Animal Intelligence. George John Romanes
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dream—common sense will always and without question conclude that the activities of organisms other than our own, when analogous to those activities of our own which we know to be accompanied by certain mental states, are in them accompanied by analogous mental states.
The theory of animal automatism, therefore, which is usually attributed to Descartes (although it is not quite clear how far this great philosopher really entertained the theory), can never be accepted by common sense; and even as a philosophical speculation it will be seen, from what has just been said, that by no feat of logic is it possible to make the theory apply to animals to the exclusion of man. The expression of fear or affection by a dog involves quite as distinctive and complex a series of neuro-muscular actions as does the expression of similar emotions by a human being; and therefore, if the evidence of corresponding mental states is held to be inadequate in the one case, it must in consistency be held similarly inadequate in the other. And likewise, of course, with all other exhibitions of mental life.
It is quite true, however, that since the days of Descartes—or rather, we might say, since the days of Joule—the question of animal automatism has assumed a new or more defined aspect, seeing that it now runs straight into the most profound and insoluble problem that has ever been presented to human thought—viz. the relation of body to mind in view of the doctrine of the conservation of energy. I shall subsequently have occasion to consider this problem with the close attention that it demands; but in the present volume, which has to deal only with the phenomena of mind as such, I expressly pass the problem aside as one reserved for separate treatment. Here I desire only to make it plain that the mind of animals must be placed in the same category, with reference to this problem, as the mind of man; and that we cannot without gross inconsistency ignore or question the evidence of mind in the former, while we accept precisely the same kind of evidence as sufficient proof of mind in the latter.
And this proof, as I have endeavoured to show, is in all cases and in its last analysis the fact of a living organism showing itself able to learn by its own individual experience. Wherever we find an animal able to do this, we have the same right to predicate mind as existing in such an animal that we have to predicate it as existing in any human being other than ourselves. For instance, a dog has always been accustomed to eat a piece of meat when his organism requires nourishment, and when his olfactory nerves respond to the particular stimulus occasioned by the proximity of the food. So far, it may be said, there is no evidence of mind; the whole series of events comprised in the stimulations and muscular movements may be due to reflex action alone. But now suppose that by a number of lessons the dog has been taught not to eat the meat when he is hungry until he receives a certain verbal signal: then we have exactly the same kind of evidence that the dog's actions are prompted by mind as we have that the actions of a man are so prompted.[2] Now we find that the lower down we go in the animal kingdom, the more we observe reflex action, or non-mental adjustment, to predominate over volitional action, or mental adjustment. That is to say, the lower down we go in the animal kingdom, the less capacity do we find for changing adjustive movements in correspondence with changed conditions; it becomes more and more hopeless to teach animals—that is, to establish associations of ideas; and the reason of this, of course, is that ideas or mental units become fewer and less definite the lower we descend through the structure of mind.
It is not my object in the present work to enter upon any analysis of the operations of mind, as this will require to be done as fully as possible in my next work. Nevertheless, a few words must here be said with regard to the main divisions of mental operation, in order to define closely the meanings which I shall attach to certain terms relating to these divisions, and the use of which I cannot avoid.
The terms sensation, perception, emotion, and volition need not here be considered. I shall use them in their ordinary psychological significations; and although I shall subsequently have to analyse each of the organic or mental states which they respectively denote, there will be no occasion in the present volume to enter upon this subject. I may, however, point out one general consideration to which I shall throughout adhere. Taking it for granted that the external indications of mental processes which we observe in animals are trustworthy, so that we are justified in inferring particular mental states from particular bodily actions, it follows that in consistency we must everywhere apply the same criteria.
For instance, if we find a dog or a monkey exhibiting marked expressions of affection, sympathy, jealousy, rage, &c., few persons are sceptical enough to doubt that the complete analogy which these expressions afford with those which are manifested by man, sufficiently prove the existence of mental states analogous to those in man of which these expressions are the outward and visible signs. But when we find an ant or a bee apparently exhibiting by its actions these same emotions, few persons are sufficiently non-sceptical not to doubt whether the outward and visible signs are here trustworthy as evidence of analogous or corresponding inward and mental states. The whole organisation of such a creature is so different from that of a man that it becomes questionable how far analogy drawn from the activities of the insect is a safe guide to the inferring of mental states—particularly in view of the fact that in many respects, such as in the great preponderance of 'instinct' over 'reason,' the psychology of an insect is demonstrably a widely different thing from that of a man. Now it is, of course, perfectly true that the less the resemblance the less is the value of any analogy built upon the resemblance, and therefore that the inference of an ant or a bee feeling sympathy or rage is not so valid as is the similar inference in the case of a dog or a monkey. Still it is an inference, and, so far as it goes, a valid one—being, in fact, the only inference available. That is to say, if we observe an ant or a bee apparently exhibiting sympathy or rage, we must either conclude that some psychological state resembling that of sympathy or rage is present, or else refuse to think about the subject at all; from the observable facts there is no other inference open. Therefore, having full regard to the progressive weakening of the analogy from human to brute psychology as we recede through the animal kingdom downwards from man, still, as it is the only analogy available, I shall follow it throughout the animal series.
It may not, however, be superfluous to point out that if we have full regard to this progressive weakening of the analogy, we must feel less and less certain of the real similarity of the mental states compared; so that when we get down as low as the insects, I think the most we can confidently assert is that the known facts of human psychology furnish the best available pattern of the probable facts of insect psychology. Just as the theologians tell us—and logically enough—that if there is a Divine Mind, the best, and indeed only, conception we can form of it is that which is formed on the analogy, however imperfect, supplied by the human mind; so with 'inverted anthropomorphism' we must apply a similar consideration with a similar conclusion to the animal mind. The mental states of an insect may be widely different from those of a man, and yet most probably the nearest conception that we can form of their true nature is that which we form by assimilating them to the pattern of the only mental states with which we are actually acquainted. And this consideration, it is needless to point out, has a special validity to the evolutionist, inasmuch as upon his theory there must be a psychological, no less than a physiological, continuity extending throughout the length and breadth of the animal kingdom.
In these preliminary remarks only one other point requires brief consideration, and this has reference to the distinction between what in popular phraseology is called 'Instinct' and 'Reason.' I shall not here enter upon any elaborate analysis of a distinction which is undoubtedly valid, but shall confine my remarks to explaining the sense in which I shall everywhere use these terms.
Few words in our language have been subject to a greater variety of meanings than the word instinct. In popular phraseology, descended from the Middle Ages, all the mental faculties of the animal are termed instinctive, in contradistinction to those of man, which are termed rational. But unless we commit ourselves to an obvious reasoning in a circle, we must avoid assuming that all actions of animals are instinctive, and then arguing that because they are instinctive, therefore they differ from the rational actions of man. The question really lies in what is here assumed, and we can only answer it by examining in what essential respect instinct differs from reason.
Again, Addison says:—
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