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Show 3G THE DESCENT OF MAN. PAHT I. mi·g ht have been expected. The variability. of .t he fac.u l-ties in the individuals of the same spee1es IS an Im-portant point for us, and some few illustrations will ~ere be given. But it would be superfluous to en~er mto many details on this head, fo:· I have ~o~nd on frequent enquiry, that it is the unammous opmwn of all t~wse who have lono· attended to animals of many kinds, b . including birds, that the individuals differ greatly m everv mental characteristic. In what manner the mental pow~rs were first developed in the. lowest or?"a?isms, is as hopeless an enquiry as _bow hfe first .or1gmated. These are problems for the distant future, If they arc ever to be solved by man. As man possesses the same senses with the lower animals, his fundamental intuitions must be the same~ Man bas also some few instincts in common, as that of self-preservation, sexual love, the love of the mother for her new-born offspring, the power possessed by the latter of sucking, and so forth. But man, perhaps, has. somewhat fewer instincts than those possessed by the animals which come next to him in the series. The orang in the Eastern islands, and the chimpanzee in Africa, build platforms on which they sleep; and, as both species follow the same habit, it might be argued t.h~t this was due to instinct, but we cannot feel sure that It IS not the result of both animals having similar wants and possessing similar powers of reasoning. These apes, as we mav assume, avoid the many poisonous fruits of the tropics: and man has no such knowledge; but as our domestic animals, when taken to foreign lands and when first turned out in the spring, often eat poisonous herbs, which they afterwards avoid, we cannot feel sure that the apes do not learn from their own experience or from that of their parents w·hat fruits to select. It is. however certain, as we shall presently see, that apes have· CHAP. II. l\1ENTAL POWERS. 37 an instinctive dread of serpents, and probably of other dangerous animals. The fewness and the comparative simplicity of the instincts in the higher animals are remarkable in contrast with those of the lower animals. Cuvier maintained that instinct and intelligence stand in an inverse ratio to each other; and some have thought that the intellectual faculties of the higher animals have been gradually developed from their instincts. But Pouchet, in an interesting essay, 2 has shewn that no such inverse ratio really exists. Those insects which possess the most wonderful instincts are certainly the most intelligent. In the vertebrate series, the least intelligent members, namely fishes and amphibians, do not possess complex instincts ; and amongst mammals the animal most remarkable for its instincts, namely the beaver, is highly intelligent, as will be admitted by every one who has read Mr. Morgan's excellent account of this animal.3 Although the first dawnings of intelligence, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer,4 have been developed through the multiplication and co-ordination of reflex actions, and although many of the simpler instincts graduate into actions of this kind and can hardly be distinguished from them, as in the case of young animals sucking, yet the more complex instincts seem to have originated independently of intelligence. I am, however, far from wishing to deny that instinctive actions may lose their fixed and untaught character, and be ,replaced by others performed by the aid of the free will. On the other hand, some intelligent actions-as when birds on oceanic islands first learn to avoid man-after 2 'L'Instinct chez les Insectcs.' ' Revue des Deux Mondcs,' Feb. 187t\ p. G90. 3 ''l'hc American Beaver and his Works,' 1868. ~ 'The Principles of Psychology,' 2nd edit. 1870, pp. 418-443 - - - . ~ -- --... . . ... -- . ~ _,• |
