ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By C. Lloyd Morgan, F. G. S. London:
Edward Arnold.
The chief aim which the author of this important work had originally in view was the consideration of Animal Intelligence. But the subject of Intelligence being so closely associated with that of Life, and the questions of Heredity and Natural Selection with those of Habit and Instinct, he has devoted the first part of the work to Organic Evolution, as introductory to Mental Evolution. This was rendered necessary, however, by the direct bearing of Professor Weismann's recent contributions to biological science on questions of Instinct. It would be impossible to treat of the mental constitution of the lower animals without reference to that of man, and in his preface Professor Morgan forestals certain results arrived at by a comparison of them. He states that in man alone, and in no dumb animal, is the rational faculty, as defined by him, developed; and he adds, "it is contended that among human folk that process of natural selection, which is so potent in the lower reaches of organic life, sinks into comparative insignificance. Man is a creature of ideas and ideals. For him the moral factor becomes one of the very highest importance. He conceives an ideal self which he strives to realise; he conceives an ideal humanity towards which he would raise his fellow-man. He becomes a conscious participator in the evolution of man, in the progress of humanity."
So great a variety of topics are dealt with by the present work that we shall be able to do little more than refer critically to the author's special views, particularly those which concern the mental characters of the lower animals. There are, however, various points in the earlier part of the work well deserving of consideration. Such is the suggestion that, instead of likening an organism as a whole to a steam-engine, it would be better to liken each cell, with its fluid explosive material, to a gas-engine, and the mixed air and gas to whose explosion its motion is due. The importance of segregation as a factor in the formation of improved varieties is insisted on, but Professor Morgan doubts whether differential fertility, on which Mr. Romanes lays great stress[93], would, without the co-operation of other segregation-factors, give rise to separate varieties capable of maintaining themselves as distinct species (p. 105).
[93] The Monist, No. 1. p. 5.
Dealing with the knotty question whether, if the egg produces the hen, the hen produces the egg, the author criticises Professor Weismann's idea of the continuity of germ-plasm, which he regards as "an unknowable, invisible, hypothetical entity, "that may be made to account for anything and everything, and prefers the hypothesis of cellular continuity (138 et seq.). The cells which become ova or sperms never become differentiated into anything else, and "hereditary similarity is due to the fact that parents and offspring are derived eventually from the same germinal cells" (p. 175). Finally, Professor Morgan criticises Mr. Wallace's views on the subject of sexual selection, which he is inclined to think is a factor with natural selection in the guidance of evolution (p. 200 et seq.).
More than half of the book, which contains more than 500 pages, is taken up with these preliminary disquisitions, the remainder being concerned with the nature and development of the mental activities. The first branch of this inquiry is that of the senses of animals. We cannot follow the author in his very interesting remarks on this subject, beyond referring to his suggestion that the lower animals may have senses not known to man. After mentioning the muciparous canals met with in fishes, he says, "apart from the possibility of unknown receptive organs as completely hidden from anatomical and microscopic scrutiny as the end-organs of our temperature-sense, there are in the lower animals organs which may be fitted to receive modes of influence to which we human folk are not attuned" (p. 298). For example, insects may be sensitive to tones of heat; while on the other hand, their color phenomena may vary greatly from ours consequent on structural differences in the sense-organs. In dealing with mental processes in man the author states as a well-known fact that "a person whose leg has been amputated experiences at times tickling and uneasiness in the absent member" (p. 307). This is not, however, an accurate description of the phenomenon. There can be no feeling in a lost limb. The idea that the sensations are "referred outward to the normal source of origin of impressions," has arisen from the remark sometimes made by persons thus affected that they feel as though they still had toes. This is true to some extent, but as a fact the sensation is as though the toes were bent and tightly bound at the end of the stump, and not at the end of the missing limb.
It is advisable before proceeding further to see what view Professor Morgan entertains as to the mental process in animals. This is apparent from the statement that, although there is no difference in kind between the mind of man and the mind of a dog, yet that "we have, in the introduction of the analytic faculty, so definite and marked a new departure, that we should emphasise it by saying that the faculty of perception, in its various specific grades, differs generically from the faculty of conception." The author adds, "believing, as I do, that conception is beyond the power of my favorite and clever dog, I am forced to believe that his mind differs generically from my own" (p. 350). Elsewhere he says, "if I deny them self-consciousness and reason, I grant to the higher animals perceptions of marvellous acuteness and intelligent inferences of wonderful accuracy and precision—intelligent inferences in some cases, no doubt, more perfect even than those of man, who is often distracted by many thoughts" (p. 377). If we would understand these conclusions aright we must know the sense in which Professor Morgan uses the terms employed, and to do this we must refer to the explanation he gives of mental processes in man. He tells us that in the first place we obtain knowledge of the existence of the objects around us through perception, which is attended with a process of construction. An object is in fact a construct, at the bidding of certain sensations, which suggest to the mind the associated qualities. In what sense such an object is regarded as real we shall see later on. As to the constructs, their formation is followed by examination, "by which they are rendered more definite, particular and special, and supplemented by intelligent inferences." Out of this intelligent examination arises a new mental process, the analysis of constructs. Attention is paid to certain qualities of objects to the exclusion of others, a process termed by the author isolation, the products being isolates. This process is constantly going on, and all the qualities, relationships, and feelings thus isolated have applied to them arbitrary symbols. They are in fact named, and "hence arises all our science, all our higher thought." At this stage we enter the field of conception, as the isolates are concepts, whereas throughout the process of the formation of constructs and their definition we have to do with perception and percepts. Here Professor Morgan agrees with Noiré in holding that "the image, in so far as it is an image, whether simple or composite, is a percept," while so far as there enter into the idea of objects elements which have been isolated by analysis, the words for those objects stand for concepts. There is another important feature of the mental processes in man. The primary aim of the reception of the influences of the external world, or environment, is "to enable the organism to answer to them in activity." Moreover, out of perceptions through association there arise certain expectations, and "the activities of organisms are moulded in accordance with these expectations." Phenomena are perceived as linked or woven, and expectations are the outcome of that perception, the mental process by which we pass from one link to another being called inference. Again, we have perceptual inference, or inference from direct experience, and conceptual inference, or "inference based on experience, but reached through the exercise of the reasoning faculties" (p. 328 et seq.).
