Mental Evolution in Man 10
The great physiologist Müller and the great philosopher Hegel are
quoted by Mr. Mivart as maintaining, that “to form abstract conceptions
of such operations as of something common to many under the notion of
cause and effect, is a perfect impossibility to them” (animals[49]);
and no doubt many other illustrious names might be quoted in support
of the same statement. But it seems to me that needless obscurity is
imported into this matter, by not considering in what our own idea of
causality consists. It is clear that to attain a _general_ idea of
causality as universal, &c., demands higher powers of abstract thought
than are possessed by any animals, or even by the great majority
of men; but it is no less clear that all men and most animals have
a _generic_ idea of causality, in the sense of expecting uniform
experience under uniform conditions. A cat sees a man knock at the
knocker of a door, and observes that the door is afterwards opened:
remembering this, when she herself wants to get in at that door,
she jumps at the knocker, and waits for the door to be opened.[50]
Now, can it be denied that in this act of inference, or imitation,
or whatever name we choose to call it, the cat perceives such an
association between the knocking and the opening as to feel that
the former as antecedent was in some way required to determine the
latter as consequent? And what is this but such a perception of causal
relation as is shown by a child who blows upon a watch to open the
case—thinking this to be the cause of the opening from the uniform
deception practised by its parent,—or of the savage who plants nails
and gunpowder to make them grow? And endless illustrations of such
a perception of causality might be drawn from the everyday life of
civilized man: indeed, how seldom does any one of us wait to construct
a general proposition about causality in the abstract before we act on
our practical knowledge of it. And that this practical knowledge in
the case of animals enables them to form a generic idea, or recept, of
the _equivalency_ between causes and effects—such that a perceived
equivalency is recognized by them as an _explanation_—would appear to
be rendered evident by the following fact, which I carefully observed
for the express purpose of testing the question. I quote the incident
from an already-published lecture, which was given before the British
Association at Dublin, in 1878.
“I had a setter dog which was greatly afraid of thunder. One day
a number of apples were being shot upon the wooden floor of an
apple-room, and, as each bag of apples was shot, it produced through
the rest of the house a noise resembling that of distant thunder. My
dog became terror-stricken at the sound; but as soon as I brought him
to the apple-room and showed him the true _cause_ of the noise, he
became again buoyant and cheerful as usual.”[51]
The importance of clearly perceiving that animals have a generic,
as distinguished from an abstract, idea of causation—and, indeed,
_must_ have such an idea if they are in any way at all to adjust their
actions to their circumstances—the importance of clearly perceiving
this is, that it carries with it a proof of the logic of recepts being
able to reach generic ideas of _principles_, as well as of objects,
qualities, and actions. In order to prove this important fact still
more unquestionably, I will here quote a passage from the biography
of the cebus which I kept for the express purpose of observing his
intelligence.
“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, carefully stuck it into the
hole, and began again to turn it the right way. It was, of course, a
very difficult feat for him to perform, for he required both his hands
to hold the handle in the proper position, and to turn it between 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 hands, 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 on again the second time
rather more easily than the first, and so on many times.”
The above is extracted from the diary kept by my sister. I did not
myself witness the progress of this research with the hearth-brush, as
I did so many of the other investigations successfully pursued by that
wonderful animal. But I have a perfect confidence in the accuracy of my
sister’s observation, as well as in the fidelity of her account; and,
moreover, the point with which I am about to be concerned has reference
to what followed subsequently, as to which I had abundant opportunities
for close and repeated observations. For the point is that, after
having thus discovered the mechanical _principle_ of the screw in that
one particular case, the monkey forthwith proceeded to _generalize_, or
to apply his newly gained knowledge to every other case where it was
at all probable that the mechanical principle in question was to be
met with. The consequence was that the animal became a nuisance in the
house by incessantly unscrewing the tops of fire-irons, bell-handles,
&c., &c., which he was by no means careful always to replace. Here,
therefore, I think we have unquestionable evidence of intelligent
recognition of a principle, which in the first instance was discovered
by “the most unwearying perseverance” in the way of experiment, and
afterwards sought for in multitudes of wholly dissimilar objects.[52]
To these numerous facts I will now add one other, which is sufficiently
remarkable to deserve republication for its own sake. I quote the
account from the journal _Science_, in which it appeared anonymously.
But finding on inquiry that the observer was Mr. S. P. Langley, the
well-known astronomer, and being personally assured by him that he is
certain there is no mistake about the observation, I will now give the
latter in his own words.
