recognition of something deeper than
bone and muscle? And may not, as Mr. Darwin has urged, this fear in
the presence of a higher personality be the dim foreshadowing of an
awe which promises indefinitely better things? Is, after all, the
attachment of a dog to his master something far deeper than an
appetite for bones or pats, or a fear of kicks?
A host of other and similar questions throng upon us here, to no one
of which we can give a definite answer. We need more investigation,
more light. We must not rest contented with old prejudices or accept
with too great certainty new explanations. The questions are worthy
of careful and patient investigation. The study of comparative
anatomy has thrown a flood of light on the structure and working of
the human body in health and disease. We shall never fully
understand the mind of man until we know more of the working of the
mind of the animal.
It would seem to be clear that there is a sequence of dominance in
the faculties of the intellect. First, the only means of acquiring
knowledge is through sense-perception. But memory dawns far down in
the animal kingdom. And thus the animal begins to associate past
experience with present objects. The bee remembers the gaining of
honey in the past, associated with the color of the flower which she
now sees, and knows that honey is to be attained again. Thus in time
association leads to inference, and understanding has dawned. But
the highest faculty of the intellect is the rational intelligence,
which perceives beauty, truth, and goodness. This is the last to
develop. Traces of its working may be perhaps discovered below man,
but only in man does it become dominant. Through it I perceive my
rights and duties, and come to the consciousness of my own
personality as a moral agent. This tells me of the relation of my
own personality to other persons and things. And these are evidently
the most important objects of human study. The attainment of this
knowledge and the development of this faculty are evidently the goal
of human intellectual development. This it is which has insured
progress and raised man ever higher above the brutes.
Before we can proceed to the study of the will we must clearly
recognize and define certain modes of mental and nervous action,
which sooner or later manifest themselves in muscular activity. For,
while certain of our bodily activities are clearly voluntary, others
take place wholly, or in part independently, of the individual will.
Between these different modes of bodily action we must distinguish
as clearly as may be possible.
1. Reflex Action. I touch something cold or hot in the dark,
suddenly and unexpectedly. I draw back my hand involuntarily and
before I have perceived the sensation of cold or heat. You tell me
to keep my eyes open while you make a sudden pass at them with your
hand. I try hard to do so, but my eyes shut for all that. I shut
them unconsciously and against my own will. I say, "They shut of
themselves." Now, this is not true, but the explanation is not
difficult. These and similar actions are entirely possible, although
the continuity between spinal marrow and brain may have been so
interrupted by some accident that sensation in the reflexly active
part fails altogether. A bird flaps its wings after its head is cut
off, and yet the seat of consciousness and will is certainly in the
brain. A patient with a "broken back," and paralyzed in his legs,
will draw up his feet if they are tickled, although he is entirely
unable to move them by any effort of his will and has no
consciousness of the irritation.
The physiological action is in this case clear. The vibration of the
nerve caused by the tickling travels from the foot to the
appropriate centre in the spinal marrow, and here gives rise to, or
is switched off as, a motor impulse travelling back to the muscles
of the leg, causing them to contract. In the injured patient the
nervous impulse cannot reach the brain, the seat of consciousness,
and hence this is not awakened. Normally consciousness does result
in a majority of such cases, but only after the beginning or
completion of the appropriate action. Yet the movements of our
internal organs, intestine and heart, go on continually, and in
health we remain entirely unconscious of their action.
But reflex actions may be anything but simple. We walk and talk, and
write or play the piano without ever thinking of a single muscle or
organ. Yet we had once to learn with much effort to take each step
or frame each letter. Thus actions, originally conscious and
intended, easily become reflex; often repeated the brain leaves
their control to the lower centres. We often say, "I did not intend
to do that; I could not help it." We forget that this excuse is our
worst condemnation. It is a confession that we have allowed or
encouraged a habit to wear a groove from which the wheels of our
life cannot escape. The essential characteristic of reflex action is
therefore that from beginning to completion it goes on independently
of consciousness.
2. Instinct. This is a much-abused word. It is frequently applied to
all the mental actions of animals without much thought or care as to
its meaning. Let us gain a definition from the study of a typical
case lest we use the word as a cloak for ignorance or negligent
thoughtlessness. Watch a spider building its wonderful geometrical
web. The web is a work of art, and every motion of the spider
beautifully adapted to its purpose. But the spider is not therefore
necessarily an artist. Let us see of how much the spider is probably
conscious, remembering that our best judgment is but an inference.
