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Henry Edward Crampton - The Doctrine of Evolution

H >> Henry Edward Crampton >> The Doctrine of Evolution




The field of comparative psychology might seem at first sight to be a
foreign territory to the average well-informed layman in science, but the
contrary is really the case. Every one has thought at one time or another
about his own mental make-up, and about the minds of others. No one can
watch a child at play with his toys or at work with his schoolbooks
without being struck by many evidences of marked differences between the
immature and the experienced types of mind. Every one knows also that the
mental "scheme of things" is by no means the same for all nations or races
of mankind existing to-day, while furthermore the fact is entirely
familiar that the intellectual heritage of a present race has changed in
the course of previous ages. Therefore in this field as before we need
only to amplify our knowledge of such representative psychological facts
as these by drawing upon the full stores of the special investigator, in
order to learn that human thought, like the human frame, has undergone a
natural history of transformation to become what it is and what it was
not.

Many who would be ready to accept the evolution of physical
characteristics find it impossible to treat the history of human mentality
as a subject for dispassionate consideration, because above all else the
intellectual powers of mankind seem to be truly distinctive. It is only
after constant use of the methods of science that we can bring ourselves
to see how closely we resemble lower forms in physical make-up; still
greater reluctance must be overcome before we can view our mental
processes as counterparts of those of inferior animals, so essential to
our very humanity do they seem. But our duty to undertake the task is
plain, and its discharge will be greatly facilitated by a clear
realization that mental evolution is but a part of human transformation in
times past, as the latter is only a small fraction of the universal
process of organic evolution in general. While our own nature and
inquisitiveness give us so intense an interest in the teachings of science
that relate to the constitution and history of human faculty, wherefore
these matters gain an undue prominence in perspective, it must never be
forgotten that these teachings do not stand by themselves, for they are
built upon the sure foundations already laid in physical evolution; and
these foundations cannot be disturbed by our failure to use them as a
basis when we construct our own conceptions of human intellect and its
history.

* * * * *

Before passing to the systematic review of the facts and principles of
comparative psychology which demonstrate evolution, there are certain
general aspects of the subject to be considered so as to clear the ground,
as it were, for further progress. When the several organic systems of the
human body were compared with those of the apes and of lower animals,
their evolution was proved as far as the purely physical and material
characteristics were concerned. But we know that there is no part of any
one of these systems which has not its own particular function, even
though this may be a relatively passive one; while furthermore, science
does not know of any physiological activity without some organ or tissue
or cell as its material basis. Therefore the evolution of an organic
system in material respects involves its functional or dynamic evolution
as an inseparable correlate; the two proceed in unity, and they cannot be
regarded as entirely distinct without violating common-sense.

The fin of a fish is used as an organ of locomotion in water; from some
such organ have evolved the walking limbs of amphibia and reptiles,
constructed for progression upon land. Among the mammalia the fore limbs
have become structurally adapted so as to be such diverse organs of
locomotion as the stilt-like leg of a horse, the flipper of a seal, the
whale's paddle, and the bat's wing, while among the birds the wing may
change into a flipper like that of the penguin, or become reduced to a
vestige as in _Apteryx_. We may focus our attention upon the material
likenesses and differences in such a series of locomotory organs, but an
inevitable accompaniment of their physical changes in the transformation
of species has been an evolution in the functional matter of locomotion.
The most complex and differentiated tracts of even the highest animals
have evolved from a simple sac like that of a polyp or jellyfish, as we
know from the independent testimony of comparative anatomy and embryology;
in this case also the evolution of alimentary functions is no less
inseparable from the transformations in structural respects. And again, we
cannot understand the historical development of vision without taking into
account the eyes of various types belonging to lower and higher animals.

So it is with the nervous systems of man and other animals, and with their
functions. The nervous system of the human organism comprises identical
organs with the same arrangements that are found in other primates and in
lower vertebrates as well; the differences in structure are differences in
the degree of the complexity of certain parts, notably of the cerebrum.
Therefore the evolution of human mentality, which depends upon a human
type of brain as a physical basis, is already demonstrated with the proof
that the human brain and nervous system have evolved. It is true that an
invariable and necessary connection between mind and matter is implied in
the foregoing statement, and this is something which demands further
consideration at a later point. But just _how_ the human mind is produced
by or depends upon the brain, is of far less importance for us at this
time than the obvious fact that mental performance requires active nervous
tissues. So far investigation has been unable to discover a valid reason
for a belief in the existence of mental phenomena, as such, apart from
some kind of material basis. And while we may prefer to restrict the use
of the word _mind_ to the series of nervous processes going on in the
human organ of thought, in so far as these processes are carried on by the
peculiar tissues of the nervous system they cannot be finally
distinguished from the functional products or accompaniments of the same
kind of active tissues and organs in lower creatures. Thus the subject of
mental evolution becomes much clarified at the outset by understanding
that nervous processes and nervous systems evolve together.

