Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
"These two latter kinds of action are deliberate operations, performed, as
they are, by means of representative ideas implying the use of a
_reflective representative_ faculty. Such actions distinguish the
_intellect_ or rational faculty. Now, we assert that possession in
perfection of all the first four (_presentative_) kinds of action by
no means implies the possession of the last two (_representative_)
kinds. All persons, we think, must admit the truth of the following
proposition:--
"Two faculties are distinct, not in degree but _in kind_, if we may
possess the one in perfection without that fact implying that we possess
the other also. Still more will this be the case if the two faculties tend
to increase in an inverse ratio. Yet this is the distinction between the
_instinctive_ and the _intellectual_ parts of man's nature.
"As to animals, we fully admit that they may possess all the first four
groups of actions--that they may have, so to speak, mental images of
sensible objects combined in all degrees of complexity, as governed by the
laws of association. We deny to them, on the other hand, the possession of
the last two kinds of mental action. We deny them, that is, the power of
reflecting on their own existences, or of inquiring into the nature of
objects and their causes. We deny that they know that they know or know
themselves in knowing. In other words, we deny them _reason_. The
possession of the presentative faculty, as above explained, in no way
implies that of the reflective faculty; nor does any amount of direct
operation imply the power of asking the reflective question before
mentioned, as to 'what' and 'why.'" (_Loc. cit_. pp. 67, 68.)
Sundry points are worthy of notice in this remarkable account of the
intellectual powers. In the first place the Reviewer ignores emotion and
volition, though they are no inconsiderable "kinds of action to which the
nervous system ministers," and memory has a place in his classification
only by implication. Secondly, we are told that the second "kind of action
to which the nervous system ministers" is "that in which stimuli from
without result in sensations through the agency of which their due effects
are wrought out.--Sensation." Does this really mean that, in the writer's
opinion, "sensation" is the "agent" by which the "due effect" of the
stimulus, which gives rise to sensation, is "wrought out"? Suppose somebody
runs a pin into me. The "due effect" of that particular stimulus will
probably be threefold; namely, a sensation of pain, a start, and an
interjectional expletive. Does the Quarterly Reviewer really think that the
"sensation" is the "agent" by which the other two phenomena are wrought
out?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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