We have good reason to believe that she is conscious of the stimulus
to action, hunger. She may be, probably is, conscious of the end to
be attained--to catch a fly for her dinner. She seems conscious of
what she is doing. In all these respects this differs from reflex
action. But she is probably unconscious of the exact fitness of the
means to the end. We do not believe that she has adopted the
geometrical pattern, because she has discovered or calculated that
this will make the closest and largest net for the smallest outlay
of labor and material. Furthermore the young spider builds
practically as good a web as the old one. She has inherited the
power, not developed or gained it by experience or observation. And
all the members of the species have inherited it in much the same
degree of perfection.
Concerning the origin of instincts there are several theories. Some
instincts would seem to be the result of non-intelligent, perhaps
unconscious, habits becoming fixed by heredity and improved by
natural selection; others would appear to be modifications of
actions originally due to intelligence. Instinct is therefore
characterized by consciousness of the stimulus to act, of the means
and end, without the knowledge of the exact adaptation of means to
end. It is hereditary and characterizes species or large groups.
3. Intelligent Action. You come in cold and sit down before an open
fire. You push the brands together to make the fire burn. Applying
once more the criterion of consciousness to this action we notice
that you are conscious of the stimulus to act, of the steps of the
action, and of the end to be attained, exactly as in instinctive
action. But finally, and this is the essential characteristic of
intelligent action, you are aware to a certain extent of the fitness
of the means to the attainment of the end. This piece of knowledge
you had to acquire for yourself. Erasmus Darwin defined a fool as a
man who had never tried an experiment. Experience and observation,
not heredity, are the sources of intelligence. Intelligence is power
to think, and a man may be very learned--for do we not have learned
pigs?--and yet have very little real intelligence. Hence this is
possessed by different individuals in very varying degrees.
We may now briefly compare these three kinds of nervous action.
Reflex action is involuntary and unconscious. The actor may, and
usually does, become conscious of the action after it has been
commenced or completed, but this is not at all necessary or
universal.
Instinctive action is to a certain extent voluntary and conscious.
The actor is conscious of the stimulus, the means and mode, and the
end or purpose of the action. Of the exact fitness or adaptation of
the means to the end the actor is unconscious.
Intelligent action is conscious and voluntary. The actor is
conscious of the stimulus to act, of the means and mode, and to a
certain extent of the adaptation of the means to the end. This last
item of knowledge, lacking in instinctive action, is acquired by
experience or observation.
Reflex action may be regarded as a comparatively mechanical, though
often very complex, process; the reflex ganglia appear to be hardly
more than switch-boards. There is stimulus of the sense-organs, and
thus what Mr. Romanes has called "unfelt sensation," unfelt as far
as the completion of the action is concerned. But in instinct the
sensation no longer remains unfelt; perception is necessary,
consciousness plays a part. And this consciousness is a vastly more
subtle element, differing as much apparently from the vibration of
brain, or nervous, molecules as the Geni from the rubbing of
Aladdin's lamp, to borrow an illustration.
But this element of consciousness is one which it is exceedingly
difficult to detect in our analysis, and yet upon it our
classification and the psychic position of an animal must to a
great extent depend. The amoeba contracts when pricked,
jelly-fishes swim toward the light, the earthworm, "alarmed" by the
tread of your foot, withdraws into its hole. Are these and similar
actions reflex or instinctive? A grain of consciousness preceding an
action which before has been reflex changes it into instinct. Mr.
Romanes, probably correctly, regards them as purely reflex. We must,
I think, believe that these actions result in consciousness even in
the lowest forms. The selection and attainment of food certainly
looks like conscious action. Probably all nerve-cells or nervous
material were originally, even in the lowest forms, dimly conscious;
then by division of labor some became purely conductive, others more
highly perceptive. The important thing for us to remember in our
present ignorance is not to be dogmatic.
Furthermore, the gain of a grain of consciousness of the adaptation
of certain means to special ends changes instinctive action into
intelligent, and its loss may reverse the process. Fortunately we
have found that in so far as actions, even instinctive, are modified
by experience, they are becoming to that extent intelligent. This
criterion of intelligence seems easily applied. But this profiting
by experience must manifest itself within the lifetime of the
individual, or in lines outside of circumstances to which its
ordinary instincts are adapted, or we may give to individual
intelligence the credit due really to natural selection. We must be
cautious in our judgments.
These reflex actions are performed independently of consciousness or
will. Consciousness may, probably does, attend the selection and
grasping of food; but most of the actions of the body will go on
better without its interference. It is not yet sufficiently
developed, or, so to speak, wise enough to be intrusted with much
control of the animal.
