Part 8

That mind has evolved, and that there is a psychical kinship, an actual consanguinity of feelings and ideas, among all the forms of animal life is proved incontestably by the following facts:

1. The evolution of mind is implied by the fact of the evolution of structures. ‘I hold,’ says Romanes, in the introduction to his great work on ‘Mental Evolution,’ ‘that, if the doctrine of organic evolution is accepted, it carries with it, as a necessary corollary, the doctrine of mental evolution.’ It makes no difference what theory we adopt regarding the essential natures of the physical and the psychical—whether we agree with the materialist that mind is an attribute of matter, with the idealist that matter is a creation of mind, with the monist that mind and body are only different aspects of the same central entity, or with the dualist that body and soul are two distinct but temporarily dependent existences—we must in any case recognise the fact, which is perceived by all, that there is an ever-faithful parallel between the neural and psychical phenomena of every organism. And if the elements which enter into and make up the physical structure of man have been derived from, and determined by, preceding forms of life, the elements which enter into and make up the psychical counterpart of the physical have also, without any doubt, been inherited from, and determined by, ancestral life forms.

2. Closely allied to the foregoing reason for a belief in the evolution of mind is that derived from a comparative survey of the nervous system in man and other animals. In man, mind is closely associated with a certain tissue or system of tissues—_nerve tissue or the nervous system_. That mind is correlated with nerve structure, and that mental anatomy may be learned from a study of the anatomy of the nervous system, especially of the brain, is the basic postulate of the science of physiological psychology. Now, nerve cells exist in all animals above the sponge, and a comparatively well-developed nervous system is found even among many of the invertebrates, as the higher worms, crustaceans, insects, and mollusks. The nervous system of invertebrates, though composed of the same kind of tissue, is constructed according to a somewhat different plan of architecture from that of the vertebrates. But in all of the great family of backboned animals the nervous system is built on the same general plan as in man, with a cerebro-spinal trunk extending from the head along the back and motory and sensory nerves ramifying to all parts of the body. There is also a sympathetic nervous system in all animals down as far as the insects. The brain, which is the most important part of the nervous system, and which has been called the ‘organ of consciousness,’ presents throughout the animal kingdom, from its beginning in the worms to man, a graduated series of increasing complication proceeding out of the same fundamental type. This is especially true of the vertebrates. Fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, all have in their brains the same primary parts, the same five fundamental divisions, as are found in the brain of man. Hence, whatever may be thought about the mental states of invertebrates, we have the right, in the case of the vertebrate orders of life, to infer, from the general similarity of their nervous system to our own, that they have a corresponding similarity to ourselves in mental constitution and experience.

3. The evolution of mind is suggested by the existence in the animal world of all grades of intelligence, from almost mindless forms to forms even exceeding in some respects the mental attainments of men. The jelly-fish and the philosopher are not mental aliens. They are linked to each other by a continuous gradation of intermediate intelligences. The existence of these grades of mental development suggest psychical evolution and kinship, just as the existence of like grades of structural development suggest physical evolution.

4. In the mental life of animals the same factors of evolution exist as those by means of which organic structures have been brought into existence, and it is reasonable to suppose that the operation of these factors have produced in the mental world results analogous to those produced by the operation of the same factors among organic structures.

Men and other animals _vary_ in their natures and mental faculties quite as much as they do in colour, size, and shape. It is commonly supposed that the mental and temperamental variety existing among individual men does not exist among individual birds, quadrupeds, insects, etc. But a little observation or reflection ought to be enough to convince anyone that such a supposition belongs to that batch of pre-Darwinian mistakes presented to us by an over-generous past. We are _not acquainted_ with the inhabitants of our fields and barn-yards. We are almost as ignorant of the mental life and personality of these door-yard neighbours and friends of ours as we would be if they were the inhabitants of another continent. That is why our obtuse minds lump them together so indiscriminately—we do not know anything about them. We never take the trouble, or think it worth while, to get acquainted with them, much less to study and know them. We have grown up in the falsehood that they are altogether different from what we are, and that it is really not worth while to bother our gigantic heads about them, except to use them when it comes handy, or kick them to one side, or execute them, when they get in the way. Everybody else looks at the matter in about the same way, so we just let it go at that.

