12 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and in the same year a work was published anonymously in English 

 which seems to be the beginning of the history of the word Anthro- 

 pologie in the English language. In this book Anthropology is divided 

 into Psychology and Anatomy, and the writer announces that "of 

 the former we shall in a distracted rehearsal deliver our collections." 

 In 1677 Matthew Hale discussed the primitive origin of man and from 

 that time onwards a series of works on comparative anatomy, on 

 pygmies, and on other allied topics prepared the way for the appear- 

 ance in 1735 of Linné's Systema Naturae where we find man treated 

 zoologically. i 



These few dates and titles show how the teaching of Descartes 

 about animals comes midway in the development of a large theme. 

 The focus of interest was man and the question at issue was not so 

 much the scientific analysis of animal behaviour as the adjustment 

 of man, now declared to be in part a machine, in relation to animals. 

 The issue of the discussion was finally that which Descartes vaguely 

 indicated, namely that as body man belongs to the animal kingdom, 

 as mind he belonged to another realm. While Descartes confused the 

 subject by treating this other realm as sometimes merely psychological, 

 sometimes ambiguously spiritual, the sequel shows that it was possible 

 to advance from his position to a general theory of man divided into 

 physiology and psychology. 



Whatever may be said of previous suggestions, it was the work of 

 Descartes to give wider significance to the question of automatism. 

 His followers and defenders saw this aspect of the problem and the 

 consequent ventilation of his views brought to light many interesting 

 points. Ignatius Gaston Pardies (Discours de la Connaissance des 

 Bêtes, 1672), and a certain A. Dilly, author of a work on the soul 

 of animals published at Amsterdam, 1691, were the chief writers 

 concerned. Dilly argued that the growth of the embryo precedes 

 consciousness, that movements easily become automatic, that som- 

 nambulists act unconsciously, that speech and the playing of instru- 

 ments are systems of movements which depend solely on the nature 

 and disposition of the organs. Pardies argued that it was simpler to 

 explain the lamb's fear of the wolf through some automatic principle 

 than to suppose the animal first learned to think the wolf could harm 

 it. The theologians were attacked in flank by the assertion that it 

 was more creditable to the Divine Wisdom to create an organism that 

 automatically preserved itself than to complicate matters by adding 

 consciousness. Regius declared that the education of animals was 

 achieved by repetition of acts which produced new dispositions of the 

 brain substance and so caused a regular flow of spirits to certain 