Among higher worms cases of instinct seem proven. Traces of it will
almost certainly be yet found much lower down. Fresh-water mussels
migrate into deeper water at the approach of cold weather. And if
the clam has instincts, there is no reason why the turbellaria
should not also possess them. But all higher powers develop
gradually, and their beginnings usually elude our search. Along the
line leading from annelids to insects instinct is becoming dominant.
A supraoesophageal ganglion has developed, and has been relieved
of most of the direct control of the muscles. Very good sense-organs
are also present. From this time on consciousness becomes clearer,
and the brain is beginning to assert its right to at least know what
is going on in the body, and to have something to say about it.
Still, as long as the actions remain purely instinctive the brain,
while conscious, is governed by heredity. The animal does as its
ancestors always have. It does not occur to it to ask why it should
do thus or otherwise, or whether other means would be better fitted
to the end in view. It acts exactly like most of the members of our
great political and theological parties. And until the animal has a
better brain this is its best course and is favored by natural
selection.
But the hand of even the best dead ancestors cannot always be
allowed to hold the helm. The brain is still enlarging, the
sense-organs bring in fuller and more definite reports of a wider
environment. Greater freedom of action by means of a stronger
locomotive system is bringing continually new and varied
experiences. And if, as in vertebrates, longer life be added,
frequent repetition of the experience deepens the impression.
Slowly, as if tentatively, the animal begins to modify some of its
instincts, at first only in slight details, or to adopt new lines of
action not included in its old instincts, but suited to the new
emergencies. This is the dawn of intelligence. Its beginnings still
remain undiscovered. Mr. Darwin believes that traces of it can be
found in earthworms and other annelids. He also tells us that
oysters taken from a depth never uncovered by the sea, and
transported inland, open their shells, lose the contained water, and
die; but that left in reservoirs, where they are occasionally left
uncovered for a short time, they learn to keep their shells shut,
and live for a much longer time when removed from the water. If
oysters can learn by experience, lower worms probably can do the
same.
Certain experiments made on sea-anemones, actinæ animals a little
more highly organized than hydra, demand repetition under careful
observation.[A] The observer placed on one of the tentacles of a
sea-anemone a bit of paper which had been dipped in beef-juice. It
was seized and carried to the mouth and here discarded. This
tentacle after one or two experiments refused to have anything more
to do with it. But other tentacles could be successively cheated.
The nerve-cells governing each tentacle appear to have been able to
learn by experience, but each group in the diffuse nervous system
had to learn separately. The dawn of this much of intelligence far
down in the animal kingdom would not be surprising, for the
selection and grasping of food has always involved higher mental
power than most of the actions of these lowest animals. Memory goes
far down in the animal kingdom. Perhaps, as Professor Haeckel has
urged, it is an ultimate mental property of protoplasm. And the
memory of past experience would continually tend to modify habit or
instinct.
[Footnote A: These experiments have been continued with most
interesting and valuable results by Dr. G.H. Parker, of Harvard
University.]
It is unsafe, therefore, to say just where intelligence begins. At a
certain point we find dim traces of it; below that we have failed to
find them. But that they will not be found, we dare not affirm. In
the highest insects instinct predominates, but marks of intelligence
are fairly abundant. Ants and wasps modify their habits to suit
emergencies which instinct alone could hardly cope with. Bees learn
to use grafting wax instead of propolis to stop the chinks in their
hives, and soon cease to store up honey in a warm climate.
Our knowledge of vertebrate psychology is not yet sufficient to give
a history of the struggle for supremacy between instinct and
intelligence, between inherited tendency and the consciousness of
the individual. But the outcome is evident; intelligence prevails,
instinct wanes. The actions of the young may be purely instinctive;
it is better that they should be. But instinct in the adult is more
and more modified by intelligence gained by experience. There is
perhaps no more characteristic instinct than the habit of
nest-building in birds. And yet there are numerous instances where
the structure and position of nests have been completely changed to
suit new circumstances. And the view that this habit is a pure
instinct, unmodified by intelligence, has been disproved by Mr.
Wallace. But while size of brain, keenness of sense-organs, and
length of life may be rightly emphasized as the most important
elements in the development of vertebrate intelligence, the
importance of the appendages should never be forgotten. Cats seem to
have acquired certain accomplishments--opening doors, ringing
door-bells, etc.--never attained by the more intelligent dog, mainly
because of the greater mobility and better powers of grasping of the
forepaws. The elephant has its trunk and the ape its hand. The power
of handling and the increased size of the brain aided each other in
a common advance.
The teachableness of mammals is also a sign of high intelligence.