In the direct treatment of the facts and principles of mental evolution we
can use exactly the same classification and subdivisions of the materials
of study as heretofore, because psychological data are the correlates of
material organic systems, and also because the former, being natural
phenomena, are subject to the methods of analysis which can be employed
for any series of objects that have undergone evolution. Separating the
matter of fact from the question as to the method, and recalling the main
bodies of evidence as to the reality of evolution, we may establish four
sections of the subject before us: these are (1) the anatomy, (2) the
embryology, and (3) "palaeontology" of mind, and (4) an inquiry into the
way nature deals with the psychical characteristics of organisms in
accomplishing their evolution. To specify more particularly, it is
possible in the first place to compare the activities belonging to the
category of mental and nervous operations, displayed by man and other
organisms, and the results form the subject of comparative descriptive
psychology; the second division, namely, developmental or genetic
psychology, deals with the sequence of events in the life of a single
individual by which the infantile and adolescent types of mind become
adult intellectuality; in the third place, in speaking of the palaeontology
of mind, the phrase is used to refer to the varied and changing mental
abilities of human races in historic and prehistoric times as they may be
demonstrated and determined by the evidences of the culture of such
earlier epochs. In considering the matter of method, the questions are
whether variation, inheritance, and selection are as real in the world of
mental phenomena as they are in the material world, and whether the laws
are the same or similar in the two cases. We shall learn how the results
of such studies prove with convincing clearness, first, that the contents
of the individual mind and of the minds of various human races are truly
the products of natural evolution, and second, that the human mind differs
only in degree from that of lower organisms, and not in kind or
fundamental nature.

* * * * *

When the operations of human mental life are examined, they include what
are called processes of _reason_ as apparently distinctive elements. The
lower mammalia exhibit a simpler order of "mentality" denoted
_intelligence_, while the nervous processes of still simpler forms are
called _instinctive_ and _reflex_ activities. These are the terms of the
comparative array of psychology which are to be separately examined and
classified, and to be brought into an evolutionary sequence if
common-sense directs us to do so.

Let us begin our comparative study with an example of the simplest animals
that consist of only a single cell, such as the little protozoon
_Amoeba_. We have become familiar with this organism as one that carries
on all of the vital functions within the limits of a single structural
unit; it is a mass of protoplasm enclosing a nucleus, and as a biological
individual it must perform all of the eight tasks that are essential for
life. It does not possess a digestive tract, but it does digest; it does
not have breathing organs, but it does respire; and it is particularly
noteworthy that it must coordinate the different activities of its parts,
and maintain definite relations with the environment, even though its
coordination and sensation are not accomplished by any special parts that
would deserve the name of elementary nervous organs. Its many activities
are simple responses to stimuli that reach it from without, and its
reactions to such stimuli are called reflex processes. Should the light
become too strong, it will slowly crawl to a shady place; should the water
in which it lives become warmer, it responds by displaying greater
activity. It exhibits, in a word, the property of _irritability_--that is,
simply the power of receiving and reacting to stimuli; and being only a
single cell this property is held in common by all of its parts.

We come next to a simple many-celled animal like the polyp _Hydra_, or a
jellyfish. In such an animal the body is composed of numerous cells which
are not all alike either in their make-up or in their functions. Some of
them are concerned primarily with digestion, others with protection, while
still others are exempt from these tasks and as sense-cells they devote
all their energies to the reception of stimuli from without, or, beneath
the outer sheet of cells of the two-layered body, they conduct impulses
from one part of the animal to another, and thus serve as coordinating
members of the community. For the first time, then, a nervous system as
such is set apart and specialized to devote itself to the two tasks of
sensation and coordination that are performed by nervous systems
throughout the entire range of organisms higher in the scale. But the
activities of _Hydra_, like those of _Amoeba_, are reflex and
mechanical,--that is to say, _given similar stimuli and similar
physiological states of the animal, the reactions will be the same_. A
little water-crustacean like _Daphnia_ may swim against the tentacles of
_Hydra_; it is stung to death by the minute cell-batteries which the
animal possesses, and then in a mechanical way the tentacles transport the
food to the mouth, through which it is passed inward to the digestive
cavity. There is nothing that can be called "mentality" throughout these
processes, but the series of activities is much more complex than in
_Amoeba_ because the whole organism is constructed more elaborately, and
because the special and peculiar mechanism directing the activities has
advanced to a far higher condition.

