Now the fact that in ourselves psychical states which are originally connected by the process we call recollection, become by perpetual repetition, connected automatically o: .,..-:. ^-vf-lr Is manifestly the obverse of the fact that as, '^^^jVvil. pment of the instincts, the psychical states ,, ^ -* Allure involved groups that are less frequently *', VrCthtrl occur among them connexions that are not "A /7l^ one fact confirms our deduction of the other.
*\ 3^-Liorv, then, pertains to that class of psychical ^M;.-h are in process of being organized. It continues > *,a the organizing of them continues, and disappears * L.*• animation of them is complete. In the advance <. impendence, each more complex cluster of attri- * -,zi.l relations which a creature acquires the power, r j-ii-'zing- is responded to at first irregularly and un- * -,"i^ • aiiJ there is then a weak remembrance. Byraul-M>* at"< ^ cf.xperiences this remembrance is made stronger — 'L. IL, ^rnal cohesions are better adjusted to the external ^ -i-*t'L j_-; and the response is rendered more appropriate. %! *• *•,uT multiplication of experiences^ the internal rela-* • -, r- ^t last structurally registered in harmony with the ..i! nus; and so^ conscious memory passes into uncon- »- i r cr=anic memory. At the same time,, a new and * i" L. r complex order of experiences is rendered appreci- .. TLj relations that occur between these groups of I L *:; mena that have thus been severally integrated in i^icusness occupy Memory in place of the relations betn t a the components of each group. These become gradu- . y ^.rjamzed; and^ like the previous ones, are succeeded iy others more complex still.
f i CHAPTER VII.
§ 203. That tlie commonly-assumed hiatus between Reason and Instinct has no existence, is implied both in the argument of the last few chapters and in that more general argument elaborated in the preceding part. The General Synthesis,, by showing that all intelligent action whatever is the effecting of correspondences between internal changes and external co-existences and sequences, and by showing that this continuous adjustment of inner to outer relations progresses in Space, in Time, in Speciality, in Generality, and in Complexity, through insensible gradations; implied that thejujrfiest forms of psychical activity arise little bvi little quA.of,,, the lowest, and cannot be definitely separated; from them. Not only does the recently-enunciated doctrine, that the growth of intelligence is throughout determined by| the repetition of experiences, involve the continuity of ^Beason} with Instinct; but this continuity is involved in the previously-enunciated doctrine.
The im|)ossibilityj)f establishiag any line of demarka^n| between the two may be clearly demonstrated, If every in-f stinctive action is an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, and if every rational action is also an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations y then, any alleged distinction can have no other bask than some difference in the characters of the relations to which the adjustments are made. It must be that while, in Instinct, the correspondence is- be- 45| SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
tween inner and outer relations that are very simple or general; in Reason, the correspondence is between inner and outer relations that are complex, or special, or abstract, or infrequent. But the complexity, speciality, abstractncss, and infreqnency of relations, are entirely matters of degree. From a group of two co-existent attributes, up through groups of three, four, five, six, seven co-existent attributes, we may step by step ascend to such involved groups of coexistent attributes as are exhibited in a living body under a particular state of feeling, or under a particular physical disorder. Between relations experienced every moment and relations experienced but once in a life, there are relations jthat occur with all degrees of commonness. How then can jany particular phase of complexity or infrequency be fixed lupon as that at which Instinct ends and Reason begins? "" From whatever point of view regarded, the facts imply a gradual transition from the lower forms of psychical action to the higher. That progressive complication of the instincts, which, as we have found, involves a progressive diminution of their purely automatic character, likewise involves a simultaneous commencement of Memory and Reason. But this joint evolution must be specifically described.