The young are often taught by the parent, a dim foreshadowing of the
human family relation. And we notice this capacity in domestic
animals because of its practical value to man. And here, too, we
notice the difference between individuals, which fails in instinct.
All spiders of the same species build and hunt alike, although
differences caused by the moulding influence of intelligence will
probably be here discovered. But among individual dogs and horses we
find all degrees of intelligence from absolute stupidity to high
intelligence. And many mammals are slandered grievously by man. The
pig is not stupid, far from it.
Still only in man does intelligence reign supreme and clearly show
its innate powers. But even in man certain realms, like those of the
internal organs, are rarely invaded by consciousness, but are
normally left to the control of reflex action. These actions go on
better without the interference of consciousness.
But other lines of action are relegated as rapidly as possible to
the same control. We learn to walk by a conscious effort to take
each step; afterward we take each step automatically, and think only
whither we wish to go. We learn by conscious effort to talk and
write, to sing, or play the piano. Afterward we frame each letter or
note automatically, and think only of the idea and its expression.
So also in our moral and spiritual nature.[A]
[Footnote A: Mr. James Freeman Clarke has stated this better than I
can. "We may state the law thus: 'Any habitual course of conduct
changes voluntary actions into automatic or involuntary (_i.e._,
reflex) actions.' By practice man forms habits, and habitual action
is automatic action, requiring no exercise of will except at the
beginning of the series of acts. The law of association does the
rest. As voluntary acts are transformed into automatic, the will is
set free to devote itself to higher efforts and larger attainments.
After telling the truth a while by an effort, we tell the truth
naturally, necessarily, automatically. After giving to good objects
for a while from principle, we give as a matter of course. Honesty
becomes automatic; self-control becomes automatic. We rule over our
spirit, repress ill-temper, keep down bad feelings, first by an
effort, afterwards as a matter of course.
"Possibly these virtues really become incarnate in the bodily
organization. Possibly goodness is made flesh and becomes
consolidate in the fibres of the brain. Vices, beginning in the
soul, seem to become at last bodily diseases; why may not virtues
follow the same law? If it were not for some such law of
accumulation as this, the work of life would have to be begun
forever anew. Formation of character would be impossible. We should
be incapable of progress, our whole strength being always employed
in battling with our first enemies, learning evermore anew our
earliest lessons. But by our present constitution he who has taken
one step can take another, and life may become a perpetual advance
from good to better. And the highest graces of all--Faith, Hope, and
Love--obey the same law." See James Freeman Clarke, Every-Day
Religion, p. 122.]
There has been therefore in the successive forms and stages of
animal life a clear sequence of dominant nervous actions. The
actions of all animals below the annelid are mainly reflex or
automatic, unconscious and involuntary. But in insects and lower
vertebrates the highest actions at least are instinctive.
Consciousness plays a continually more important part. Still the
actions are controlled by hereditary tendency far more than by the
will of the individual. But in man instinct has been almost entirely
replaced by conscious, voluntary, intelligent action. And yet in
man, as rapidly as possible, actions which at first require
conscious effort become, through repetition and habit, reflex and
automatic. All our conscious effort and the energy of the will,
being no longer required for these oft-repeated actions, are set
free for higher attainments. The territory which had to be conquered
by hard battles has become an integral part of the realm. It now
hardly requires even a garrison, but has become a source of supplies
for a new advance and march of conquest.
But all this time we have been talking about action and have not
given a thought to the will. And we have spoken as if conscious
perception and intelligence directly controlled will and action. But
this is of course incorrect. Will is practically power of choice.
You ask me whether I prefer this or that, and I answer perhaps that
I do not care. Until I "care" I shall never choose. The perception
must arouse some feeling, if it is to result in choice. I see a
diamond in the road and think it is merely a piece of glass. I do
not stop. But as I am passing on; I remember that there was a
remarkable brilliancy in its flash. It must have been, after all, a
gem. My feelings are aroused. How proud I shall feel to wear it. Or
how much money I can get for it. Or how glad the owner will be when
it is returned to her. I turn back and search eagerly. Perception is
necessary, but it is only the first step. The perception must excite
some feeling, if choice or exertion of the will is to follow. This
is a truism.
Now reflex action takes place independently of consciousness or
will. Instinctive action may be voluntary, but it is, after all, not
so much the result of individual purpose as of hereditary tendency.
Is there then no will in the animal until it has become intelligent?
I think there has been a sort of voluntary action all the time. Even
the amoeba selects or chooses, if I may use the word, its food
among the sand grains. And the will is stimulated to act by the
appetite. Hunger is the first teacher. And how did appetite develop?