“The interesting description by Mr. Larkin (_Science_, No. 58) of the
lifting by a spider of a large beetle to its nest, reminds me of quite
another device by which I once saw a minute spider (hardly larger than
the head of a pin) lift a house-fly, which must have been more than
twenty times its weight, through a distance of over a foot. The fly
dangled by a single strand from the cross-bar of a window-sash, and,
when it first caught my attention, was being raised through successive
small distances of something like a tenth of an inch each; the lifts
following each other so fast, that the ascent seemed almost continuous.
It was evident that the weight must have been quite beyond the spider’s
power to stir by a ‘dead lift;’ but his motions were so quick, that
at first it was difficult to see how this apparently impossible task
was being accomplished. I shall have to resort to an illustration to
explain it; for the complexity of the scheme seems to belong less to
what we ordinarily call instinct than to intelligence, and that in a
degree we cannot all boast ourselves.
[Illustration]
“The little spider proceeded as follows:—
“_a b_ is a portion of the window-bar, to which level the fly was to
be lifted, from his original position at F vertically beneath _a_;
the spider’s first act was to descend halfway to the fly (to _d_),
and there fasten one end of an almost invisible thread; his second to
ascend to the bar and run out to _b_, where he made fast the other end,
and hauled on his guy with all his might. Evidently the previously
straight line must yield somewhat in the middle, whatever the weight
of the fly, who was, in fact, thereby brought into position F´, to the
right of the first one and a little higher. Beyond this point, it might
seem, he could not be lifted; but the guy being left fast at _b_, the
spider now went to an intermediate point _c_ directly over his victim’s
new position, and thus spun a new vertical line from _c_, which was
made fast at the bend at _d_´, after which _a d_ was cast off, so that
the fly now hung vertically below _c_, as before below _a_, but a
little higher.”
“The same operation was repeated again and again, a new guy being
occasionally spun, but the spider never descending more than about
halfway down the cord, whose elasticity was in no way involved in the
process. All was done with surprising rapidity. I watched it for some
five minutes (during which the fly was lifted perhaps six inches), and
then was called away.”
* * * * *
Without further burdening the argument with illustrative proof, it
must now be evident that the “ore” out of which concepts are formed
is highly metalliferous: it is not merely a dull earth which bears no
resemblance to the shining substance smelted from it in the furnace
of Language; it is already sparkling to such an extent that we may
well feel there is no need of analysis to show it charged with that
substance in its pure form—that what we see in the ore is the same
kind of material as we take from the melting-pot, and differs from it
only in the degree of its agglomeration. Nevertheless, I will not yet
assume that such is the case. Before we can be perfectly sure that two
things which seem to the eye of common sense so similar are really
the same, we must submit them to a scientific analysis. Even though
it be certain that the one is extracted from the other, there still
remains a possibility that in the melting-pot some further ingredient
may have been added. Human intelligence is undoubtedly derived from
human experience, in the same way as animal intelligence is derived
from animal experience; but this does not prove that the ideation
which we have in common with brutes is not supplemented by ideation of
some other order, or kind. Presently I shall consider the arguments
which are adduced to prove that it has been, and then it will become
apparent that the supplement, if any, must have been added in the
smelting-fire of Language—a fact, be it observed, which is conceded by
all modern writers who deny the genetic continuity of mind in animal
and human intelligence. Thus far, then, I have attempted nothing more
than a preliminary clearing of the ground—first by carefully defining
my terms and impartially explaining the psychology of ideation; next
by indicating the nature of the question which has presently to be
considered; and, lastly, by showing the level to which intelligence
attains under the logic of recepts, without any possibility of
assistance from the logic of concepts.
* * * * *
Only one other topic remains to be dealt with in the present chapter.
We continually find it assumed, and confidently stated as if the
statement did not admit of question, that the simplest or most
primitive order of ideation is that which is concerned only with
particulars, or with special objects of perception. The nascent ideas
of an infant are supposed to crystallize around the nuclei furnished
by individual percepts; the less intelligent animals—if not, indeed,
animals in general—are supposed, as Locke says, to deal “only in
particular ideas, just as they receive them from the senses.” Now, I
fully assent to this, if it is only meant (as I understand Locke to
mean) that infants and animals are not able consciously, intentionally,
or, as he says, “_of themselves_, to compound and make complex ideas.”
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