§ 204. When the correspondence has advanced to those environing objects and acts which present groups of attributes and relations of considerable complexity, and whicli occur with comparative rareness— when, consequently, the repetition of experiences has been insufficient to make the sensory changes produced by such groups cohere perfectly with the adapted motor changes— when such motor change' and the impressions that accompany them simply become nascent; then, by implication, there result ideas of suck metor Changes and impressions, or, as already explained memones of the motor changes before performed under like circumstances, and of the concomitant impressions. Did the process end here, there would be no manifestation of ration.
ality. But the process does not end here, as we shall soon see.
For though when the confusion of a complex impression with some allied one causes a confusion among the nascent motor excitations, there is entailed a certain hesitation; and though this hesitation continues as long as these nascent motor excitations, or ideas of the correlative actions, go on superseding one another; yet, ultimately, some one set of motor excitations will prevail over the rest. As the groups of antagonistic tendencies aroused will scarcely ever be exactly balanced, the strongest group will at length pass into action; and as this sequence will usually be the one that has recurred oftenest in experience, the action will, on the average of cases, be the one best adapted to the circumstances. But an action thus produced is nothing else than a rational action. Each of the actions which we call* rational, presents three.phases answering to those here described: — first, a certain combination of impressions signifying some combination of phenomena to which the organism; is to be adjusted; second, an idea of the actions before per-! formed under like conditions, which idea is a nascent exci-; tation of the nervous agents before concerned in such' actions, either as producers of them or as affected by the production of them; and, third, the actions themselves, which are simply the results of the nascent excitation rising ^ into an actual excitation. An illustration will make this clear. A snarling dog (S&mmonly turns tail when a stone is thrown at him; or even when he sees the stooping motion required for picking up a stone. Suppose that, having often experienced this sequence, I am again attacked by such a dog; what are the resulting psychical processes? The combined impressions produced on my senses, and the state of consciousness which they arouse, have before been followed by those motor changes required for picking up and throwing a stone, and by those visual changes resulting from the dog's retreat. As these psy- 456 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS, chical states have repeatedly succeeded one another in experience, they have acquired some cohesion — there is a tendency for the psychical states excited in me by the snarlino- dog, to be followed by those other psychical states that have before followed them. In other words, there is a nascent excitation of the motor apparatus concerned in pickino* up and throwing; there is a nascent excitation of all the sensory nerves affected during such acts; and, through these, there is a nascent excitation of the visual nerves, which on previous occasions received impressions of a flying dog. That is, I have the ideas of picking up and throwing a stone, and of seeing a dog run away; for these that we call ideas, are nothing else than weak repetitions of the psychical states caused by actual impressions and motions. But what happens further? If there is no antagonist impulse — if no other ideas or partial excitations arise, and if the dog's aggressive demonstrations produce in me feelings of adequate vividness, these partial excitations pass into complete excitations. I go through the previously-imagined actions. The nascent motor changes become real motor changes; and the adjustment of inner relations to outer relations is completed. This, however, is just the process which we saw must arise whenever, from increasing complexity and decreasing frequency, the automatic adjustment of inner to outer relations becomes uncertain or hesitating. Hence it is clear ythat the actions we call instinctive pass gradually into the factions we call rational.
