We therefore answer that the state of idiots shows, indeed, that man has the brutish nature within him, but by no means that he has no other nature. Only a little logic would have shown Darwin that his conclusions embody far more than his premises will allow. It seems plain enough that this simple truth is the key to the fullest explanations of human nature itself, and its similarities with the nature of mere animals. Man was defined by the ancients as “a rational animal.” S. Thomas and the scholastics took up and perpetuated this definition. Man is an animal, because he has a body like all animals, and a soul which is created to be the form of that body. Man is, moreover, a rational being, because, unlike all the other animals, he has a soul which has a separate existence of its own, is created immediately by God, and is essentially spiritual.
This distinction, if only borne in mind by our monkey theorists, would have aided them not a little, we opine, in their brain-cracking researches; nor would they have found so many mysteries where everything is plain and intelligible.
We now proceed to another principle advanced in the book before us. Darwin says: “That the chief expressive actions exhibited by man and by the lower animals are innate or inherited—that is, have not been learnt by the individual—is now admitted by every one” (p. 351).
He must allow us to say that such a proposition is, in our estimation, not admitted by every one. With the exception of the author and a few monkeyists, we know of no one who ever advocated any such principle. It is indeed conceded that a “tendency” to most of our expressive actions may be innate or inherited; but, as to the actions and expressions themselves, it is commonly taught by all the schools that they are performed by instinct and reason, and perfected by imitation and experience. What Mr. Darwin means when he calls expressions innate and inherited is not the former—the tendency—but the action itself as transmitted from the father to the son. He illustrates his meaning by an example, not quite suitable for our pages, which may be found by the curious on p. 44 of his work. If anything, this example shows that dogs, and wolves, and jackals are guided by no reason, and do not apply the proper means to attain an end. But does it follow that man, too, has inherited his external movements from such progenitors as monkeys? Does not man direct even all his external actions by reason? It is true, he may be led away by passion; but that is an exception, and only proves the rule.
But we go further. The Catholic Church teaches that the human race is descended from one common pair—Adam and Eve. From them the whole human race was propagated. Darwin, too, teaches the unity of mankind. But his is quite a different unity. Not only do all men descend from a common human parent, according to him, but both animals and men have a common parent; so that originally there existed one animal, from which all the rest, men included, derive their origin.
Now, we should naturally expect that so grave an inference would be based upon a no less weighty proof. But herein we are sadly mistaken. His whole argument rests upon a resemblance of some external actions common to mankind: “I have endeavored to show in considerable detail that all the chief expressions in man are the same throughout the world. This fact is interesting, as it affords a new argument in favor of the several races being descended from a single parent stock, which must have been almost completely human in structure, and to a large extent in mind, before the period at which races diverged from each other” (p. 361).
This argument may do very well to confirm the doctrine of the church; but we do not see how it will establish the ape theory, any more than it would to infer that the sun and moon are alike because they both shine. It is really amusing to hear our author so innocently say: “We may confidently believe that laughter, as a sign of pleasure or enjoyment, was practised by our progenitors long before they deserved to be called human” (p. 362).
From all this it is at least evident that our poor progenitors had to undergo a long novitiate to become invested with the habits proper to man. Theirs, indeed, must have been a tedious process before attaining human activity. One thing, however, he forgets to tell us. It is the period when such a change of the species occurred. Theory may sound very well; but we know of no fact of the kind. How is it that, as long as the world can remember, no monkey ever became a man, or a tree a pig? We cannot exactly agree with Darwin, therefore, when he calls the “anthropomorphous apes our nearest allies and our early progenitors” (p. 363). We are quite aware of the answer he gives to this objection in his book, on The Origin of Species. But it may well be compared to the method of those romance writers who take good care to place the scene of the heroic exploits of their heroes in far distant lands as yet unknown and unexplored. Thus they may write volume after volume, without any danger of being convicted of telling stories and building castles in the air. So Darwin. In his Origin of Species, he pretends that the change from one species to another is so long and gradual that it may comprise even millions of years. As a conjecture, this may pass; but as an argument in support of a most elaborate system, we fail to see its efficacy.
We will now pass to another argument. Speaking of frowning as shading the eyes, he says: “It seems probable that this shading action would not have become habitual until man had assumed a completely upright position; for monkeys do not frown when exposed to a glaring light” (p. 363). This phrase can be made plainer when paraphrased as follows: It is a theory, established by me beyond any doubt, that man is the offspring of the monkey. Now, the monkey does not frown or shade his eyes, even when exposed to the most glaring light of the sun. Hence, it follows that frowning is an action peculiarly adapted only to an upright position. And hence, too, no wonder that the orang did not make use of it as long as he was walking on all fours and bent downwards. Hence, we must infer that frowning became a habit, then, only when the ape, thinking that he had walked long enough on all fours, and that he might, without any particular inconvenience to himself, dispense with two feet, stood upright, and became a man. This is the meaning of his words. On the same principle the following conjecture is based: “Our early progenitors, when indignant, would not hold their heads erect until they had acquired the ordinary carriage and upright attitude of man” (p. 363). Its sense is: As our first parents were brutes, and as we find that in no instance they held their heads erect when angry or indignant, it follows, of course, that this action was acquired only after they made use of their hind feet to walk, and when the fore paws became hands.
Blushing is considered by Darwin an expression that requires attention to one’s personal defects. Now, as it has not been observed in any monkey or other animal, he of course infers that it became habitual only when, having emerged from the monkey phase of existence, we became semi-human.