Why does the animal hunger for just the food suited to its digestion
and needs? We do not know. And the reproductive appetite soon
follows. One of these results from the condition of the digestive,
the other from that of the reproductive, cells or protoplasm. These
appetites are due to some condition in a part of the organism and
can be _felt_. They are in a sense not of the mind but of the body.
And the response to them on the part of the mind is in some respects
almost comparable to reflex action. But the mode of the response is,
to a certain extent at least, within the control of consciousness.
They train and spur the will as pure reflex action never could. But
the will is as yet hardly more than the expression of these
appetites. It expresses not so much its own decision as that of the
stomach. It is the body's slave and mouthpiece. And once again it is
best and safest for the animal that it should be so.
And these appetites are at first comparatively feeble. There is but
little muscle or nerve and but little food is required. But these
continually strengthen and spur the will harder and more frequently.
And the will stirs up the weary and flagging muscles. The will may
be a poor slave and the appetites hard taskmasters. But under their
stern discipline it is growing stronger and more completely
subjugating the body. Better slavery to hard taskmasters than
rottenness from inertia. The first requirement is power, activity,
and then this power can be directed to ever higher ends. You cannot
steer the vessel until she has sails or an engine; with no "way on"
she will not mind the helm, she only drifts. But the condition of
the animal at this stage certainly looks very unpromising. Can the
will emancipate itself from appetite and control it? Or is it to
remain the slave of the body?
In time an emotion appears which marks the influence not directly of
the body but of the individual consciousness. This is fear; it is
for the body, but not, like hunger, directly of it. It arises in the
mind. It results from experience and memory. The first animal which
feared took a long step upward. But when and where was the dawn of
fear? I touch a sea-anemone and it contracts. Has it felt fear? I
think not. The action certainly may be purely reflex. Natural
selection, not mind, deserves the credit of that action. But I am
sure that the cat fears the dog, or the dog the cat, as the case may
be. I have little or no doubt that the bird fears the cat. I am
inclined to believe that the insect fears the bird and the spider
the wasp. But does the highest worm fear? I do not know. I do not
see how there can have been any fear until there was a nerve-centre
highly enough developed to remember past experiences of danger and
fair sense-organs to report the present risk.
Other emotions soon follow. Anger appears early. The order of
appearance of these emotions or motives I shall not attempt to give
to you. Indeed this is to us of relatively slight importance. The
important point to notice is that a host of these have appeared in
mammals and birds, and that each one of these is a new spur to the
will. And the will of a horse or dog, to say nothing of a pig, is by
no means feeble. And these are slowly emancipating the animal from
the tyranny of appetite. But how slow the progress is! Has the
emancipation yet become complete in man? I need not answer.
The will has in part, at least, escaped from abject slavery to
appetite; it sometimes rises superior to fear. But it is evidently
self-centred. The animal may have forgotten the claims of his dead
ancestors, he is certainly fully alive to his own interests. Can he
even partially rise superior to prudential considerations, as he has
to some extent to the claims of appetite? Is it possible to develop
the unselfish out of the purely selfish? And if so, how is this to
be accomplished? It is not accomplished in the animal; it is but
very incompletely accomplished in man. It will be accomplished one
day.
In action, at least, the animal is not purely selfish. As Mr.
Drummond has shown, reproduction, that old function and first to
gain an organ, is not primarily for the benefit of self, but for the
species. And not only the storing up of material in the egg, but
care for the young after birth, is found in some fish and insects,
and increases from fish upward. I readily grant you that this in its
beginnings may be purely instinctive, and that not a particle of
genuine affection for the young may as yet be present in the mind of
the parent. But beneficial habits may, under the fostering care of
selection, develop into instincts. The animal may at first be
unconscious of these, and yet they may grow continually stronger.
But one day the animal awakens to its actions, and from that time on
what had been done blindly and unconsciously is continued
consciously, intelligently, and from set purpose. This story is
repeated over and over again in the history of the animal-kingdom.
The care for the young once started as an instinct, affection will
follow from the very association of parent with young. Certainly in
birds and mammals there seems to be a very genuine love of the
parents for their young. This is at first short lived, and the young
are and have to be driven away, often by harsh treatment, to shift
for themselves. But while it lasts it certainly seems entirely real
and genuine. And how strong it is. "A bear robbed of her whelps" is
no meaningless expression. And even the weak and timid bird or
mammal becomes strong and fierce in defence of her young. In the
presence of this emotion appetite and fear are alike forgotten.