There is a sameness about foreigners and other classes of _human_ beings with whom we are but slightly, or not at all, acquainted, until we come to know them and can discriminate one from another. I remember once asking my sister, if her baby, which looked to me like all other babies I had ever seen, were mixed up with a lot of other babies of about the same age, whether she could pick hers out from all the rest, and she gave me an unmistakable affirmative by answering, ‘What a foolish question!’

There is less variety among the individuals of non-human races than among individual men, just as there is less variety among individual savages than among the members of a civilised community. But there is mental diversity among all beings, and we only need to whittle our observation a little to recognise the fact. You never hear the keeper of a menagerie or any intelligent associate of dogs, horses, birds, or insects say there is no individuality among these animals. Brehm, the great German naturalist, assures us that each individual monkey of all those he kept tame in Africa had its own peculiar temper and disposition. And this is no more than what everyone who knows anything about it knows to be true of dogs, horses, cats, cattle, birds, and even fishes and insects. Any intelligent dog-fancier or pigeon-fancier can tell you the personal peculiarities of every one of the fifty or a hundred dogs or pigeons in his charge. He has watched and studied them since they came into existence, and through this continuous association he has come to _know_ them. He simply makes discriminations that are not made by the casual or superficial observer. The Laplander knows and names each reindeer in his herd, though to a stranger they are all as much alike as the multitudes on an ant-hill. The Peckhams of Milwaukee, those indefatigable investigators of spiders and insects, are constantly telling us of the wonderful individuality possessed by these lowly lessees of our fields and gardens. In their work on ‘The Habits and Instincts of the Solitary Wasps,’ speaking of the ammophiles, these authors say: ‘In this species, as in every one that we have studied, we have found a most interesting variation among the different individuals, not only in methods, but in character and intellect. While one was beguiled from her hunting by every sorrel blossom she passed, another stuck to her work with indefatigable perseverance. While one stung her caterpillars so carelessly and made her nest in so shiftless a way that her young could survive only through some lucky chance, another devoted herself to these duties not only with conscientious earnestness, but with an apparent craving after artistic perfection that was touching to see.’ The variation in the mental phenomena of animals, including man, is partly innate, and partly the result of environment or education.

Animals not only vary in their mental qualities, but they also _inherit_ these variations, just as they do physical properties and peculiarities. Evidence of this is furnished by every new being that comes into the world. Insanity runs in families, and so does genius and criminality. Even the most trifling idiosyncrasies are often transmitted, not only by men, but also by dogs, horses, and other animals. Such qualities of mind as courage, fidelity, good and bad temper, intelligence, timidity, special tastes and aptitudes, are certainly transmitted in all the higher orders of animal life.

Animals are also _selected_, are enabled to survive in the struggle for life quite as much through the possession by them of certain mental qualities as on account of their physical characters. Whether the selections are made by nature or by man, they are not determined by the physical facts of size, strength, speed, and the like, more than by cunning, courage, sagacity, skill, industry, devotion, ferocity, tractability, and other mental properties. The fittest survive, and the fittest may be the most timid or analytic as well as the most powerful. No better illustration of this truth can be found than that furnished by man himself. Man is by nature a comparatively feeble animal. He is neither large nor powerful. Yet he has been selected to prosper over all other animals because of his ingenuity, sympathy, and art. The great feeling and civilisation of higher men have been built up by slow accretion due to the operation of the law of survival extending over vast measures of time. Creeds and instincts, governments and impulses, forms of thought and forms of expression, have struggled and survived just as have cells and species. A struggle for existence is constantly going on, as Max Müller has pointed out, even among the words and grammatical forms of every language. The better, shorter, easier forms are constantly gaining the ascendancy, and the longer and more cumbrous expressions grow obsolete.

If, therefore, the higher types of mind have not come into existence as have the higher types of structure, through evolution from simpler and more generalised forms, it has not been due to the absence of the factors necessary for bringing about this evolution.

5. The presumption created by the existence of the factors of psychic evolution is strengthened by the facts of artificial selection. We _know_ mind _can_ evolve, _for it has done so in many cases_. The races of domesticated animals, the races whom man has exploited and preyed upon during the past several thousand years, have, many of them, been completely changed in character and intelligence through human selection. Old instincts have been wiped out and new ones implanted. In many instances the psychology has been not only revolutionised, but remade.

