The Whence and the Whither of Man Part 7

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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sociation 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 ill.u.s.trating 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 a.s.sociation 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 gla.s.s 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 s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g. 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 s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, he gave it up and took to some other amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 pa.s.sing fly; and the latter, like heedless students, made but slow progress.

It is interesting to notice that one of the perceptions which we cla.s.s among the highest is apparently developed comparatively early.

I refer to the aesthetic 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 aesthetic standard in the mind of the insect? What of the tail of the peac.o.c.k? 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 aesthetic, 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 aesthetic 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 pa.s.s 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 appet.i.te 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 a.s.sociate past experience with present objects. The bee remembers the gaining of honey in the past, a.s.sociated with the color of the flower which she now sees, and knows that honey is to be attained again. Thus in time a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.s 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 ill.u.s.tration.

But this element of consciousness is one which it is exceedingly difficult to detect in our a.n.a.lysis, and yet upon it our cla.s.sification and the psychic position of an animal must to a great extent depend. The amoeba contracts when p.r.i.c.ked, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sert 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 repet.i.tion 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 sh.e.l.ls 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, actinae animals a little more highly organized than hydra, demand repet.i.tion 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 c.h.i.n.ks 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 circ.u.mstances. 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.