Mental Evolution in Man 1

Mental Evolution in Man 1

Mental Evolution in Man

Origin of Human Faculty

 

Author: George John Romanes

 

PREFACE.

 

 

In now carrying my study of mental evolution into the province of human

psychology, it is desirable that I should say a few words to indicate

the scope and intention of this the major portion of my work. For it is

evident that “Mental Evolution in Man” is a subject comprehending so

enormous a field that, unless some lines of limitation are drawn within

which its discussion is to be confined, no one writer could presume to

deal with it.

 

The lines, then, which I have laid down for my own guidance are these.

My object is to seek for the principles and causes of mental evolution

in man, first as regards the origin of human faculty, and next as

regards the several main branches into which faculties distinctively

human afterwards ramified and developed. In order as far as possible

to gain this object, it has appeared to me desirable to take large

or general views, both of the main trunk itself, and also of its

sundry branches. Therefore I have throughout avoided the temptation

of following any of the branches into their smaller ramifications, or

of going into the details of progressive development. These, I have

felt, are matters to be dealt with by others who are severally better

qualified for the task, whether their special studies have reference to

language, archæology, technicology, science, literature, art, politics,

morals, or religion. But, in so far as I shall subsequently have to

deal with these subjects, I will do so with the purpose of arriving

at general principles bearing upon mental evolution, rather than with

that of collecting facts or opinions for the sake of their intrinsic

interest from a purely historical point of view.

 

Finding that the labour required for the investigation, even as thus

limited, is much greater than I originally anticipated, it appears

to me undesirable to delay publication until the whole shall have

been completed. I have therefore decided to publish the treatise in

successive instalments, of which the present constitutes the first. As

indicated by the title, it is concerned exclusively with the Origin

of Human Faculty. Future instalments will deal with the Intellect,

Emotions, Volition, Morals, and Religion. It will, however, be several

years before I shall be in a position to publish these succeeding

instalments, notwithstanding that some of them are already far advanced.

 

Touching the present instalment, it is only needful to remark that from

a controversial point of view it is, perhaps, the most important. If

once the genesis of conceptual thought from non-conceptual antecedents

be rendered apparent, the great majority of competent readers at

the present time would be prepared to allow that the psychological

barrier between the brute and the man is shown to have been overcome.

Consequently, I have allotted what might otherwise appear to be a

disproportionate amount of space to my consideration of this the

_origin_ of human faculty—disproportionate, I mean, as compared

with what has afterwards to be said touching the _development_ of

human faculty in its several branches already named. Moreover, in the

present treatise I shall be concerned chiefly with the psychology of

my subject—reserving for my next instalment a full consideration of

the light which has been shed on the mental and social condition of

early man by the study of his own remains on the one hand, and of

existing savages on the other. Even as thus restricted, however, the

subject-matter of the present treatise will be found more extensive

than most persons would have been prepared to expect. For it does not

appear to me that this subject-matter has hitherto received at the

hands of psychologists any approach to the amount of analysis of

which it is susceptible, and to which—in view of the general theory

of evolution—it is unquestionably entitled. But I have everywhere

endeavoured to avoid undue prolixity, trusting that the intelligence

of any one who is likely to read the book will be able to appreciate

the significance of important points, without the need of expatiation

on the part of the writer. The only places, therefore, where I feel

that I may be fairly open to the charge of unnecessary reiteration, are

those in which I am endeavouring to render fully intelligible the newer

features of my analysis. But even here I do not anticipate that readers

of any class will complain of the efforts which are thus made to assist

their understanding of a somewhat complicated matter.

 

As no one has previously gone into this matter, I have found myself

obliged to coin a certain number of new terms, for the purpose at

once of avoiding continuous circumlocution, and of rendering aid to

the analytic inquiry. For my own part I regret this necessity, and

therefore have not resorted to it save where I have found the force of

circumstances imperative. In the result, I do not think that adverse

criticism is likely to fasten upon any of these new terms as needless

for the purposes of my inquiry. Every worker is free to choose his own

instruments; and when none are ready-made to suit his requirements, he

has no alternative but to fashion those which may.

 

To any one who already accepts the general theory of evolution as

applied to the human mind, it may well appear that the present

instalment of my work is needlessly elaborate. Now, I can quite

sympathize with any evolutionist who may thus feel that I have brought

steam-engines to break butterflies; but I must ask such a man to

remember two things. First, that plain and obvious as the truth may

seem to him, it is nevertheless a truth that is very far from having

received general recognition, even among more intelligent members of

the community: seeing, therefore, of how much importance it is to

establish this truth as an integral part of the doctrine of descent,

I cannot think that either time or energy is wasted in a serious

endeavour to do so, even though to minds already persuaded it may

seem unnecessary to have slain our opponents in a manner quite so

mercilessly minute. Secondly, I must ask these friendly critics to take

note that, although the discussion has everywhere been thrown into the

form of an answer to objections, it really has a much wider scope: it

aims not only at an overthrow of adversaries, but also, and even more,

at an exposition of the principles which have probably been concerned

in the “Origin of Human Faculty.”

 

The Diagram which is reproduced from my previous work on “Mental

Evolution in Animals,” and which serves to represent the leading

features of psychogenesis throughout the animal kingdom, will reappear

also in succeeding instalments of the work, when it will be continued

so as to represent the principal stages of “Mental Evolution in Man.”

 

18, CORNWALL TERRACE, REGENT’S PARK,

_July, 1888_.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS.

 

 

CHAPTER PAGE

 

I. MAN AND BRUTE 1

 

II. IDEAS 20

 

III. LOGIC OF RECEPTS 40

 

IV. LOGIC OF CONCEPTS 70

 

V. LANGUAGE 85

 

VI. TONE AND GESTURE 104

 

VII. ARTICULATION 121

 

VIII. RELATION OF TONE AND GESTURE TO WORDS 145

 

IX. SPEECH 163

 

X. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 194

 

XI. THE TRANSITION IN THE INDIVIDUAL 213

 

XII. COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY 238

 

XIII. ROOTS OF LANGUAGE 264

 

XIV. THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY 294

 

XV. THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY—_continued_ 326

 

XVI. THE TRANSITION IN THE RACE 360

 

XVII. GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 390

 

 

 

 

MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I.

 

MAN AND BRUTE.

 

 

Taking up the problems of psychogenesis where these were left in my

previous work, I have in the present treatise to consider the whole

scope of mental evolution in man. Clearly the topic thus presented

is so large, that in one or other of its branches it might be taken

to include the whole history of our species, together with our

pre-historic development from lower forms of life, as already indicated

in the Preface. However, it is not my intention to write a history

of civilization, still less to develop any elaborate hypothesis of

anthropogeny. My object is merely to carry into an investigation of

human psychology a continuation of the principles which I have already

applied to the attempted elucidation of animal psychology. I desire to

show that in the one province, as in the other, the light which has

been shed by the doctrine of evolution is of a magnitude which we are

now only beginning to appreciate; and that by adopting the theory of

continuous development from the one order of mind to the other, we are

able scientifically to explain the whole mental constitution of man,

even in those parts of it which, to former generations, have appeared inexplicable.