Further proof is furnished by the converse fact, that the actions we call rational are, by long-continued repetition, rendered automatic or instinctive. By implication, this lapsing of reason into instinct was shown in the last chapter, when exemplifying the lapsing of memory into instinct: the two facts are different aspects of the same fact. But some instances specially exhibiting this second aspect may here be fitly given. Take, as one, EEASOK. 457 tlio actions gono through in shaving, or in tying a neckerchief. Every man will remember that when, as a youth, he first attempted to guide his hands "by watching the reflections of them in the looking-glass,, he was unable to move them rightly. The ordinary connexions between the visual impressions received from his moving fingers, and the muscular feelings accompanying their motions, no longer holding good when he had to deal with the images of his fingers, he was led to make movements contrary to those he intended. Only after setting himself to watch how the muscular feelings and the reflected appearances are related, and then consciously making a certain motion in expecbation of a certain appearance, did he slowly master the difficulty. By daily practice, however, these psychical changes have become so well coordinated, that he now shaves while thinking of something, else. Still more marked is the analogous process that occurs in the microscopist. Whatever he places under the object glass is seen inverted, and with its right and left sides interchanged. All adjustments of the stage and all motions of his dissecting instruments, have to be made in directions opposite to those which the uninitiated eye would dictate. Yet habit renders this reversed manipulation as easy as ordinary manipulation — it becomes as unnecessary for the microscopist to take thought how he shall.move his hands in the one case as in the other. The approximately-automatic character of habitual actions _.is clearly proved when they are performed, as they often are. inappropriately. Any one accustomed to traverse particular streets on his way to some place of business, finds that, when intending to branch-off elsewhere, he is apt, if engaged in thought, to follow the usual route — often for a long way beyond the point at which he should have diverged: the impressions received from the familiar objects he passes, cause him to make the ordinary crossings and turnings. In reading aloud, again, the law is well displayed. Originally, sight of the letters was followed by thought of the sounds; and thought of the sounds, by such vocal actions as made the sounds. But eventually, the connexions between visual impressions and vocal actions grow so far automatic, that it becomes possible to read aloud sentence after sentence while occupied in thinking of something else — while unconscious of the words uttered and the ideas conveyed by them. In short, many if not most of our common dai]y actions (actions every step of which was originally preceded by a consciousness of consequences and was therefore rational) have, by perpetual repetition, been rendered more or less automatic. The requisite impressions being made on us, the appropriate movements follow; without memory, reason, or volition, coming into play, § 205. A further interpretation here becomes possible. We have seen that rational action arises out of instinctive \ action when this grows too complex to be perfectly auto-^matic. We have now to observe that, at the same time, there ': arises that kind of reasoning which does not directly lead to -action — that reasoning through which the great mass of surrounding co-existences and sequences are known.
As fast as the groups of external attributes and relations recognized, become too complex to be consolidated into single psychical states, there result both the opportunity and the power of inferring such attributes or relations belonging to any group, as are not immediately presented. Pure instinct continues so long as the stimuli responded to are made up of few and constant components. While the combined impressions of colour, position, size, and motion, which together stand for an adjacent object that can be seized for prey, are alone receivable, the actions will be purely automatic. But by the time that the organization of experiences has given a power of appreciating the complicated relations of form, of mixed colouring, of peculiar motions, &c., along with the more general ones of colour, position, size, and motion; tlie attributes and relations united into a group, have grown not only too numerous to be all mentally presented at the same instant, but too numerous to be all physically presented at the same instant. For the same experiences which have rendered these complex groups of attributes cognizable, have also brought them before the senses in such various ways, that sometimes one part of a group has been perceptible and sometimes another part of it: now these elements of an animaFs form and markings and actions have been visible, and now those. Though on the average each experience of the group has resembled previous ones, yet it has presented some attributes which they did not present, and has not presented others which they did present. Hence, by an accumulation of such experiences, each complex group of external phenomena establishes in the organism an answering complex group of psychical states, which has the peculiarity that it contains more states than were ever produced, or ever can be produced, by any one presentation of the external group. What must happen from this? It must happen that when, on any future presentation of the external group, certain of these aggregated psychical states are directly produced by the impressions made on the senses, various others of the psychical states that have been aggregated with them, or made coherent to them by experience, will become nascent: \ ' the ideas of one or more unperceived attributes will be \ aroused: the unperceived attributes will be inferred. ' Here, also, the doctrine enunciated is verified by the established truth of its obverse. We lately saw that while, on the one hand, instinctive actions pass into rational actions when from increasing complexity and infrequency they become imperfectly automatic; on the other hand, rational actions pass, by constant repetition, into automatic or instinctive actions. Similarly, we may here see that while, on the one hand, rational inferences arise when the groups of attributes and relations "cogmzed become such that the impressions of them cannot be simultaneously co-ordinated; on the other hand, rational inferences pass, by constant recurrence,, into automatic inferences or organic intuitions. All acquired perceptions exemplify this truth. The numberless cases in which we seem directly to know the distances, forms, solidities, textures, &c., of the things around us, are cases in which psychical states originally answering to phenomena separately perceived, and afterwards connected in thought by inference, have, by repetition, become indissolubly united, so as to constitute a rational knowledge that appears intuitive.
