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
But in the present connection we are more interested in the dynamic or
functional aspects of mental evolution, which it must be remembered are
inseparably bound up with the physical structures and their modifications.
After a human infant is born its activities are reflex and mechanical like
those of the adult members of lower groups. As it grows it performs
instinctive acts because its inherited nervous system operates in the
purely mechanical manner of a lower mammal's nervous system. For these
reasons an eminent psychologist has said that the mental ability of an
infant six months old is about that of a well-bred fox terrier. The same
infant at nine months displays an intelligence of a higher order equal to
that of a well-trained chimpanzee; it has become what it was not, and in
so far it has truly evolved in mental respects. At two years of age the
child is incapable of solving problems of the calculus, for its reasoning
powers are elementary and restricted, but these same powers change and
intensify so as to render the older mind quite capable of grasping the
highest of human conceptions and ideas. In my judgment the unbroken
transformation of a child's mind that exhibits only instinct and
intelligence into an adult's mind with its power of reasoning, is far more
conclusive as proof of mental evolution than the inference drawn from the
comparisons we have made above of the adult psychological phenomena of
man, ape, cat, and fish. It is surely natural for such mental
transformations to take place, for they do take place in the vast majority
of human beings; when they do not, in cases where the brain fails to
mature, we speak of unnatural or diseased minds.
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