1889.] 497 [Cope. 



to devote a few pages to this old question, both as to tlie in'ellcct and the 

 will. My apologj^ for doing so is that our knowledge of evolution is now 

 greater than has been the case hitherto ; and also because it appears to me 

 that the attempt to develop a metaphysical system on a basis of Dar- 

 winian evolution has been only partially successful. Let us see wliat 

 results follow the introduction into philosophy of the Lamarckiau principle 

 of evolution. 



I. The Intellect. 



Given perception (presentation) and memory (representation), and we 

 have the materials for the unassisted evolution of human intelligence in 

 both its departments of the imagination and the reason. That such de- 

 velopment has resulted under the conditions imposed by the environment 

 can be doubted by no one who has studied animals. Such has been 

 clearly the origin of the human mind with all its noble powers. It by no 

 means follows from this fact that there have not appeared in many human 

 minds faculties which greatly transcend anything which we observe iu 

 the highest of the Mammalia below him. In the first place, it is probable that 

 ideation in the latter never extends beyond induction, and, in a more 

 limited degree, deduction ; and that neither of these faculties are ever 

 applied to their subjective states, although they evidently are applied to 

 those of other animals and of men. And it is necessary for evolutionists to 

 believe that the origin of the htiman mind being wiiat it is, it is quite 

 impossible that any ideas should exist in it which are not of experiential or 

 empirical origin, no matter how much they may transcend those of 

 the lower animals. Thus to the lessons of experience are traced the 

 highest generalizations, as the "categories of reason " of Aristotle, and 

 of Kant, and the fundamental axioms of mathematics and of logic. This 

 follows necessarily from the fundamental realism of evolution, which 

 posits the existence of tridimensional resistant matter which exhibits the 

 two qualities of motion (energy), and in some of its forms, consciousness 

 (mind), neither of which can transcend the limits inherent in the nature 

 of dimensions and resistance. Thus we reach the inevitable conclusion, 

 as pointed out by Spencer, that even the highest human faculties have 

 been attained by experience, by slow acquisition and inheritance. And 

 this apparent spontaneous appearance of the high powers of generaliza- 

 tion in the mind is under this hypothesis due to the perfecting of the 

 machine during the phylogeny of the race, by inheritance by the individ- 

 ual, and not to any a priori or intuitive powers which it possesses. 



It is a curious fact that many thinkers on these subjects hold the evolu- 

 tionary doctrine above described along with the idealistic philosophy. In 

 other words they maintain, at the same time, two doctrines which are, in 

 their extreme forms, contradictory, and mutually exclusive. If the origin 

 of the human intelligence by evolution be true, then the theory of ideal- 

 ism, which is the prevalent philosophy of the century, is f\ilse ; and vice 

 versa. And yet the same men cling to both, and are unable, naturally, to 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXVI. 130. 3k. I'RINTEL NOV. 18, 1889. 