But this affection or love once started does not remain limited to
parent and offspring. Mammals, especially the higher forms, are
social. They frequently go in herds and troops, and appear to have a
genuine affection for each other. You all know how in herds of
cattle or wild horses the males form a circle around the females and
young at the approach of wolves. A troop of orangs were surprised by
dogs at a little distance from their shelter. The old male orangs
formed a ring and beat off the dogs until the females and young
could escape, and then retreated. But as they were now in
comparative safety a cry came from one young one, who had been
unable to keep up in the scramble over the rocks, and was left on a
bowlder surrounded by the dogs. Then one old orang turned back,
fought his way through the dogs, tucked the little fellow under one
arm, fought his way out with the other, and brought the young one to
safety. I call that old orang a hero, but I am prejudiced and may
easily be mistaken.
In a cage in a European zoölogical garden there were kept together a
little American monkey and a large baboon of which the former was
greatly afraid. The keeper, to whom the little monkey was strongly
attached, was one day attacked and thrown down by the baboon and in
danger of being killed. Then the little monkey ran to his help, and
bit and beat his tyrant companion until he allowed the keeper to
escape. We are all proud that the little monkey was an American.
Instances of disinterested actions are so common among dogs and
horses that farther illustrations are entirely unnecessary. And
disinterested action is limited to fewer cases because the
environment is rarely suited to its development in the animal world.
But do you answer that the affection of the dog is never really
disinterested, but a very refined form of selfishness. Possibly. But
it were to be greatly desired that selfishness would more frequently
take that same refined form among men. But I cannot see how
selfishness can ever become so refined as to lead an animal to die
of grief over its master's grave.
And if refined selfishness were all, I for one cannot help believing
that the dog would long ago have been asleep on a full stomach
before the kitchen fire. Has no attempt been made to prove that all
human actions are due to selfishness more or less refined? It is
very unwise to apply tests and use arguments concerning animals
which, if applied with equal strictness to human conduct, would
prove human society irrational and purely selfish.
Mammals may be self-centred. But the highest forms have set their
faces away from self and toward the non-self; some have at least
started on the road which leads to unselfishness.
And man is governed to a certain extent by prudential
considerations. If he entirely disregarded these he would not be
wise. But the development of the rational faculty has brought before
his mind a series of motives higher than these, which are slowly but
surely superseding them. Truth, right, and duty are motives of a
different order. With regard to these there can be no question of
profit or loss. Here the mind cannot stop to ask, Will it pay? Self
must be left out of account.
"When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The soul replies, I can."
And thus man rises above appetite, above prudential considerations,
and becomes a free and moral agent. And family and social life bring
him into new relations, press home upon him new duties and
responsibilities, every one of which is a new motive compelling him
to rise above self. And thus the unselfish, altruistic emotions have
made man what he is, and are in him, ever advancing toward their
future supremacy. But some one will say, This is a very pretty
theory; it is not history. But the perception of truth and right is
certainly a fact, the result of ages of development. And the very
highest which the intellect can perceive is bound to become the
controlling motive of the will. It always has been so. It must be
so, if evolution is not to be purely degeneration. Thus only has man
become what he is. And the voice of the people demanding truth and
justice, whenever and wherever they see them, is the voice of God
promising the future triumph of righteousness. For it is proof
positive that man's face is resolutely set toward these, as his
ancestors have always marched steadily toward that which was the
highest possible attainment.
We find thus that there is a sequence in the motives which control
the will. The first and lowest motives are the appetites, and here
the will is the mouthpiece of the bodily organs. Then fear and a
host of other prudential considerations appear. The lowest of these
tend purely to the gratification of the senses or to the avoidance
of bodily discomfort. But they originate in the mind, and that is a
great gain. But the higher prudential considerations take into
account something higher than mere bodily comfort or discomfort.
Approbation and disapprobation are motives which weigh heavily with
the higher mammals. The lower prudential considerations are purely
selfish. The higher ones, which stimulate to action for
fellow-animals or men, show at least the dawn of unselfishness. And
the altruistic motives, which stimulate to action for the happiness
and welfare of others, predominate in, and are characteristic of,
man. The human will is slowly rising above the dominance of
selfishness. With the dawn of the rational perception of truth,
right, and duty, the very highest motives begin to gain control.
And the will becomes more and more powerful as the motives become
higher. It is almost a mis-use of language to speak of the will of a
slave of appetite. He is governed by the body, not at all by the
mind.
The man who is governed by prudential considerations, and is always
asking, Will it pay? is the incarnation of fickleness, instability,
and feebleness. The apparent strength of the selfish will is usually
a hollow sham. But truth, right, and love are motives stronger than
death. And the will, dominated by these, gives the body to be
burned. The man of the future will have an iron will, because he
will keep these highest motives constantly before his mind.
