236 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



NOTES AN.D QUERIES. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals. — Is it 

 memory that causes a newly hatched chick to distin- 

 guish between a pebble and a grain of rice, or a full- 

 grown bird to distinguish between a poisonous berry 

 and a non-poisonous one ? If in these cases a negative 

 reply can be given, and I think it must, and we are 

 to consider animals as being actuated by the same 

 motive powers as man, this certainly goes to prove 

 that reason does exist without memory, inasmuch as 

 reasonable things are done where memory cannot 

 come into play. I speak here of memory as we 

 ordinarily understand the term. Evolutionists would 

 probably say that in the two cases I have mentioned 

 memory, or the effects of memory, are not altogether 

 absent, but by the law of heredity the acts are the 

 results of the memory in ancestors. If we grant this, 

 we have to admit a kind of memory different from 

 that in man. We have, on the one hand, man 

 having the power of acting and thinking freely from 

 his own individual memory, and, on the other, animals 

 impelled by inherited results of memory of their 

 ancestors. Now can it be otherwise, if both animals 

 and man denote intelligence from such different 

 fundamental sources, than that the intelligence of 

 the one must be fundamentally and essentially dif- 

 ferent from that of the other ? It is contended that 

 besides the power of instinct, we are to give animals 

 credit for a degree of reason of the same kind as 

 that displayed by man ; but it is difficult to see how 

 it can be possible if a man were born with the 

 instincts of a cat, a dog, or of any other animal, that 

 he could be the same kind of intellectual being he 

 is (or, indeed, an intellectual being at all) that is 

 capable of the same kind of reason. If we can 

 see this would be impossible with man, I think 

 we may fairly conclude that it is not possible with 

 animals. Reason is the result of the exercise of the 

 power of arranging facts, drawing deductions from 

 them, and acting from those deductions uninfluenced 

 by the impelling force of instinct. This kind of 

 reason, I take it, is only possible in man, as he is, 

 so far as we know, the only being who is so unin- 

 fluenced. From being so, he is able to act from his 

 own understanding, which, I contend, he would be 

 unable to do were he controlled by any inherent natural 

 motives called instincts, and that instincts, if he had 

 them, would entirely subvert his understanding. 

 From this point of view it would seem that instinct 

 and reason are not only alike, but the one is opposed 

 to and inconsistent with the other, so that where we 

 admit instinct, we preclude reason. It may afford a 

 good illustration of this to consider how man acts 

 when he has acquired strong habits, which become 

 very much like instinct. We see in cases of drunkards, 

 and others addicted to injurious habits, the power to 

 act reasonably with regard to those habits almost, 

 and in some cases entirely, gone. Although it may 

 be known to those addicted that even death may be 

 the early result of persisting in the habits, that know- 

 ledge is not sufficient to cause them to exercise 

 reason. We may suppose that instinct being a part 

 of the very nature of animals, and not being subject 

 to the checking influence of the understanding, has a 

 very much stronger force than habit, and therefore, if 

 the above instance is true as to the force of habit 

 acquired by man, and in opposition to his knowledge 

 (and the case is stronger if we bear in mind that some- 

 times very intellectual persons become hopelessly 

 addicted to injurious habits, after living, it may be, 

 twenty or thirty years an intelligent life), we may 

 easily imagine how instincts of greater force inherent 



in the constitution, and capable of being exercised 

 from birth, would preclude the possibility of man ac- 

 quiring reason, as we understand the term. — Robert 

 S. Gilliard. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals. — In my 

 letter of June I showed that Mr. Darwin's arguments 

 respecting the origin of man are based on reasoning 

 by analogy. Now, if the intelligence of animals 

 differs from that of man only in degree, lam at a loss 

 to see why this method of reasoning is necessary, 

 because in that case, whatever is true of man must be 

 true, in a minor degree, of animals ; but many 

 passages in Mr. Darwin's works prove that he feels 

 he would not be justified in thus reasoning. That 

 reasoning by analogy is not a safe method, I can 

 illustrate by the mode in which it has misled me. 

 Some time ago I lost a diamond from a ring, and, 

 after some search, found it, and strange to say, 

 close to it an object which I supposed was another 

 diamond, as it closely resembled it in appearance. 

 Reasoning by analogy, I exclaimed, "Since these 

 objects closely resemble each other, they must have 

 had a common origin." Picture my chagrin when a 

 goldsmith informed me that the one I had lost was a 

 diamond of the purest water from the mines of 

 Golconda, and my newly found treasure a piece of 

 glass from Birmingham. The Darwinian hypothesis 

 is not only unsupported by facts, but it is in flagrant 

 contradiction to them. There are some 20,000 

 species of animals, and not one instance is known of 

 different species being crossed without sterility en- 

 suing in the animal thus begot. It seems a law of 

 nature to keep species apart. Darwin, to support his 

 hypothesis has to assume that there may have been 

 a time when this law was reversed. What would be 

 thought of an astronomer, if he were to argue that 

 though the attraction of gravitation is true now, there 

 may have been a time when an apple thrown into the 

 air would travel for ever in space ? Darwin's argu- 

 ment is precisely similar, though its fallacy is not so 

 obvious at first sight. If the theory of evolution be 

 true, a multitude of animals should be discovered in 

 various stages of physical change, which would defy 

 the efforts of naturalists to classify. As is well known, 

 the reverse of this is true. A skilled naturalist finds no 

 difficulty in placing each newly discovered animal 

 in its proper order. Mr. James George asks in the 

 August number, How far is an instinctive act auto- 

 matic, and how far is it the outcome of volition? 

 The question, if it could be answered, would close this 

 discussion, but I am convinced that it cannot be 

 answered for the following reasons. We perceive 

 that animals have some faculties in common with 

 man, we see too that they have some primal impulses 

 that man does not possess. On the other hand, we 

 see that man has certain faculties, powers of abstract 

 thought, imagination, introspection, and a moral sense 

 unpossessed as far as can be judged by brutes. Some 

 writers consider the moral sense an independent 

 principle, but I am inclined to believe that, if not 

 the result of the above named faculties, it cannot 

 possibly exist without them. The consequence of 

 these differences of nature is this, that in attempting 

 to make a perfect analysis of the brute mind we are 

 confronted with an insoluble metaphysical problem. 

 Let the reader compare what is said on the subject 

 by Darwin, Haeckel, Dr. Carpenter, Henslow, Mr. 

 S. Butler, the letters in " Nature " and in this 

 journal, and I think he will conclude with me that 

 the diversities of opinion expressed are the conse- 

 quence of the writers overlooking the enforced limita- 

 tion of thought involved in the subject. For example, 

 in the July number, Mr. James Hooper says : " The 