-, Thus, the experience-hypothesis furnishes an adequate solution. The genesis of instinct, the development of memory and reason out of it, and the consolidation* of rational actions and, inferences into instinctive ones, are alike explicable on the single principle, that the cohesion between psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which the relation between the answering external phenomena has ; been repeated in experience.
( § 206. But does the experience-hypothesis also explain I the evolution of the higher forms of rationality out of the I lower? It does. Beginning with reasoning from parti cuf lars to particulars — familiarly exhibited by children and by f domestic animals — the progress to inductive and deductive reasoning is similarly unbroken, as well as similarly determined. And by the accumulation of experiences is also determined the advance from narrow generalizations to generalizations successively wider and wider.
Were it not for the prevalent anxiety to establish some absolute distinction between animal intelligence and human intelligence, it would be needless to assign proof of this. &ren as it is, the truth is so manifest that under most of its aspects none question it. Evory one admits that the infant, while occupied in drawing those simplest inferences which by and by become consolidated into acquired perceptions, is REASON. 4$1 exercising no higher rationality than the dog that recognizes his own name, the different members of the household, and the hours of meals. Every one must also admit that the steps by which these simplest inferences of the infant pass into those inferences of high complexity drawn in adult life, are so gradual that it is impossible to mark the successive steps: no one can name that day in any human life when the alleged division between special and general conclusions was crossed. Hence, every one is bound to admit that as the rationality of an infant is no higher than that of a dog, if so high; and as, from the rationality of the infant to that! of the man the progress is through gradations which are in- 1 finitesimal; there is also a series of infinitesimal gradations) through whioh brute rationality may pass into human ration- \ ality. Furtlier, it must be admitted that as the assimilation " of experiences of successively-increasing complexity, suffices! for the unfolding of reason in the individual human being; » so must it suffice for the evolution of reason in general. t Equally clear is the argument from the history of civilization, -or from the comparison of existing races of men. That there is an immense difference in abstractness between the reasonings of the aboriginal races who peopled Britain, and the I reasonings of the Bacons and Newtons who have descended j from them, is a trite remark. That the Papuan cannot draw inferences approaching in complexity to those daily drawn by European savants } is no less a platitude. Yet no one alleges an absolute distinction between our faculties and those of our remote ancestors, or between the faculties of civilized men and those of savages. Fortunately, there are records showing that the advance towards conceptions of great complication and high generality, has taken place by slow steps — by natural growth. Let us glance at them. Simple | numeration existed before arithmetic; arithmetic before j algebra; algebra before the infinitesimal calculus; and the } more special forms of the infinitesimal calculus before its more general forms. The law of the scales was known before the general law of the lever was known; the law of the lever was known before the laws of composition and resolution of forces were known; and these were known before the laws of motion under their universal forms were known. From the ancient doctrine that the curve in which the sun, the moon, and each of the planets, moves, is a circle (a perfectly simple and constant figure); to the doctrine taught by Kepler, that each member of the planetary system describes an ellipse (a much less simple and constant figure); and afterwards to the doctrine taught by Newton, that the curve described by every heavenly body is some conic section (a still less simple and constant figure); the advance in generality,, in complexity, in ab- Stractness, is manifest. Numerous like illustrations are furnished by Physics, by Chemistry, by Physiology: all of them showing, in common with the foregoing ones, that the advance has been gradual, and that each more general relation has become known through the experience of relations a degree less general. If, then, we have proof that in the course of civilization there has been an advance from rational cognitions of a low order of generality to those of a high order of generality, brought about solely by the accumulation of experiences; if this advance is as great as that from the higher forms of brute rationality to the lower forms of human rationality (which no one who compares the generalizations of a Hottentot with those of La Place can deny); it is a legitimate conclusion that the accumulation of experiences suffices to account for "the evolution of all rationality out of its simplest forms. The iistinction, contended for by Whately, between special reasoning and general reasoning, is untenable. Generality is entirely a thing of degree; and unless it be asserted that the* rational faculty of the cultivated European is essentially different from that of a savage or a child, it., cannot conf^iS^y^^.^ll^d that there is any essential difEerence (between brute reason and human reason, —..,»,»'*»-,w.,..«..-.-",.Xr.,< _ _ ^ § 207. To complete tlie argument it needs but to show, by a special synthesis, that the establishment of every generalization, simple or complex, concrete or abstract, is definitely explicable in conformity with the principle hitherto traced. The general law that the cohesion of psychical states is determined by the frequency with which they have followed one another in experience, affords a satisfactory solution of the highest as of the lowest psychological phenomena. When treating of the integration of correspondences, something was done towards showing that the formation of the most extended generalizations does not differ in method from the formation of the simplest perceptions; but here, this may be more definitely shown.