Passing to the jointed animals like worms and insects, we find nervous
mechanisms that are still more intricate, and with their advance in
structural respects there is a corresponding and correlated progress in
their functions. Because the whole organism has developed more highly
differentiated groups of organs to perform the several biological tasks,
such as eating and respiring and moving, it is necessary for the nervous
structures concerned with the direction of these actions to become more
efficient. An earthworm avoids the light of day and digs its burrow and
seeks its food by wonderfully cooerdinated activities of its muscles and
other parts, which are controlled by a double chain of ganglia along its
ventral side, connected with a similar pair of grouped nerve-cells above
the anterior part of the digestive tract. The ganglia of each segment
exercise immediate supervision over the structures of their respective
territory, while they pass on impulses to other ganglia so that movements
involving many segments can be properly adjusted. Everything an earthworm
does is controlled by the cells grouped in these ganglia, or scattered
along the intervening connecting cords. We speak of its acts as
instinctive, employing a term which seems to indicate a different kind of
operation carried on by the nervous system, but a moment's thought will
show that an instinctive act is simply a complex group of reflex acts. The
physical basis and ultimate unit is a cell, and the functional unit is
likewise a cell act; therefore the seeming difference proves to be one
merely of degree and not of kind. The greater complexity of the worm's
nervous system as compared with that of _Hydra_ gives to the whole
mechanism a plasticity that diverts the attention from the mechanical
nature of the entire instinctive act and of its basic cell elements.

The instinct, like the elementary reflex, is determined by heredity.
Because a certain configuration of the cells and fibers making up a
nervous system is inherited as well as the characters of the constituent
elements themselves, a worm or an insect is enabled to act as it does. A
butterfly does not have to learn how to fly, for it flies instinctively.
When it emerges from its chrysalis with its complete adult series of wings
and muscles, it has also the nervous mechanism by which these parts are
mechanically controlled. A ground-wasp deposits its eggs in a small burrow
in which it places also a caterpillar or a grasshopper paralyzed by
stinging, so that when the larva is hatched from an egg it finds an ample
supply of fresh food provided by a complex series of its mother's acts
that seem to be directed by conscious maternal solicitude. When the larva
passes through the later stages of development and makes its way to the
open air as a fully formed adult, it in its turn may go through the same
course of action as its parent, but it is clear that it cannot have any
remembrance of its mother's work or any personal knowledge of the value of
burying its own eggs in a chamber with a living prisoner to serve as food.
It was an egg when its parent did these things; as a parent itself it does
not remain on watch to see how beneficial or fruitless its acts may be. A
mechanism produced by nature's methods, the ground-wasp behaves as it is
capable of working with its inherited structure and its inherited
instinctive powers of cooerdination and sensation.

The complex lives of communal insects like ants and bees bring us to the
level of mentality where an understanding of causes and effects seems to
be the guide for conduct. Nevertheless the facts do not warrant the
assumption that reason and intelligence play any part in the mental life
of these creatures, as they do in the lives of man and the apes. Because
we ourselves can see the utility of the definite and peculiar behavior of
the queen and the worker, there is no logical necessity for assuming an
identical form of knowledge as a possession of these insects. Many
investigators have dealt with these fascinating subjects, and they are
almost unanimous in the conclusion that the instinct of an insect is a
mechanical and hereditary synthesis of combined reflex acts.

The lower orders of psychological processes play a far larger part in the
lives of the higher animals than we are wont to believe. A pointer and
sheep dog possess different qualifications in the way of instincts that
make them useful to man in different ways. A bulldog or a game-cock does
not reason out its course of action during a contest, but like a mechanism
when the spring is released, it acts promptly and with effect. A ball
flashing past the human eye causes the lids to close unconsciously, and it
is not always possible to inhibit this instinctive mechanical act by the
exercise of the will. An examination of the workings of the human body
reveals manifold activities of an even lower or reflex nature, like the
movements of the viscera and the adjustments in respect to the amount of
supplies of blood sent to different parts of the body as local needs
arise. Directed always by specific portions of the nervous system, such
reflex actions play their part in human life without any effort on the
part of reason and so-called will, and without coming into consciousness
except indirectly and subsequently.

Passing by many interesting members of the psychological series of
intergrading forms, we reach the familiar animals like the cat and dog and
horse which display what is called intelligence. This is the power to
learn by experience, and to improve the quality and promptitude of
reactions to stimuli. In certain respects intelligence seems to differ
from instinct, inasmuch as it involves a response to stimuli that may be
altered and quickened by repeated experience, but in ultimate analysis the
two forms of psychological processes are fundamentally alike. A single
example chosen from Thorndike's extensive investigation will serve to
bring out the primary characteristics of intelligence. A cat was placed in
a latticed cage provided with a door that could be opened from within when
a catch was pressed down, and meat was put in a dish outside the door
where the cat could see it. At first, the animal escaped from the cage by
freeing the door during its aimless scrambling about the catch, but as
trial after trial was made, the time necessary for the cat to make its way
out was shortened, until after seventy-five or one hundred trials, the
animal immediately opened the door and seized the food. In mechanical
terms, the connection between "scrambling about the door" and "freedom to
get the meat" became established by numerous repetitions until the
originally disconnected elements were physiologically associated and made
inseparable. When animals like horses and seals and dogs are trained for
the circus, it is by exactly the same method, for training consists merely
in the establishment of a psychological sequence so that the performance
of one series of acts leads mechanically to others. Thus we learn that the
psychological property called intelligence is the ability to establish
wide relations between numerous activities which are themselves of a more
or less complex nature; and we find also that because these elements are
ultimately nerve-cell and sense-cell reflexes, an intelligent response is
quite as machine-like as any and all of its elements. A difference in
degree of complexity and extent is the only thing that places intelligence
apart from instinct and reflex action, for the units are the same in all
cases,--so far as science knows.