Applying these principles to the mental processes in animals, the author affirms that, granting the theory of evolution, "the early stages of the process of construction—discrimination, localisation, and outward projection—are the same in kind throughout the whole range of animal life, wherever we are justified in surmising that psychical processes occur, and the power of registration and revival in memory has been established" (p. 338). But, though the higher mammalia form constructs analogous to, if not closely resembling ours, the resemblance cannot be in any sense close, "seeing to how large an extent our constructs are literally our handiwork." To the question whether the higher animals have "the power of analysing their constructs and forming isolates, or abstract ideas of qualities apart from the constructs of which these qualities are elements," Professor Morgan answers negatively. He supposes, for example, that a dog may have a vague representation in memory of things good to eat, "in which the element of eatability is predominant and comparatively distinct, while the rest is vague and indistinct"; and to mark the difference he calls the prominent quality a predominant, "as opposed to the isolate when the quality is floated off from the object." Hence he agrees with Locke that abstraction, in the sense of isolation, is not possessed by the lower animals, and he thinks that the line should be drawn there between brute intelligence and human intelligence and reason (p. 349). As soon as predominant qualities are named they become isolates, and thus "body and mind became separable in thought; the self was differentiated from the not-self; the mind was turned inwards upon itself through the isolation of its varying phases; and the consciousness of the brute became the self-consciousness of man." The agent in this upward progress is language, and hence, granting the possibility of a transitional stage where word-signs stood for predominants, and not yet for isolates, the author accepts Prof. Max Müller's view that language and thought are practically inseparable (p. 371). If any serious objection can be made to this reasoning, it must be we think to the opinion that language made, not merely conceptual thought, but analysis and isolation possible. This is preceded, as we have seen by "intelligent examination," and we are expressly told that out of this arises the mental process of analysis of constructs which animals do not possess. To this faculty then must be traced the ultimate distinction between them and man. It may be doubted, moreover, whether animals have any idea of even a predominant quality apart from some object. The formation of "constructs," that is the recognition of objects, as the result of external stimuli, is instinctive, except so far as it depends upon association through experience in past generations. If animals can even vaguely represent a single quality apart from an object, it is the first step in analysis, and there is no reason why they should not go on to abstraction or isolation, and thence to reason. That animals do not possess reason, in the sense of conceptual inference, is we think unquestionable, and Professor Morgan does well in restricting them to intelligence, by which he intends the process by which perceptual inferences are reached (p. 330).
We have not space to refer to the views expressed in the chapter on "Appetence and Emotion," beyond stating that the author, while admitting that in animals are to be found the perceptual germs of even the higher emotional states, concludes that "ethics, like conceptual thought and æsthetics, are beyond the reach of the brute. Morality is essentially a matter of ideals, and these belong to the conceptual sphere" (p. 414). In the chapter on "Habit and Interest," after speaking of Mr. Romanes's treatment of instinct as most admirable and masterly, he compares Mr. Romanes's views as to the origin of secondary instincts with those of Professor Weismann as to the non-inheritance of acquired characters, coming to the conclusion that lapsed intelligence is not a necessary factor in the formation of instincts, and that there is a probability of some inheritance of experience (p. 436 et seq.). We must refer our readers to the work itself for the author's explanation of the "monistic" theory, according to which the two sets of phenomena, the physical and the mental, are identical, differing only in being viewed from without or felt from within (p. 417). This view is developed in the chapter on Mental Evolution, where we read, "according to the monistic hypothesis, kinesis and metakinesis are co-ordinate. The physiologist may explain all the activities of men and animals in terms of kinesis. The psychologist may explain all the thoughts and emotions of man in thoughts of metakinesis. They are studying the different phenomenal aspects of the same noumenal sequences" (p. 472). For Professor Morgan the idea of the object is the object, but he is not a pure idealist. Phenomena are something more than states of consciousness. There is a noumenal reality which underlies the reality of the phenomena, and the enduring ego, of which certain states of consciousness are occasional manifestations, is the metakinetic equivalent of the organic kinesis. Here he sees the solution of the problem which baffles alike materialists and idealists (p. 475).
We must now take leave of this work which, notwithstanding its occasional abstruse and technical character, is not "beyond the ready comprehension of the general reader of average intelligence." It deserves to be widely read, not only for its subject-matter, but for its clearness of explanation and wide grasp of thought. The value of the book is much added to by its diagrams and illustrations, and by an excellent index and table of contents.