As an instance let us take the discovery of the relation between degree of evolution of the nervous system and degree of intelligence. Originally, no such relation was recognized or was suspected. It was known that certain creatures have more sagacity than others. It was known that certain creatures have larger heads than others. To some it was known that the larger heads commonly contain larger masses of soft whitish matter. But the causal connexions among these traits were obscured by other connexions. Intelligent creatures were seen to have various other characteristics besides large brains. Most of them are fourlegged j most of them are covered with fur; most of them have teeth. And creatures having large brains were seen to have other characteristics than that of intelligence: as strength, length of life, viviparousness. Hence, there was' at first no reason why height of intelligence and extent of \ nervous development, should be thought of together. 1 What, then, was needed to establish a mental connexion. between them? Nothing but an accumulation of ex-1: pcriences; *or, as we say — a multiplying of observations.! That the rationale of this, and its conformity to the general law, may be understood, let us have recourse to symbols. Let A stand for the known characteristic, intelligence.
on And let us put X to represent the unknown characteristic which it Is dependent— a developed nervous system. Now A is found along with many varieties of size, form, colour, structure, habit, &c.; and X co-exists with this, that, and the other peculiarity, besides intelligence. That is to say,, there are many different groups of attributes variously associated with A and X, and by which the relation of A to X is disguised; or, to continue the symbols — there are Lrroaps,BCDXLFZA, P L P A Q N X Y, EDZE X B A 0 Y, and so on, in countless combinations. Bui BOW if, other things "being equal, the cohesion of psychical states is proportionate to the number of times they have been connected in experience, what must result in the minds of those who are continually impressed with groups of attributes which, differing as they do in other respects, are alike in presenting the relation A to X? As the relation of A to X is constant; as the relations of A to any other attribute, and of X to any other attribute, are not constant; as, consequently, the relation of A to X occurs with.
greater frequency than the relation of A to anything else, or of X to anything else; it follows from the general luw that the psychical states answering to A and X, will become more coherent to each other than either is to the rest of the states with which they occur — there will eventually arise a tendency for A to call up X, and for X to call up A. In other words, A and X will be connected in thought as attributes that constantly co-exist; and so will be established the generalization that the degree of intelligence varies as the development of the nervous system.
Manifestly, the same reasoning holds however complicated the relations, and however greatly obscured. Involved and varied as may be the phenomena to be generalised, if there has already been reached that grade of intelligence required for cognition of the complex terms of the relation common to them; then, repeated experiences will eventually generalize the relation, in virtue of tnat BEASON.
same simple law of psychical changes -which we have found sufficient to explain the lower phenomena of intelligence.
