Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

If we are agreed that it is only in man that self-consciousness is to be found at all, it follows that only to man can we look for any facts bearing upon the question of its development. And inasmuch as it is only during the first years of infancy that a normal human being is destitute of self-consciousness, the statement just made implies that only in infant psychology need we seek for the facts of which we are in search. Further, as I maintain that self-consciousness arises out of an admixture of the protoplasm of judgment with the protoplasm of sign-making (according to the signification of these terms as already explained), I have now to make good this opinion upon the basis of facts drawn from the study of infant psychology.

Nevertheless, before I proceed to the heart of the subject, I think it will be convenient to consider those faculties of mind which, occurring both in the infant and in the animal, in the former case precede the advent of self-consciousness, and, according to my view, prepare the way for it.

It will, I suppose, on all hands be admitted that self-consciousness consists in paying the same kind of attention to internal or psychical processes as is habitually paid to external or physical processes—a bringing to bear upon subjective phenomena the same powers of perception as are brought to bear upon the objective. The degrees in which such attention may be yielded are, of course, as various in the one case as in the other; but this does not affect my psychological definition of self-consciousness.

Again, I suppose it will be further admitted that in the mind of animals and in the mind of infants there is a world of images standing as signs of outward objects; and that the only reason why these images are not attended to unless called up by the sensuous associations supplied by their corresponding objects, is because the mind is not yet able to leave the ground of such association, so as to move through the higher and more tenuous medium of introspective thought.[112] Nevertheless, this image world assuredly displays an internal activity which is not wholly dependent on sensuous associations supplied from without. That is to say, one image suggests another, this another, and so on—although, as I have just conceded, this cannot be due to successive acts of inward attention, or of the self-conscious contemplation of images known as such. Nevertheless, that an internal—though unintentional—play of ideation takes place in the minds of brutes, without the necessity of immediate associations supplied from present objects of sense, admits of being amply proved from the phenomena of dreaming, hallucination, home-sickness, pining for absent friends, &c., which, as I have fully shown in my previous work, can only be explained by recognizing such a play of inward ideation.[113] Now, I hold it of importance to note that such an internal play of ideation is thus possible even in the absence of self-consciousness, because many writers have assumed, without any justification, that unless ideas are intentionally contemplated as such, they must be wholly dependent for their occurrence upon associations supplied by present objects of sense. Of course I do not doubt that an agent who is capable of intentionally making one idea stand as the object of another, is likewise capable of going very much further than a brute in the way of causing one idea to start from another irrespective of immediate stimulation from without. My point here is merely to remark that the ideation of brutes is not wholly dependent on such stimulation; but is capable, in a certain humble degree, of forming independent chains of its own.

The next thing which I desire to be remembered in connection with the ideation of brutes is, that it is not restricted to the mere reproduction in memory of particular objects of sensuous impressions; but, as we have so fully seen in Chapter III., admits of undergoing that amount of mental elaboration which belongs to what I have termed recepts.

Furthermore, the foundations of self-consciousness are largely laid in the fact that an organism is one connected whole; all the parts are mutually related in the unity of individual sensibility. Every stimulus supplied from without, every movement originating from within, carries with it the character of belonging to that which feels and moves. Hence a brute, like a young child, has learnt to distinguish its own members, and likewise its whole body, from all other objects; it knows how to avoid sources of pain, how to seek those of pleasure; and it also knows that particular movements follow from particular volitions, while in connection with such movements it constantly experiences the same muscular sensations. Of course such knowledge and such experience all belong to the receptual order; but this does not hinder that they play a most important part in laying the foundations of a consciousness of individuality.[114]

Lastly, and I believe of still more importance in the present connection than any of the above-named antecedents, a large proportional number of the recepts of a brute have reference, not to objects of sense, or even to muscular sensations, but to the mental states of other animals. That is to say, the logic of recepts, even in brutes, is sufficient to enable the mind to establish true analogies between its own states (although these are not yet the objects of separate attention, or of what may be termed subjective knowledge), and the corresponding states of other minds. I need not dwell upon this point, because I take it to be a matter of general observation that animals habitually and accurately interpret the mental states of other animals, while they also well know that other animals are able similarly to interpret theirs—as is best proved by their practising the arts of cunning, concealment, hypocrisy, &c.[115] From which considerations we reach the general conclusion, that intelligent animals recognize a world of ejects as well as a world of objects: mental existence is known to them ejectively, though, as may be allowed, never thought upon subjectively.[116]

It is of importance further to observe that at this stage of mental evolution the individual—whether an animal or an infant—so far realizes its own individuality as to be informed by the logic of recepts that it is one of a kind. I do not mean that at this stage the individual realizes its own or any other individuality as such; but merely that it recognizes the fact of its being one among a number of similar though distinct forms of life. Alike in conflict, rivalry, sense of liability to punishment or vengeance, &c., the truth is continually being borne in upon the mind of an animal that it is a separate individuality; and this though it be conceded that the animal is never able, even in the most shadowy manner, to think about itself as such. In this way there arises a sort of “outward self-consciousness,” which differs from true or inward self-consciousness only in the absence of any attention being directed upon the inward mental states as such. This outward self-consciousness is known to us all, even in adult life—it being but comparatively seldom that we pause in our daily activities to contemplate the mental processes of which these activities are the expression.

Now, if these things are so, we encounter the necessity of drawing the same distinction in our analysis of self-consciousness, as we have had to draw in our previous analyses of all the other faculties of mind: there is a self-consciousness that is receptual, and a self-consciousness that is conceptual. No doubt it is to the latter kind of self-consciousness alone that the term is strictly applicable, just as it is to conceptual naming or to conceptual predicating alone that the word “judgment” is strictly applicable. Nevertheless, here, as before, we must not ignore an important territory of mind only because it has hitherto remained uncharted.[117] Receptual or outward self-consciousness, then, is the practical recognition of self as an active and a feeling agent; while conceptual or inward self-consciousness is the introspective recognition of self as an object of knowledge, and, therefore, as a subject. Hence, the one form of self-consciousness differs from the other in that it is only objective and never subjective.[118]

I take it, then, as established that true or conceptual self-consciousness consists in paying the same kind of attention to inward psychical processes as is habitually paid to outward physical processes; that in the mind of animals and infants there is a world of images standing as signs of outward objects, although we may concede that for the most part they only admit of being revived by sensuous association; that at this stage of mental evolution the logic of recepts comprises an ejective as well as an objective world; and that here we also have the recognition of individuality, so far as this is dependent on what has been termed an outward self-consciousness, or the consciousness of self as a feeling and an active agent, without the consciousness of self as an object of thought, and, therefore, as a subject.