Mental Evolution in Man 61

Mental Evolution in Man 61

And so, likewise, it is with Instinct. For although this occurs in a

greater proportion among the lower animals than it does in ourselves,

no one can venture to question the identity of all the instincts which

are common to both. And this is the only point that here requires to be

established.

 

Again, with respect to the Will, no argument can arise touching the

identity of animal and human volition up to the point where the latter

is alleged to take on the attribute of freedom—which, as we saw, under

any view depends on the intellectual powers of introspective thought.

 

There remain, then, only these intellectual powers of introspective

Thought, _plus_ the faculties of Morality and Religion. Now, it is

evident that, whatever we may severally conclude as touching the

distinctive value of the two latter, we must all agree that a prime

condition to the possibility of either resides in the former: without

the powers of intellect which are competent to frame the abstract

ideation that is concerned both in morals and religion, it is manifest

that neither could exist. Therefore, in logical order, it is these

powers of intellect that first fall to be considered. In subsequent

parts of this work I shall fully deal both with morals and religion: in

the present part I am concerned only with the intellect.

 

And here it is, as I have acknowledged, that the great psychological

distinction is to be found. Nevertheless, even here it must be conceded

that up to a certain point, as between the brute and the man, there is

not merely a similarity of kind, but an identity of correspondence. The

distinction only arises with reference to those superadded faculties of

ideation which occur above the level marked 28 in my diagram—_i.e._

where the upward growth of animal intelligence ends, and the

development of distinctively human faculty begins. So that in the case

of intellect, no less than in that of emotion, instinct, and volition,

there can be no doubt that the human mind runs exactly parallel with

the animal, up to the place where these superadded powers of intellect

begin to supervene. Therefore, upon the face of them, the facts of

comparative psychology thus far, to say the least, are strongly

suggestive of these superadded powers having been due to a process of

continued evolution.

 

So much, then, for the points of agreement between animal and human

psychology. Turning next to the points of difference, we had first to

dispose of certain allegations which were either erroneous in fact or

plainly unsound in theory. This involved a rejection _in toto_ of the

following distinctions—namely, that brutes are non-sentient machines;

that they present no rudiments of reason in the sense of perceiving

analogies and drawing inferences therefrom; that they are destitute

of any immortal principle; that they show no signs of progress from

generation to generation; that they never employ barter, make fire,

wear clothes, use tools, and so forth. Among these sundry alleged

distinctions, those which are not demonstrably false in fact are

demonstrably false in logic. Whether or not brutes are destitute of

any immortal principle, and whether or not human beings present such

a principle, the science of comparative psychology has no means of

ascertaining; and, therefore, any arguments touching these questions

are irrelevant to the subject-matter on which we are engaged. Again,

the fact that brutes do not resemble ourselves in wearing clothes,

making fire, &c., clearly depends on an absence in them of those powers

of higher ideation which alone are adequate to yield such products

in the way of intelligent action. All such differences in matters of

detail, therefore, really belong to, or are absorbed by, the more

general question as to the nature of the distinction between the two

orders of _ideation_. To this, therefore, as to the real question

before us, we next addressed ourselves. And here it was pointed out,

_in limine_, that the three living naturalists of highest authority

who still argue for a difference of kind between the brute and the

man, although they agree in holding that only on grounds of psychology

can any such difference be maintained, nevertheless upon these grounds

all mutually contradict one another. For while Mr. Mivart argues that

there must be a distinction of kind, because the psychological interval

between the highest ape and the lowest man is so great; Mr. Wallace

argues for the same conclusion on the ground that this interval is

not so great as the theory of a natural evolution would lead us to

expect: the brain of a savage, he says, is so much more efficient an

instrument than the mind to which it ministers, that its presence can

only be explained as a preparation for the higher efficiency of mental

life as afterwards exhibited by civilized man. Lastly, Professor De

Quatrefages contradicts both the English naturalists by vehemently

insisting that, so far as the powers of intellect are concerned, there

is a demonstrable identity of kind between animal intelligence and

human, whether in the savage or civilized condition: he argues that the

distinction only arises in the domain of morals and religion. So that,

if our opinion on the issue before us were to be in any way influenced

by the voice of authority, I might represent the judgments of these my

most representative opponents as mutually cancelling one another—thus

yielding a zero quantity as against the enormous and self-consistent

weight of authority on the other side.

 

But, quitting all considerations of authority, I proceeded to

investigate the question _de novo_, or exclusively on its own merits.

To do this it was necessary to begin with a somewhat tedious analysis

of ideation. The general result was to yield the following as my

classification of ideas.

 

1. Mere memories of perceptions, or the abiding mental images of past

sensuous impressions. These are the ideas which, in the terminology of

Locke, we may designate Simple, Particular, or Concrete. Nowadays no

one questions that such ideas are common to animals and men.

 

2. A higher class of ideas, which by universal consent are also

common to animals and men; namely, those which Locke called Complex,

Compound, or Mixed. These are something more than the simple memories

of particular perceptions; they are generated by the mixture of such

memories, and therefore represent a compound, of which “particular

ideas” are the elements or ingredients. By the laws of association,

particular ideas which either resemble one another in themselves, or

frequently occur together in experience, tend to coalesce and blend

into one: as in a “composite photograph” the sensitive plate is able

to unite many more or less similar images into a single picture, so

the sensitive tablet of the mind is able to make of many simple or

particular ideas, a complex, a compound, or, as I have called it, a

_generic_ idea. Now, a generic idea of this kind differs from what

is ordinarily called a general idea (which we will consider in the

next paragraph), in that, although both are generated out of simpler

elementary constituents, the former are thus generated as it were

spontaneously or anatomically by the principles of merely perceptual

association, while the latter can only be produced by a consciously

intentional operation of the mind upon the materials of its own

ideation, known as such. This operation is what psychologists term

conception, and the product of it they term a concept. Hence we see

that between the region of percepts and those of concepts there lies a

large intermediate territory, which is occupied by what I have called

generic ideas, or _recepts_. A recept, then, differs from a percept in

that it is a compound of mental representations, involving an orderly

grouping of simpler images in accordance with past experience; while

it differs from a concept in that this orderly grouping is due to an

unintentional or automatic activity on the part of the percipient mind.

