Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

He says of the wolf:—“When he scents a flock within its fold, memory recalls to him the impression of the shepherd and his dog, and balances that of the immediate neighbourhood of the sheep; he measures the height of the fence, compares it with his own strength, takes into account the additional difficulty of jumping it when burdened with his prey, and thence concludes the uselessness of the attempt. Yet he will seize one of a flock scattered over a field, under the very eyes of the shepherd, especially if there be a wood near enough to offer him a hope of shelter. He will resist the most tempting morsel when accompanied by this alarming accessory [the smell of man]; and even when it is divested of it, he is long in overcoming his suspicions. In this case the wolf can only have an abstract idea of danger—the precise nature of the trap laid for him being unknown.... Several nights are hardly sufficient to give him confidence. Though the cause of his suspicions may no longer exist, it is reproduced by memory, and the suspicion is unremoved. The idea of man is connected with that of an unknown danger, and makes him distrustful of the fairest appearances.”[42]

Leroy also well observes:—“Animals, like ourselves, are forced to make abstractions. A dog which has lost his master runs towards a group of men, by virtue of a general abstract idea, which represents to him the qualities possessed in common with these men by his master. He then experiences in succession several less general, but still abstract ideas of sensation, until he meets the particular sensation which he seeks.”[43]

Again, with regard to the stag, this author writes:—“He exhausts every variety and every design of which the action of flight consists. He has perceived that in thickets, where the passage of his body leaves a strong trace, the dogs follow him ardently, and without any checks; he therefore leaves the thicket and plunges into the forests where there is no underwood, or else skirts the high-road. Sometimes he leaves that part of the country altogether, and depends wholly on his speed for escape. But even when out of hearing of the dogs, he knows that they will soon come up with him; and, instead of giving himself up to false security, he avails himself of this respite to invent new artifices to throw them out. He takes a straight course, returns on his steps, and bounding from the earth many times consecutively, throws out the sagacity of the dogs.... When hard pressed he will often drop down in the hope that their ardour will carry them beyond the track, and should it do so he retraces his steps. Often he seeks the company of others of his species, and when his friend is sufficiently heated to share the peril with, he leaves him to his fate and escapes by rapid flight. Frequently the quarry is thus changed, and this artifice is one the success of which is most certain.”[44]

“Often (when not being hunted at all), instead of returning home in confidence and straightway lying down to rest, he will wander round the spot; he enters the wood, leaves it, goes and returns on his steps many times. Without having any immediate cause for his uneasiness, he employs the same artifices which he would have employed to throw out the dogs, if he were pursued by them. This foresight is an evidence of remembered facts, and of a series of ideas and suppositions resulting from those facts.”[45]

It is remarkable enough that an animal should seek to confuse its trail by such devices, even when it knows that the hounds are actually in pursuit; but it is still more so when the devices are resorted to in order to confuse imaginary hounds which may possibly be on the scent. Perhaps to some persons it may appear that such facts argue on the part of the animals which exhibit them some powers of representative thought, or some kind of reflection conducted without the aid of language. Be it remembered, therefore, I am not maintaining that they do not: I am merely conceding that the evidence is inadequate to justify the conclusion that they do; and all I am now concerned with is to make it certain that in animals there is a logic, be it a logic of recepts only, or likewise what I shall afterwards explain as a logic of pre-concepts.

Again, Leroy says of the fox:—“He smells the iron of the trap, and this sensation has become so terrible to him, that it prevails over every other. If he perceives that the snares become more numerous, he departs to seek a safe neighbourhood. But sometimes, grown bold by a nearer and oft-repeated examination, and guided by his unerring scent, he manages, without hurt to himself, to draw the bait adroitly out of the trap.... If all the outlets of his den are guarded by traps, the animal scents them, recognizes them, and will suffer the most acute hunger rather than attempt to pass them. I have known foxes keep their dens a whole fortnight, and only then make up their minds to come out because hunger left them no choice but as to the mode of death.... There is nothing he will not attempt in order to save himself. He will dig till he has worn away his claws to effect his exit by a fresh opening, and thus not unfrequently escapes the snares of the sportsman. If a rabbit imprisoned with him gets caught in one of the snares, or if by any other means one should go off, he infers that the machine has done its duty, and walks boldly and securely over it.”[46]

Lastly, this author gives the case, which has since been largely quoted—although its source is seldom given—of crows which it is desired to shoot upon their nests, in order to destroy birds and eggs at the same time. The crows will not return to their nests during daylight, if they see any one waiting to shoot them. If, to lull suspicion, a hut is made below the rookery and a man conceal himself in it with a gun, he waits in vain if the bird has ever before been shot at in a similar manner. “She knows that fire will issue from the cave into which she saw a man enter.” Leroy then goes on to say:—“To deceive this suspicious bird, the plan was hit upon of sending two men into the watch-house, one of whom passed on while the other remained; but the crow counted and kept her distance. The next day three went, and again she perceived that only two returned. In fine it was found necessary to send five or six men to the watch-house in order to put her out of her calculation.”

Now, as Leroy is not a random writer, and as his life’s work was that of Ranger at Versailles, we must not lightly set aside this statement as incredible, more especially as he adds that the “phenomenon is always to be repeated when the attempt is made,” and so is to be regarded as “among the very commonest instances of the sagacity of animals.”[47] If it is once granted that a bird has sagacity enough to infer that where she has observed two men pass in and only one come out, therefore the second man remains behind, it is only a matter of degree how far the differential perception may extend. Of course it would be absurd to suppose that the bird counts out the men by any process of notation, but we know that for simple ideas of number no symbolism in the way of figures is necessary. If we were to see three men pass into a building and only two come out, we should not require to calculate 3-2=1; the contrast between the simultaneous sense-perception of A+B+C, when receptually compared with the subsequently serial perceptions of A and B, would be sufficient for the spontaneous inference that C must still be in the building. And this process would in our own case continue possible up to the point at which the simultaneous perception was not composed of too many parts to be afterwards receptually analysed into its constituents.[48]

In this connection also I may state that, with the assistance of the keeper, I have succeeded in teaching the Chimpanzee now at the Zoological Gardens to count correctly as far as five. The method adopted is to ask her for one straw, two straws, three straws, four straws, or five straws—of course without observing any order in the succession of such requests. If more than one straw is asked for, the ape has been taught to hold the others in her mouth until the sum is completed, so that she may deliver all the straws simultaneously. For instance, if she is asked for four straws, she successively picks up three straws and puts them in her mouth: then she picks up the fourth, and hands over all the four together. This method prevents any possible error arising from her interpretation of vocal tones, which might well arise if each straw were asked for separately. Thus there can be no doubt that the animal is able to distinguish receptually between the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and understands the name for each. Further than this I have not attempted to take her. I may add that her performance has been witnessed by the officers of the Zoological Society and also by other naturalists, who will be satisfied with the accuracy of the above account. But the ape is capricious, and, unless she happens to be in a favourable mood at the time, visitors must not be disappointed if they fail to be entertained by an exhibition of her learning.