The apes are of the greatest value in providing the transition from the
grade of intelligence to the human level where reason is found. Whether or
not a chimpanzee can reason at all is less important than the fact that
its total "mental" powers are lower than those of man, and higher than
those of inferior mammalia. Apes are far more susceptible to training than
cats and dogs, because their improved nervous mechanism enables them to
establish a psychological sequence with greater facility. If we are to
judge by the facts at hand, these creatures possess a low order of
mentality, like, but by no means equivalent to, that of man.

At the end of the comparative scale, we reach the human mind which is
characterized by its ability to perceive and recognize far wider relations
than those which are involved in intelligence. Human consciousness is the
stream of thoughts and feelings which constitute the immediate contents of
mind. In our own case, we know both the activities we perform and some of
the internal phenomena with which such activities are connected. Then we
are impelled to compare the objective phenomena of action with the
behavior of other men and of lower organisms, and if their behavior does
not coincide with our own we are justified in believing that its direction
lacks some of the elements we know about in our own case. This is the
method of comparative psychology, which establishes the conclusion that
reason is the more complex term of a series to which reflex action,
instinct, and intelligence directly lead.

Were we to study in detail the psychology of adult human beings, we would
find only more truly that instinct and intelligence play a large part in
our everyday mental life, and more certainly that even the highest
reasoning powers we possess are only more complex in nature than the
nervous processes of lower mammals and invertebrates. Just as the nervous
systems advance in physical or structural respects, so must their
activities become more and more complex until the result is human faculty.

* * * * *

We must now briefly consider what may be called the "comparative
anthropology" of mind which deals with the various degrees of mental
ability displayed by different human races; this subject follows
inevitably upon the comparison of the human mind viewed as a single type
with the psychological processes of lower animals. When we reviewed the
diverse characteristics of human races--the protrusion of the jaws,
greater or lesser stature, and the like--it appeared that so-called
"lower" races could be distinguished which differed from the "higher"
races in the direction of the apes; the question immediately arises
whether similar distinctions and relations are discoverable on the basis
of mental traits. But in the present case there are not so many
well-substantiated differentia at the disposal of the student, and it does
not appear so clearly that the "higher" races are furthest from the lower
primates and lower mammalia as regards their mental processes. What facts
there are, however, prove to be highly significant, and they materially
amplify our conception of human faculty as a product of evolution. The
essential point is that the intellectual attainments of various races are
by no means the same. The calculus is a mental product of the white race
only; gunpowder and printing from movable type were independently invented
by the Caucasian and Mongolian races; but the American Indian and the
Negro never originated them. Human faculty, to employ the most general
term for all that distinguishes man from the brutes, proves to be a very
varied thing when we draw comparisons between and among races with
independent lines of ancestry and heredity occupying widely separated
areas. Should we analyze it, we find it to be composed of three
constituents; namely, the physical elements of the brain, the degree to
which the observational or perceptual and higher elements cooperate in
building up the conceptions peculiar to the type, and the materials with
which the physical mechanism deals, in the way of environmental,
educational, and social "grist for the mental mill." Many anthropologists
accord too great an importance to the third constituent of human faculty,
I believe, and they are therefore led to deny that races differ in mental
respects to so large a degree as the thoroughgoing evolutionist would
contend. They hold that differences in such things as powers of
observation are due to training: that, for example, an American Indian or
a South Sea Islander sees certain things in his environment more quickly
than a white man only because these are the things which the experiences
of his earlier life have accustomed him to look for and to find. This may
be granted, and it may also be admitted that children of so-called "lower"
races can be educated side by side with the youth of white races without
noticeably falling behind, up to a certain point when, at the age of
adolescence, in the classic case of the Australian natives, other factors
prove to be obstacles to further progress. We must also recognize that the
character of the environment of a race determines to a large extent the
mode of life of the people; a forest-dwelling Indian of the interior is a
hunter as well as a warrior, while a South Sea Islander is a navigator and
a fisherman.

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