§ 208. Here seems to be the fittest place for pointing out * liow the general doctrine that has been developed, supplies a reconciliation between the experience-hypothesis as commonly interpreted, and the hypothesis which the trail- 3 soendentalists oppose to it.*.., * * In the first edition of this work there here followed a paragraph. whicK ia no longer required, nor can indeed be properly embodied in the text — a paragraph expressing a belief in the natural genesis of organic forms, in contrast with the current belief in their supernatural genesis. But while this paragraph is now needless, it formed a needful part of the argument as originally worked out; and I here append it for this reasoD, as well as for the purpose of indicating the view I held on the question of the origin of species at the time when the first edition of this work was published IE 1855. The paragraph is intentionally reproduced without verbal amend uients or changes of any kind.
'* As most who have read thus far will have perceived, both the general argument unfolded in the synthetical divisions of this work, and many of the special arguments by which it has been supported, imply a tacit adhesion to the development hypothesis — the hypothesis thatj-ife^n its multi- 1 tudinous and infinitely- varied embodiments, has arisen out of tlieTowest | and simplest beginnings, by steps as^ gradual as those which evolve a homo- J geneous microscopic germ into a complex organism. This tacit adhesion, | winch the progress of the argument has rendered much more obvious than 1 anticipated it would become, I do not hesitate to acknowledge. Not, indeed, that I adopt the current edition of the hypothesis. Ever since the recent revival of the controversy of 'law versus miracle,' I have not ceased to regret that so unfortunate a statement of the law should have been given — a statement quite irreconcilable with very obvious truths, and one that not only suggests insurmountable objections, but makes over to opponents a vast series of facts which, rightly interpreted, would tell with great force against them. [This referred to the V&ttiges of the Natural History of Creation."] What may be a better statement of the law, this ia not the place to inquire. It must suffice to enunciate the belief that Life j under all its forms has arisen by a progressive, unbroken evolution; and through the immediate instrumentality of whaiTwe call natural cauJSfes.
That this is an hypothesis, I readily admit. That it may never be anything more, seems probable. That even in its most defensible shape there are \ serious difficulties in its way, I cheerfully acknowledge: though, consider- I ing the extreme complexity of the phenomena: the entire destruction of H II The universal law that, other things equal, the cohesion /of psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have followed one another in experience, I supplies an explanation of the so-called "forms of.ttou^t," * as soon as it is supplemented hy the law that habitual psychical successions entail some hereditary tendency to \ such successions, which, under persistent conditions, will become cumulative in generation after generation We saw that the establishment of those compound reflex actions called instincts, is comprehensible on the principle that inner relations are, by perpetual repetition, organized into correspondence with outer relations. We have now to observe that the establishment of those consolidated, those indissoluble, those instinctive mental relations constituting our ideas of Space and Time, is comprehensible on the same principle. """ For if even to external relations that are often experienced during the life of a single organism, answering internal relations are established that become next to automatic — if such a combination of psychical changes as that which guides a savage in Mtting a bird the earlier part of the evidence; the fragmentary and obscure character of that which, remains; and the total lack of information respecting the infinitely-varied and involved causes that have been at work; it would be strange were there not such difficulties. Imperfect as it is, however, the evidence in favour appears to me greatly to preponderate over the evidence against. Save tor those who still adhere to the Hebrew myth, or to the doctrine of special creations derived • from it, there is no alternative but this hypotEesis or'no^Eypothesis. The neutral state of having no hypothesis, can be completely preserved only so long as the conflicting evidences appear exactly balanced: such a state is one of unstable equilibrium, which can hardly be permanent. For myself, finding that there is no positive evidence of special creations, and that there is so7ne positive evidence of evolution — alike in the history of tbe human race, in the modifications undergone by all organisms under changed conditions, in the^ development of every living creature— I adopt the hypothesis until better instructed: and I see the more reason for '""Soirig this, in the facts, that it appears to be the unavoidable conclusion pointed to by tbe foregoing investjigations, and that rfc furnishes a solution of the coatroversy between the disciples of Locke and those of Kant."
t