Take, for instance, the dog. The dog is a reformed bandit. It is a revised wolf or jackal. It has been completely transformed by human selection; indeed, it may be said that the dog in the last ten or fifteen thousand years has made greater advances in sagacity and civilisation than any other animal, scarcely even excepting man. Man has made wonderful strides along purely intellectual lines, but in the improvement of his emotions he has not been so successful. The rapid development of the dog in feeling and intelligence has no doubt been due to the fact that his utility to man has always depended largely on his good sense and fidelity, and man has persistently emphasised these qualities in his selection. Fierceness and distrust—two of the most prominent traits in the psychology of the primitive dog—have been entirely eradicated in the higher races of dogs. There is not anywhere on the face of the earth a more trustful, affectionate, and docile being than this one-time cut-throat. Whether the dog has been derived from the wolf or from some wild canine race now extinct, or from several distinct ancestors, he must have had originally a fierce, distrustful, and barbaric nature, for all of the undomesticated members of the dog family wolves, foxes, jackals, etc.—have natures of this sort.

There are about 175 different races of domestic dogs. They represent almost as great a range of development as do the races of men. Some of them are exceedingly primitive, while others are highly intelligent and civilised. The Eskimo dogs are really nothing but wolves that have been trained to the service of man. They look like wolves, and have the wolf psychology. They are not able to bark, like ordinary dogs; they howl like wolves, and their ears stand up straight, like the ears of all wild Canidae. Some of the more advanced of the canine races—like the sheep-dogs, pointers, and St. Bernards—are animals of great sympathy and sensibility. When educated, these dogs are almost human in their impulses and in their powers of discernment. In patience, vigilance, and devotion to duty, they are superior to many men. At a word, or even a look, from its master, the loyal collie will gather the sheep scattered for miles around to the place designated, and do it with such tact and expedition as to command admiration. It has been said that if it were not for this faithful and competent canine the highlands of Scotland would be almost useless for sheep-raising purposes, because of the greater expense that would be entailed if men were employed. One collie will do the work of several men, and will do it better, and the generous-hearted creature pours out its services like water. It requires no compensation except table refuse and a straw bed. In South America sheep-dogs are trained to act as shepherds and assume the whole responsibility of tending the flock. ‘It is a common thing,’ says Darwin, ‘to meet a large flock of sheep guarded by one or two dogs, at a distance of some miles from any house or man.’ When the dogs get hungry, they come home for food, but immediately return to the flock on being fed. ‘It is amusing,’ remarks this writer, ‘to observe, when approaching a flock, how the dog immediately advances barking, while the sheep all close in his rear as around the oldest ram.’ Romanes relates an incident which well illustrates the high character and intelligence of the dog and its wonderful devotion to a trust. ‘It was a Scotch collie. Her master was in the habit of consigning sheep to her charge without supervision. On this particular occasion he remained behind or proceeded by another road. On arriving at home late in the evening, he was astonished to learn that his faithful animal had not made her appearance with the drove. He immediately set out in search of her. But on going out into the streets, there she was coming with the drove, not one missing, and, marvellous to relate, she was carrying a young puppy in her mouth. She had been taken in travail on the hills, and how the poor creature had contrived to manage her drove in her condition is beyond human calculation, for her road lay through sheep all the way. Her master’s heart smote him when he saw what she had suffered and effected. But she was nothing daunted, and after depositing her young one in a place of safety she again set out full speed for the hills, and brought another and another, till she brought the whole litter, one by one; but the last one was dead’.[1]

What a wonderful transformation in canine character! The very beings whose blood the dog once drank with ravenous thirst it now protects with courage and fidelity. And this transformation in character is not due to education simply. It is innate. Young dogs brought from Tierra del Fuego or Australia, where the natives do not keep such domestic animals as sheep, pigs, and poultry, invariably have an incurable propensity for attacking these animals.

The feeling of ownership possessed by so many dogs is an entirely new element in canine character, a trait implanted wholly by human selection. Bold and confident on his own premises, the dog immediately becomes weak and apologetic when placed in circumstances in which he feels he has no rights.

The pointers and setters have been developed as distinct breeds by human selection during the past 150 or 200 years.

