The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

Again, man has true instincts, were it only that of sociability. Faculties, however, of this order, which are so fully developed in certain animals, in man are evidently very much reduced in comparison with the intelligence.

The relative development of the latter certainly establishes an enormous difference between man and animal. It is not, however, the intensity of a phenomenon which gives value to it from our present point of view, but simply its nature. The question is whether human intelligence and animal intelligence can be considered as of the same order.

As a rule philosophers, psychologists, and theologians, have replied in the negative, and naturalists in the affirmative. This opposition can be easily understood. The former make the human mind, considered as an indivisible whole, their principal study, and attribute to it all our faculties. Unable to deny the similarity, external at least, between certain animal and human acts, and yet being anxious to clearly distinguish man from the brute, they have given to the acts different interpretations as they have been performed by one or the other. Naturalists have regarded the phenomena more closely without thinking of anything else, and when they have seen the animal behave in the same manner as they themselves would have done under the given circumstances, they have concluded that the motives of the action must be fundamentally the same. I must ask permission to remain a naturalist, and to recall some facts, and regard them from this point of view.

The theologians themselves allow that the animal possesses sensation, formation and association of images, imagination, and passion (R. P. de Bonniot). They allow that the animal feels the relation of fitness or of unfitness between sensible objects and his own senses; that it experiences sensible attractions and repulsions, and acts perfectly in consequence, and that in this sense the animal reasons and judges (l’Abbé A. Lecomte). Therefore, they add, we cannot doubt but that the animal possesses a principle superior to that of mere matter, and we may even give it the name of mind (R. P. Bonniot). But in spite of all, theologians and philosophers maintain that the animal cannot be intelligent, because it has neither innate sense, consciousness nor reason.

Let us leave for a moment the last term, with which the idea of phenomena which we shall presently discuss, is connected in the mind of our opponents. Is it true that animals are wanting in innate sense, and are not conscious of their actions? Upon what facts of observation does this opinion rest? We each one of us feel that we possess this sense, that we enjoy this faculty. By means of speech we can convey to another the results of our personal experience. But this source of information is wanting when we come to deal with animals. Neither in them nor in ourselves are innate sense and consciousness revealed to the outer world by any special characteristic movement. It is, therefore, only by interpreting these movements, and by judging from ourselves, that we can form an idea of the motives from which the animal acts.

Proceeding in this manner, it seems to me impossible to refuse to allow animals a certain amount of consciousness of their actions. Doubtless, they do not form such an exact estimate of them, as even an illiterate man can do. But we may be very certain that when a cat is trying to catch sparrows on level ground, and creeps along the hollows, availing herself of every tuft of grass however small, she knows what she is about, just as well as the hunter who glides in a crouching attitude from one bush to another. We may be equally sure that kittens and puppies when they fight, growl and bite without hurting each other, know very well that they are playing and not in earnest.

I must here beg permission to relate the remembrance of my struggles with a mastiff of pure breed, and which had attained its full size, remaining, however, very young in character. We were very good friends, and often played together. As soon as ever I assumed an attitude of defence before him, he would leap upon me with every appearance of fury, seizing in his mouth the arm which I had used as a shield. He might have marked my arm deeply at the first onset, but he never pressed it in a manner that could inflict the slightest pain. I often seized him by his lower jaw with my hand, but he never used his teeth so as to bite me. And yet the next moment the same teeth would indent a piece of wood, I tried to tear away from them.

This animal evidently knew what it was doing when it feigned the passion precisely opposite to that which it really felt; when, even in the excitement of play, it retained sufficient mastery over its movements to avoid hurting me. In reality it played a part in a comedy, and we cannot act without being conscious of it.

It is useless for me to insist upon many other facts which I could bring forward, and I refer my reader to the works of those naturalists who have studied the question, especially those of F. Cuvier. But the more I reflect upon it, the more is my conviction confirmed that man and animals think and reason in virtue of a faculty which is common to both, and which is only far more developed in the latter than in the former.

What I have just said of the intelligence I do not hesitate to say also of language, the highest manifestation of the intelligence. It is true that man alone possesses speech, that is to say the articulate voice. But two classes of animals possess voice. With us it is, again, only a high degree of perfection, nothing radically new. In both cases the sounds, produced by the air which is thrown into vibration by the voluntary movements accorded to the larynx, convey impressions and personal thoughts which are understood by individuals of the same species. The mechanism of the production, the object and the result are fundamentally the same.