The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its ScopeCrampton, Henry Edward
Science
The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope
Crampton, Henry Edward
Evolution
or less complex nature; and we find also that because these elements are
ultimately nerve-cell and sense-cell reflexes, an intelligent response is
quite as machine-like as any and all of its elements. A difference in
degree of complexity and extent is the only thing that places intelligence
apart from instinct and reflex action, for the units are the same in all
cases,--so far as science knows.
The apes are of the greatest value in providing the transition from the
grade of intelligence to the human level where reason is found. Whether or
not a chimpanzee can reason at all is less important than the fact that
its total "mental" powers are lower than those of man, and higher than
those of inferior mammalia. Apes are far more susceptible to training than
cats and dogs, because their improved nervous mechanism enables them to
establish a psychological sequence with greater facility. If we are to
judge by the facts at hand, these creatures possess a low order of
mentality, like, but by no means equivalent to, that of man.
At the end of the comparative scale, we reach the human mind which is
characterized by its ability to perceive and recognize far wider relations
than those which are involved in intelligence. Human consciousness is the
stream of thoughts and feelings which constitute the immediate contents of
mind. In our own case, we know both the activities we perform and some of
the internal phenomena with which such activities are connected. Then we
are impelled to compare the objective phenomena of action with the
behavior of other men and of lower organisms, and if their behavior does
not coincide with our own we are justified in believing that its direction
lacks some of the elements we know about in our own case. This is the
method of comparative psychology, which establishes the conclusion that
reason is the more complex term of a series to which reflex action,
instinct, and intelligence directly lead.
Were we to study in detail the psychology of adult human beings, we would
find only more truly that instinct and intelligence play a large part in
our everyday mental life, and more certainly that even the highest
reasoning powers we possess are only more complex in nature than the
nervous processes of lower mammals and invertebrates. Just as the nervous
systems advance in physical or structural respects, so must their
activities become more and more complex until the result is human faculty.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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