What is true of the dog is true also, to a large extent, of the cat, cow, horse, sheep, goat, fowl, and other domestic animals. Serene and peaceful puss is the tranquillised descendant of the wild cat of Egypt, one of the most untamable of all animals. The migratory instinct, so strong in wild water-fowl, is almost absent from our geese and ducks, as is the fighting propensity (prominent in the Indian jungle-bird) from most varieties of the domesticated chicken. There are now as many as a hundred different kinds of domesticated animals, and there is scarcely one of these animals that has not been profoundly changed in character during the period of its domestication. There are much greater changes in some races than in others. Some races have been much longer in captivity than others. And then, too, there is great difference in the degree of plasticity in different races, the races of ancient origin being much more fixed in their psychology than those of more recent beginnings. In some races, too—as in the sheep—the selections made by man have been made primarily with reference to certain physical qualities, and in these cases the mental qualities have been only incidentally affected. In Polynesia, where it is selected for its flavour instead of for its fleetness or intelligence, the dog is said to be a very stupid animal. But in most cases of domestication the changes wrought by selection in the mental make-up of the race have been fully as great as the changes in body, and in some instances much greater. And the process by which these great changes in psychology have been effected is in principle identically the same as that by which mental evolution in general is assumed to have been brought about.

History everywhere has come out of the night, out of the deep gloom of the unrecorded. But it has not leaped forth like lightning out of the darkness. It has dawned, night being succeeded by the amorphous shadows of legend and tradition, and these in turn by the attested events of true history. Almost every civilised people can trace back its genealogy to a time when it was represented on the earth by one or more tribes of savage or half-savage ancestors. The Anglo-Saxons go back to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, three semi-savage tribes who came to England from the borderlands of the Baltic fourteen or fifteen centuries ago. The French are the descendants of the Gauls, who formed the scattered population of warring and superstitious tribes referred to by Julius Caesar in the opening lines of his ‘Commentaries.’ The blue-eyed Germans came from the Cimbri, the Goths, and the Vandals, those bold, wild hordes who charged out of the north to battle with the power of Rome. And all of the Aryan races—English, German, Italian, Scandinavian, Russian, Roman, Greek, and Persian—trace their ancestry back, by means of common languages and legends, to a time when they were wandering tribes of nomads tenting somewhere on the plains of transcaspian Asia.

6. The evolution of mind in the animal world in general is suggested by the fact that mind in man has evolved. The rich, luminous intellect of civilised man, with its art, science, law, literature, government, and morality, has been evolved from the rude, raw, demon-haunted mind of the savage. Evidence of this evolution is furnished by the recorded facts of human history, by the antiquarian collections of our museums, and by a study of existing savages.

In all our museums there are collections of the relics of prehistoric peoples. These collections consist of objects upon which men in distant ages of the world have wrought—their weapons, ornaments, utensils, implements, and playthings—which have been saved from the teeth of Time by their durability. The character of the minds which operated on these objects, which produced and used them, may be inferred from the character of the objects, just as the life and surroundings of an ancient animal or plant may be inferred from its fossil. These relics are of stone, bone, bronze, and iron. They are found in almost every region of the earth—all over Europe and its islands, in western and central Asia, in China and Japan, in Malay, Australia, and New Zealand, in the islands of the Pacific, and throughout the length and breadth of America. They antedate human history by thousands of years. They are the ruins of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age of mankind. In all of these remains there is evidence of a slow but gradual improvement as we approach the present. There are places on the earth where the evolution of human implements, from the rudest chipped stones to the comparatively finished products of historic peoples, is epitomised in the deposits of a few feet in depth. One of these occurs at Chelles, a suburb of Paris, and was made the subject of a paper by Professor Packard in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for May, 1902. Here three distinct layers, containing human remains entirely different in character from each other, appear within a depth of 30 feet from the surface. The lowest bed, a layer of pebbles and sand, and probably preglacial in origin, contains the famous Chellean ‘axes,’ rude almond-shaped implements of chipped flint, and used by these ancient inhabitants by being held in the hand. In this bed are also found the bones of the straight-tusked elephant, cave-bear, big-nosed rhinoceros, and other species now extinct. The next bed is the interglacial, and contains implements entirely different from the one below it, among which are skin-scrapers and lance-points. The animal remains of this bed are also different from those found in the bed below, and include animals like the musk-ox and the reindeer, which were probably driven to this southern clime from more northern regions by the excessive cold of the time. The third bed, which lies just below the surface soils, contains polished stone axes and other remains of human industry cotemporaneous with the Swiss lake-dwellers. From the swamps and loams are sometimes dug up the remains of Gallo-Roman civilisations—Gallic coins, serpentine axes, and bronzes of the time of the Antonines.