In the preceding lectures we have traced the sequence of functions
and have found that brain and mind, not digestion and muscle, are
the goal of animal development. In this lecture we have attempted to
trace a corresponding series of functions in the realm of mind. We
have found, I think, that there has been an orderly and logical
development of perceptions, modes of action, and finally of motives
in the animal mind. Let us now briefly review this history and see
whether it throws any light on the path of man's future progress.
Most of the sensory cells of the animal minister at first to reflex
action, and there is thus little true perception. The stimuli which
have called forth the reflex action may result afterward in
consciousness; but until brain and muscle have reached a higher
grade, this could be of but slight benefit to the animal. Perception
and consciousness are exercised mainly in the recognition and
attainment of food. When the animal begins to show fear, we may
feel tolerably certain that it has been conscious of past experience
of danger and remembers these experiences. But the sense-organs are
all the time improving, whether as servants of conscious perception
or of reflex action, and the development of the higher sense-organs,
especially of the eyes, has called forth a higher development of the
brain. The brain continually develops both through constant exercise
and through natural selection. Through the higher and more delicate
sense-organs it perceives a continually wider range of more subtile
elements in its environment. And the higher the sense-organ the more
directly and purely does it minister to consciousness. The eye, when
capable of forming an image, is almost never concerned in a purely
reflex action.
From the constant recurrence of perceptions and experiences in a
constant order the animal begins to associate these, and when he has
perceived the one to expect the other. Out of this grows, in time,
inference and understanding. The mind is beginning to turn its
attention not merely to objects and qualities, but to perceive
relations. And thus it has taken the first step toward the
perception of abstract truth. And if it has the æsthetic perception
and can perceive beauty, we have every reason to believe that the
same faculty will one day perceive truth and right. But on the
purely animal plane of existence these powers could be of but little
service, and we can expect to find them developed only very slightly
and under peculiar surroundings. And in this connection it is
interesting to notice the great results of man's training and
education in the dog. For the wolf and the jackal, the dog's
nearest relatives, if not his actual ancestors, are not especially
intelligent mammals. Compared with them the dog is a sage and a
saint.
The earliest form of action is the reflex. This is independent of
both consciousness and will. The only conscious voluntary action of
the animal is limited mainly or entirely to the recognition and
attainment of food. The motive for the exertion of the will is the
appetite, and the will is the slave or mouthpiece of the body. Far
higher than this is the stage of instinct. Here the animal is
conscious of its actions and new motives begin to appear. But the
animal is guided by tendencies inherited from its ancestors. The
will has, so to speak, advisory power; it is by no means supreme.
But with a wider and deeper knowledge of its environment, with the
memory of past experiences, carried by the higher locomotive powers
into new surroundings, brought face to face with new emergencies
outside of the range of its old instincts, it is compelled to try
some experiments of its own. It begins to modify these instincts,
and in time altogether does away with many of them. It has risen a
little above its old abject slavery to the appetites, it is slowly
throwing off the bondage to heredity. New emotions or motives have
arisen appealing directly to the individual will. The heir has been
long enough under guardians and regents, it assumes the government
and can rightly say, "L'état, c'est moi."
But a greater problem confronts it; can it rise above self? The
animal often seems absolutely selfish. Can the unselfish be
developed out of the selfish? This seems at first sight impossible.
And the first lessons are so easy, the first steps so short, that we
do not notice them. Reproduction comes to the aid of mind. The
young are born more and more immature. They begin to receive the
care of the parent. The love of the parent for the young is at first
short lived and feeble. But it is the genuine article, and, like the
mustard-seed planted in good soil, must grow. It strengthens and
deepens. Soon it begins to widen also. Social life, very rude and
imperfect, appears. And the members of this social group support,
help, and defend one another. And doing for one another and helping
each other, however slightly and imperfectly, strengthens their
affection for one another. The animal is still selfish, so is man
frequently, but it is in a fair way to become unselfish, and this is
all we can reasonably expect of it.
For these are vast revolutions from reflex action to instinct, and
from instinct to the reign of the individual will, and from appetite
to selfishness on the ground of higher motives, and from immediate
gratification to prudential considerations. And the crowning change
of all is from selfishness to love. And each one of them takes time.
Remember that the Old Testament history is the record of how God
taught one little people that there is but one God, Jehovah. Think
of the struggles, defeats, and captivities which the Israelites had
to undergo before they learned this lesson, and even then only a
fraction of the people ever learned it at all. As the prophet
foretold, so it came to pass. Though Israel was as the sand by the
sea-shore, but a remnant was saved.