A recept, or generic idea, is _imparted to_ the mind by the external

“logic of events;” while a general idea, or concept, is _framed by_ the

mind consciously working to a higher elaboration of its own ideas. In

short, a recept is _received_, while a concept is _conceived_.

 

3. The highest class of ideas, which psychologists are unanimous in

denying to brutes, and which, therefore, we are justified in regarding

as the unique prerogative of man. These are the General, Abstract,

and Notional ideas of Locke, or the Concepts just mentioned in the

last paragraph. As we have there seen, they differ from recepts—and,

_a fortiori_, from percepts, in that they are themselves the objects

of thought. In other words, it is a peculiarity of the human mind

that it is able to think about its own ideas as such, consciously

to combine and elaborate them, intentionally to develop higher

products out of less highly developed constituents. This remarkable

power we found—also by common consent—to depend on the faculty of

self-consciousness, whereby the mind is able, as it were, to stand

apart from itself, to render one of its states objective to others, and

thus to contemplate its own ideas as such. Now, we are not concerned

with the philosophy of this fact, but only with its history. How it

is that such a faculty as self-consciousness is possible; what it

is that can thus be simultaneously the subject and the object of

thought; whether or not it is conceivable that the great abyss of

personality can ever be fathomed; these and all such questions are

quite alien to the scope of the present work. All that we have here

to do is to analyze the psychological conditions out of which, as a

matter of observable fact, this unique peculiarity emerges—to trace

the history of the process, and tabulate the results. Well, we have

seen that here, again, every one agrees in regarding the possibility

of self-consciousness to be given in the faculty of language. Whether

or not we suppose that these two faculties are one—that neither

could exist without the other, and, therefore, that we may follow the

Greeks in assigning to them the single name of Logos,—at least it is

as certain as the science of psychology can make it, that within the

four corners of human experience a self-conscious personality cannot

be led up to in any other way than through the medium of language. For

it is by language alone that, so far as we have any means of knowing,

a mind is rendered capable of so far fixing—or rendering definite to

itself—its own ideas, as to admit of any subsequent contemplation

of them as ideas. It is only by means of marking ideas by names that

the faculty of conceptual thought is rendered possible, as we saw at

considerable length in Chapter IV.

 

Such, then, was my classification of ideas. And it is a classification

over which no dispute is likely to arise, seeing that it merely sets in

some kind of systematic order a body of observable facts with regard to

which writers of every school are nowadays in substantial agreement.

Now, if this classification be accepted, it follows that the question

before us is thrown back upon the faculty of language. This faculty,

therefore, I considered in a series of chapters. First it was pointed

out that, in its widest signification, “language” means the faculty of

making signs. Next, I adopted Mr. Mivart’s “Categories of Language,”

which, when slightly added to, serve to give at once an accurate and

exhaustive classification of every bodily or mental act with reference

to which the term can possibly be applied. In all there were found to

be seven of these categories, of which the first six are admittedly

common to animals and mankind. The seventh, however, is alleged by my

opponents to be wholly peculiar to the human species. In other words,

it is conceded that animals do present what may be termed the germ of

the sign-making faculty; but it is denied that they be able, even in

the lowest degree, to make signs of an intellectual kind—_i.e._ of a

kind which consists in the bestowing of names as marks of ideas. Brutes

are admittedly able to make signs to one another—and also to man—with

the intentional purpose of conveying such ideas as they possess;

but, it is alleged, no brute is able to name these ideas, either by

gestures, tones, or words. Now, in order to test this allegation, I

began by giving a number of illustrations which were intended to show

the level that is reached by the sign-making faculty in brutes; next

I considered the language of tone and gesture as this is exhibited by

man; then I proceeded to investigate the phenomena of articulation, the

relation of tone and gesture to words; and, lastly, the psychology of

speech. Not to overburden the present summary, I will neglect all the

subordinate results of this analysis. The main results, however, were

that the natural language of tone and gesture is identical wherever it

occurs; but that even when it becomes conventional (as it may up to a

certain point in brutes), it is much less efficient than articulate

language as an agency in the construction of ideas; and, therefore,

that the psychological line between brute and man must be drawn, not

at language, or sign-making in general, but at that particular kind of

sign-making which we understand by “speech.” Nevertheless, the real

distinction resides in the intellectual powers; not in the symbols

thereof. So that a man means, it matters not by what system of signs

he expresses his meaning. In other words, although I endeavoured to

prove that articulation must have been of unique service in developing

these intellectual powers, I was emphatic in representing that, when

once these powers are present, it is psychologically immaterial

whether they find __EXPRESSION__ in gesture or in speech. In any case the

psychological distinction between a brute and a man consists in the

latter being able to _mean a proposition_; and the kind of mental act

which this involves is technically termed a “judgment.” Predication, or the making of a proposition—whether by gesture, tone, speech, or writing,—is nothing more nor less than the __EXPRESSION__ of a judgment;and a judgment is nothing more nor less than the apprehension of whatever meaning it may be that a proposition serves to set forth.