Lola : $b or, The thought and speech of animalsKindermann, Henny
Science
Lola : $b or, The thought and speech of animals
Kindermann, Henny
Animal intelligence; Dogs -- Folklore
In their search for others things, Von Osten, Krall, and the
Moekels have brought out clearly among various other facts, without
exactly accounting for it, the fundamental fact of the existence in
the animal of a psychic substratum predisposed in some manner to
arithmetic. I say "in some manner," and by that I do not wish to
prejudge any particular view of the argument; and above all I do
not make of this predisposition or mathematical permeability, a
criterion of intelligence. I do not forget either the mentally
deficient or the prodigies among child calculators, etc. But
likewise I cannot forget another thing: that all organisms are
already throughout permeated with mathematics, and that the more we
descend the scale, from man down to the most "simple" biological
fact, the more nearly we approach to physics, which is nothing but
mathematics.
I have not the space here to digress on the intermediate gradations.
Besides, I have already done so, in part at least, elsewhere. But I
wish to recall the curious coincidence that the mathematical
achievements of the Elberfeld horses were much more brilliant and
much more prodigious than those of the dogs which have up to now
been experimented on. And horses in the phylo-genetic line are more
ancient than dogs: they are lower in the zoologic scale. Much lower
still, i.e. among the Arthropoda, occur many other mathematical
wonders. I only mention in a cursory way the logarithmic spiral of
the spider's web, the precise curves realized without instruments
of any kind by the Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in cutting leaves,
the stereometry of the aphides. Then, as it were, at the bottom of
the scale (if one may still speak of a descent and a bottom) the
marvellous plancton filters of the Appendiculata; the geometrical
spots of the Amoebae; the cases of perfect forms of so many other
Protozoa; and, finally, think of the constructive technic of the
static organs, or of those of movement either in man or animals or
plants; think of the complex mathematics of the mitosi, or of any
cell proceeding to its own indirect division.
It seems to me clear that the mathematical faculty--assuming
always, let it be understood, that it may give rise to more or less
conscious phenomena in the biological subject--may be amongst the
most natural of imaginable causes, and that even the smallest
amount of consciousness may help this existing capacity in the
animal to express itself. That we are concerned with an expression
by raps or not, does not seem to me as important as a proper
estimation of the importance of the central fact constituted by
this mathematical capacity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account