The Senses and the Mind

by Anonymous

[6] Phil. Trans., 1799.

3. Attention.—Attention is an abstraction of the mind from a multifarious variety of trifles, or circumstances, and an energetic direction of it to one subject, or object. In attention many, if not all, the senses may be engaged. For example, a botanist gathers a flower; its beauty, the form and substance of its petals, their colour, its aroma, the honey-dew of its nectary, the peculiarity of its calyx, and other qualities, appeal to the mind through the senses of sight, smell, taste, and feeling. He has to describe this flower—he fixes his mind upon it, and puts forth a graphic delineation in apt and concise language. The ploughman is at work, and the sower of grain follows him—both give their whole mind to their duty. The critic (oh, word of fear!) gives his attention to the matter under his revision; and so does the cook, when preparing a recherché dish on the composition of which he prides himself. And does not the tiger, crouching in ambush, give attention to his object, stimulated in the meantime by hope? Who has not observed multitudes of cases, affording examples of attention in brutes? In fact, attention is a faculty displayed by all brutes, especially by those which lead a life of rapine, for upon its exercise depends their daily support. But man alone can direct his attention to things intellectual, abstruse, or religious. The reason is evident—the brute is incapable of abstract ideas, but quite awake to its own present necessities. The high realms of thought belong to man alone, of all terrestrial beings; but in how far higher a degree to those spiritual existences, those angels of light, which surround the throne of God, and who, contemplating with amazement the finished work of salvation, exclaim, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing!" nay, till we mingle with these transcendent beings, the powers of our mind will be pressed down beneath a load of clay; then all that was dark shall be made clear, and with angels we shall join in saying, "Amen: blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever!"

But we are told that there are angels "which kept not their first estate," and which are reserved "unto judgment of the great day;" namely, Satan and his apostate subordinates. Fallen though they be, their brightness "has not lost all its original splendour;" but they exercise their high powers in tempting and seducing to his eternal ruin man, whom Satan by his wiles has already crushed, and robbed of his original innocence. Let us strive against the tempter, the deceiver, who lays luxury, licentiousness, gold, fame, power, before his willing slaves, trying them on every point, and inducing too many to fall irrecoverably. But God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, or than the thoughts of man's crafty adversary; and in wisdom he devised that mighty scheme, through which rescue and pardon are freely granted to all who accept the invitation of the Redeemer, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" "All," he says, "that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out," John vi. 37. Jesus is the Conqueror, and death is swallowed up in victory. Flee, then, from the city of destruction; and though the slough of despond or the valley of humiliation be before, press forward, awakened sinner, to the heavenly Jerusalem! on that let your thoughts be placed.

4. Comparison.—The direct comparison of one object with another, with a view towards the acquisition of information, is exercised by man alone of all animals; but that superficial and involuntary comparison which leads to the simple distinction of things, as of land from water, or trees from houses, is common both to animals and man. Choice supposes the exercise of comparison, in a low degree, and this a bird displays in the selection of a spot for its nest, and the beaver in that of a site for its dam and village. In both these cases, however, instinct impels to the labour, and supplies the place of experience.

5. Knowledge of Cause and Effect.—A knowledge of the connexion between cause and effect is the result of experience alone. We thus accumulate a number of facts, and by reasoning upon those facts, can infer with certainty what would be the result under such or such contingencies. That brutes gain information to a certain extent by experience is very plain. We have seen a monkey break nuts by hammering them upon a stone—we have seen the orang try to pick the lock of its door with a bit of stick—we know instances of horses disengaging themselves from their headstall, unbolting the stable door, and making off to the pasture; a cat in our possession was accustomed to leap up and open the latch of the kitchen door, whenever she wished to enjoy a stroll. We might multiply examples, but so many will suggest themselves to the reader's mind, that we may spare ourselves the task.

With a knowledge of the connexion between cause and effect is associated that of power. Give me where to stand, said Archimedes, and I could move the world. Man's natural powers are very limited, but his comprehensive mind enables him to overcome the most formidable obstacles; to bore through the mountain, to uproot it from its base, and scatter its fragments over the plain; to over-arch rivers and arms of the sea with iron pathways; to travel as rapidly as most birds fly; to upheave ponderous masses of stone, and to compress light and flocculent materials until they become solid and heavy. But man accomplishes all this and far more, not by his own bodily powers, but by machinery of various kinds, and of various degrees of simplicity or complexity; nay, he cannot even cultivate the soil, except by the aid of implements, that is, simple machines.

Brutes entirely depend upon their own bodily powers, and gain a knowledge of the extent of those powers by experience. An old hunter will never attempt a leap which he knows he cannot accomplish—a young, fiery horse will make a dash at it, and perhaps fail; if he succeed, his dependence upon himself will be confirmed; on the other hand, should he not succeed, it is more than probable that he will lose all self-confidence, and therefore be henceforward useless for the chase.

The elephant skilfully uses its tusks as levers, in the uprooting of trees; and when the megatherium and mylodon wrestled with the noblest productions of their primeval forests in South America, they applied in the best manner their forces and the means at their command. What is this but a knowledge (limited, we allow) of the relationship between cause and effect? The camel, when overladen, utters loud cries, and refuses to rise at the command of the driver; this was also a peculiarity of the llama, when that animal was exclusively the carrier of the Andes.

With respect to a knowledge of power, as regards ourselves personally, or as displayed by brutes, we cannot help thinking that much depends on an instinctive perception, added to, no doubt, by experience. All animals, from man downwards, apply their force according to their conformation; the horse kicks—the lion strikes with his terrible paw—the hyena seizes with his jaw—man uses his arms; but man also brings art to aid him in his bodily exertions. Hence the strongest man falls under the skill of the trained wrestler; but the contest of brutes is that of force. Hence it is that man invents weapons which render the weak and the strong on a level, and which give to skill the predominance over force. This, too, implies a knowledge of the relationship between cause and effect, but a knowledge which brutes, if we except the chimpanzee, do not display. The chimpanzee, it is asserted, uses a club as a weapon, but we do not advance this as a fact positively established; indeed, we doubt it; we have never seen this animal use a stick, as we should use it in striking.

6. Time.—Man alone can invent artificial methods of measuring time; in an uncivilized condition he avails himself of the sun and moon, of the changes of day and night, of the tides, of the seasons, using them as natural chronometers. The higher brutes evidently possess some knowledge of time, as evidenced by the migration of birds, the relief of each other, as in the case of pigeons, at stated intervals on the nest, and, perhaps we may add, the storing up of food for future consumption. On this latter point, however, we will not insist, for most probably it is the result of an entirely instinctive impulse; we have known a caged squirrel make a hoard. The dog, says M. Ebzéar Blaze,[7] "reasons, calculates, knows how to count the days of the week, and even those of the year. Thus, for example, a dog belonging to M. Roger went every Saturday, at two o'clock precisely, from Locoyarne to Hennebon, (a distance of three kilomètres;) it set off in a straight line to the butcher's, because that was their day for killing, and he was certain of having a good regale upon tripe. He was capable, then, of counting the days, since he never left home except on the Saturday. At the house of the same M. Roger, family prayer was kept up every evening, and the dog listened to the service tranquilly, but, as may be supposed, impatiently, for as soon as the last paternoster was commenced, he rose up and placed himself near the door, in order to make his exit immediately on its being opened."