Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry

by George Ticknor Curtis

As the mind certifies to itself its own existence by the most direct and the highest kind of proof, so it certifies to itself the powers with which it is endowed; and this brings me to the anatomical examination of the structure of the mind. I shall not make this analysis a very minute one, but shall confine it to those distinct elementary powers which are constituted by systems, as the powers of the bodily organism are constituted by systems distinguishable by the functions which they perform. In the bodily organism we recognize the digestive system, the system of circulation of the blood, the muscular system, the nervous system, the sensory system, which is distributed into the different organs of sense, the male and female systems of sexual generation, and the female system of gestation. These several systems, acting together as one complex mechanism endowed with the mysterious principle of life, form in each human being of either sex the physical existence of the individual. Acting in each individual of either sex simultaneously and with mutual involved interdependencies, they form a whole which, in its several parts and their functions, may be likened to the several parts and functions in one of those machines which we ourselves construct—with this difference, however, that in one life is present and in the other it is not. The fundamental question is whether this complex animal mechanism, thus constituted of certain physical systems, also constitutes during this life the entire individual. If so, the individual existence is a unit, and, when the physical organism perishes by what we call death, the individual existence ceases. If, on the contrary, we have satisfactory proof that there is, during this life, in each individual an organized and extended entity, composed, like the systems of the bodily organisms, of certain systems of its own but of a substance that is not material, then the existence of each individual is a dual existence; and one of the two existences now associated and acting together may be dissolved into its original material elements, while the other, composed of a different substance, may be indissoluble and have an endless life. There is no middle ground that I can perceive between these two hypotheses. One or the other of them is absolutely true, independent of the inquiry as to the mode in which mind came to exist; for after going through with all the reasoning and all the proofs that are supposed to show its origin by the process called evolution, we must still come back to the question of what mind is after it has come into existence; must determine on which side lies the preponderating probability of its continuance after the death of the body; and must accept the conclusion of its destruction or cessation when the body dies, or the other conclusion that it is unlike the body in its substance, and therefore indestructible by the means which destroy the body. For this reason we must examine the mind for proof that it is an organism of a special nature because composed of a special substance, and this proof is to be reached by an analysis of the systems of which the mind is composed. I select, of course, for the purposes of this analysis, any individual whose physical and mental faculties have had the average development into the condition that is called a sound mind in a sound body—mens sana in corpore sano. I shall treat incidentally of the condition of idiocy.

We may classify the distinct systems of the mind, with their several functions, as easily as we can classify the distinct systems of our physical structure and their functions. I have seen the systems of the mind distributed into five; and although I do not adopt the whole analysis made by the writer to whom I refer, or make use of the same terminology, I shall follow his classification because it is one which any thinking person must recognize as a description of mental powers of which he is conscious.[151] We are all aware that we possess the following mental systems in which inhere certain elementary powers that are mental powers:

1. A sensory system, by which the mind takes impressions from matter.

2. A system of intellectual faculties, such as reason, imagination, reflection, combination of ideas, discrimination between different ideas.

3. A system of emotions, or susceptibilities to pleasure or pain, of a moral and intellectual nature as distinguished from the pleasurable or painful excitation of our nerves.

4. A system of desires, which prompt us to wish for and acquire some good, or to avoid some evil.

5. A system of affections, which prompt us to like or dislike persons, things, situations, and whatever is attractive or unattractive, as the case may be.

A little further analysis of each of these systems will explain why they are respectively to be thus classified as distinguishable organic powers or functions of the human mind:

First. The mind is placed as a recipient in correspondence with the material universe through the nerves of sensation and the special corporeal organs, whereby the properties of matter become to some extent known to us. As the power of the physical senses to obtain for us a knowledge of the properties of matter is limited, even when our senses are in the utmost state of their normal capacity, there may be properties of matter which will never become known to us in our present existence. But certain of its properties do become known to us, and we are perfectly aware that this takes place through our physical organs of sense, which convey to our mental reception certain impressions. This power of the mind, therefore, to receive such impressions, to retain and transmute them into thought, is to be recognized as a power exerted by means of an organic physical contrivance and an organic mental structure, the two acting together, the resultant being the mind's faculty for receiving ideas from the external world. Let us suppose, then, that the bodily senses are impaired by the partial destruction of their organs. It does not follow that the knowledge which has been derived from them, when they were in full activity, is destroyed; all that happens is that we acquire no more of such knowledge by the same means, or do not acquire it so readily and completely. If the destruction of the physical senses is so complete as it becomes when death of the whole body takes place, the materials derived from the impressions conveyed to the mind from external objects during life have been transmuted into ideas and thoughts, and, as that which holds the ideas and the thoughts is of a substance unlike in nature to the substance of the physical organs which conveyed the impressions, the rational conclusion is that the ideas and thoughts will continue to be held by it, after the dissolution of the body, as they were held while the body was in full life.

Second. I recognize in the mind a system of intellectual faculties. Of intellect, I should say that the ascertainment of truth is its primary function; and hence I should say that the power of retaining permanent possession of truth already ascertained is the means by which we maintain continued ascertainment, or the utilization of truth already ascertained.[152] For the exercise of this power of ascertaining, holding, applying, and expressing truth—the processes of intellect—we have three recognized faculties. These are the intuitive faculty; the faculty of association or combination; and the introspective faculty, or the capacity to look inward upon the processes of our own minds. The philosophers who maintain that all our knowledge is derived from experience admit neither the intuitive faculty nor the fact of intuition. On the other hand, the philosophers who maintain, as Mr. Spencer does, that the brain of every infant is an organized register of the experiences of his ancestors, do not allow of the existence of any intuitions as facts in the individual life of the infant, because they regard the individual experiences of the infant as mere repetitions of former experiences that took place in its progenitors. But rightly regarded the true meaning of the intuitive faculty is this: that at the instant when a new sensory impression is received by the infant, or the adult, there is an innate and implanted power which comes into play, by which is asserted the reality of that from which the sensory impression is received. This power, the intuitive faculty, is infallible. It was ordained as the means by which a sensory impression becomes to us a reality. We are so constructed, mentally, that we must believe those primary facts which the sensory impressions certify to us to be facts. On the veracity of this certification we are absolutely dependent, because we can not contradict the affirmations of reality which causation makes to our intuitive mental perceptions. On this veracity we risk our lives; we could not be safe if we were not subjected to this belief. Intuition, therefore, is something anterior to experience; it is that power by which the first experience and the last become to us the means of belief in a reality. This is a power that can belong to and inhere in a spiritual organism alone. We must, therefore, recognize in the infant this original implanted endowment, the capacity to be mentally convinced of realities; and while, in order to meet the first exercise of this capacity there must be a physical organism which will conduct the sensory impressions to the brain and a brain that will receive them, the capacity of the infant to have its first conviction of the reality certified to it by the sensory impression is at once the capacity of an intellectual being, and a necessity imposed upon him by the law of his existence. Idiocy, when complete, is the absence of this capacity, by reason of some failure of connection between the brain, as the central recipient of sensory impressions, and the mind which should receive and transmute those impressions into thought. We are scarcely warranted in regarding the idiot as a human animal possessed of no mind whatever. The absolute idiot should be defined as a human creature whom we can not educate at all—in whom we can awaken no intelligence; but we are not therefore authorized in believing that there is no provision whatever for the development of intelligence after the mere physical life of the body is ended. Absolute idiocy, or what, from our as yet imperfect means of developing intelligence in such unfortunate persons we must regard as at present absolute, is probably very rare. Between human creatures so born and those vast multitudes in whom average intelligence is developed by surrounding influences, whatever they may be, there are various degrees of the capacity for development; and what happens in these intermediate cases proves that there are different degrees in which the connection between the physical and the mental organism is established at birth, so that in some the connection may be said to be abnormal and imperfect, while in the enormous majority it is at least so nearly normal and complete that intelligence may be developed.