But while we seek to do full justice to the animal, let us not
underestimate the vast differences between it and man. The true
evolutionist takes no low view of man's present actual attainments;
in his possibilities he has a larger faith than that of the
disbeliever in evolution. In intelligence and thought, in will power
and freedom of choice, in one word, in all that makes up character
and personality, man is immeasurably superior to the animal. These
powers raise him to a new plane of being, give him an indefinitely
higher and broader life, and his appearance marks a new era. He
alone is a moral, responsible being, to a certain extent the former
of his own destiny and recorder of his doom, if he fails. This gives
to all his actions a peculiar stamp of a dignity only his. What he
is and is to be we must attempt to trace in another lecture. But to
one or two characteristic results of his progress we must call
attention here.
The principal subject of man's study is not so much the things which
surround him as his relation to them and theirs to each other. His
environment has become really one, not so much one of tangible and
visible objects as of invisible relations. And these will demand
endless investigation. The more he studies them the more wonderful
do they become. The vein broadens and grows indefinitely richer the
deeper he searches into it. We find thus the purpose of the
intellect; it is to study environment.
And now a little about motives. The animal begins with appetite, and
some animals and men never get any farther. And yet how easily this
appetite for food is satiated! We all remember our experiences as
children around the Thanksgiving or Christmas table. What a
disappointment it was to us to find how soon our appetite had
forsaken us, and that we had lost the power of enjoying the
delicacies which we had most anticipated. And over-indulgence often
brought sad results and was followed by a period of penitential
fasting. And the appetites for sense gratification must always lead
to this result. They not only crave things which "perish with the
using;" temporarily at least, often permanently, the appetite itself
perishes with the gratification.
But what of the appetite, if you will pardon the expression, for
truth and right? All attainment only strengthens it; and, instead of
enslaving, it makes men ever more free. And yet what a power there
is in the appetite for truth and righteousness? In obedience to it
man gives his body to be burned, or pours out his life-blood drop by
drop for its attainment, and rejoices in the sacrifice. There are
victims to appetite: there are only martyrs to truth. This soul
hunger for truth and right, growing more intense as the soul is
filled with the object of desire, is the only one capable of
indefinite development and dominance of the will. This must be and
is the mental goal of animal development, if man has a future
corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of
life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the
only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is
impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the
deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise
no delectable mountains or golden city.
And now in closing let me call your attention to one thought of
practical vital importance.
According to the theory which we have agreed to adopt, higher
species have arisen through a process of natural selection, those
species surviving which are best conformed to their environment.
And this applies to man as well as to lower animals. All knowledge
is in man, therefore, primarily, a means by which he may conform to
environment, survive, and progress. But conformity includes more
than mere knowledge of environment. A man might have all knowledge,
and yet refuse to conform; and then his knowledge could not save him
from destruction. For conformity alone gives survival. Conformity in
man requires an effort of the will. It is intelligent, but it is
also voluntary action. And knowledge is a necessary means of
conformity because through it we see how we may conform, and because
it furnishes the motives which stimulate the will to the necessary
effort.
Now, that faculty of the intellect which is dominant in man, and
which has raised him immeasurably above the animal, and made him
man, is the rational intelligence. If there is any such thing as a
law of history or as continuity in evolution, man's future progress
must depend upon his clearer vision and recognition of the
perceptions of this faculty. Through it man perceives beauty, truth,
and goodness, and attains knowledge of himself as a person and moral
agent, and recognizes his rights and duties. Of all this the animal
is and remains unconscious; indeed he is not yet a moral being and
person in any proper sense of the word.
Inasmuch as the rational perception is the dominant faculty in man,
it must perceive the lines along which he is to conform. Truth,
right, and duty must be his watchwords. These are to be the rules
and motives of all his actions. He cannot live for the body, but for
something higher, the mind. This was proven before man appeared on
the globe. He is to be a mental, intelligent being. But he is not to
be governed by appetite or mere prudential considerations. These are
animal, not human motives. These are not to be disregarded any more
than digestion can be safely disregarded by man. But they are not to
be his chief motives. He must subordinate these to the higher
motives furnished by right and duty. Man is not merely a mental but
a moral being. If he sinks below this plane of life he is not
following the path marked out for him in all his past development.
In order to progress, the higher vertebrate had to subordinate
everything to mental development. In order to become man it had to
develop the rational intelligence. In order to become higher man,
present man must subordinate everything to moral development. This
is the great law of animal and human development clearly revealed in
the sequence of physical and mental functions.
Must man be a religious being also? This question we must try to
answer in a future lecture.