396 



NATURE 



\August 2 1, 1879 



2. The other is the temptatiom to strain or ignore facts to 

 serve a favourite theory. 



As to the former of these dangers, I may perhaps be permitted 

 to quote some remarks made by Mr. Chambers, approvingly cited 

 by Prof. Bain: "There are two subjects where the love of the 

 marvellous has especially retarded the progress of correct know- 

 ledge — the manners of foreign countries, and the instincts of the 



brute creation It is extremely difficult to obtain true 



observations" as to the latter "from the disposition to make 

 them subjects of marvel and astonishment." .... " It is nearly 

 as impossible to acquire a knowledge of animals from anecdotes 

 as it would be to obtain a knowledge of human nature from the 

 narratives of parental fondness and friendly partiality." This I 

 believe to be most true, and that here the danger of mistaking 

 inference for observation is exceptionally great. The inquirer 

 ought not to accept as facts marvellous tales without criticism 

 and a careful endeavour to ascertain whether the alleged facts 

 are facts and not unconscious fictions. 



As to the second danger, the lamented George Henry Lewes, 

 whom no one can suspect of any hostihty to evolution in its 

 most extreme form, remarks (in his posthumous work^ just 

 published) that the researches of various eminent writers on 

 animal psychology have been "biassed by a secret desire to 

 establish the identity of animal and human nature," and certainly 

 no one can deny that those \;\\o do assert that identity, are 

 necessarily exposed to the temptation referred to. Of course 

 pefsons who desire to disprove this identity are exposed to the 

 opposite temptation ; but it cannot be maintained that there is 

 evidence of Buffon having been influenced by any such desire. 



The obvious difference between the highest powers of man 

 and animals has led the common sense of mankind to consider 

 them to be of radically distinct kinds, and the question which 

 naturalists now profess to investigate is whether this is so or no. 



But we may doubt, whether many who enter upon this inquiry 

 d.0 not enter upon it with their minds already made up that no such 

 radical difference can by any possibility exist. To admit it, they 

 think, would be tantamount to admitting some non-natural 

 origin of man, to accepting, as a fact, something not harmonising 

 with our views as to nature generally, leading to we know not 

 what results — possibly even to lending some support to Christian- 

 ity. To admit it, would be to deny the principle of continuity. 

 There cannot, therefore, be any essential difference between man 

 and brute, and their mental powers must be the same in kind. 

 This, I think, is no unfair representation of the state of mind in 

 which this question is very likely to be entered upon at the 

 present time. Surely, however, if we profess to investigate a 

 ■question, we ought in honesty to believe that there is a question 

 to investigate, or else leave the matter to others ; and if evidence 

 should seem to show that "intellect" cannot be analysed 

 into sense, but is an ultimate, it ought to be accepted, at the 

 least i)rovisionally, as such, even at the cost of having to regard 

 its origin as at present inexplicable. Can we explain the origin 

 of " motion ? " But what rational man thinks of denying it on 

 that account ? Let us not reject anything, then, which may 

 be evident, on account of certain supposed speculative con- 

 sequences. 



But that no such consequences as those referred to need follow 

 from the admission of the radical distinctness of human reason, 

 seems evident from the views of Aristotle. He certainly was 

 free from theological prejudices or predispositions, and yet to 

 his clear intellect the difference between the merely sentient and 

 the rational natures was an evident difference, and the facts 

 which are open to our observation are the same as those which 

 presented themselves to his. 



To enter on this inquiry with any fair prospect of success, it is 

 not only necessary to guard against such temptations as these, 

 but it is also necessary to be provided with a certain amount of 

 knowledge of a special kind ; namely, with a clear knowledge of 

 what our own intellectual powers are. I conceive that, great as 

 is the danger of exaggeration and false inference as to the 

 faculties of animals, the danger of misapprehending and under- 

 rating our own powers is far greater. 



Buffon held very decided views as to the distinctness of the 

 mind of man from the so-called minds of animals. But an 

 ingenious and gifted writer,' who has recently done good service 

 in supporting Buffon's claims to greater consideration than he 

 commonly receives, has, nevertheless, done him what I believe 



* "Problems of Life and Mind." Third Series, -1879, p. T22. 

 "Mr. Samuel Butler. See his "Evolution, Old and New." 

 wicke and Bogue, 1879.) 



(Hard- 



to be Strange injustice in attributing to his great work an ironical 

 character, and this in spite of Buffon's protest ' against irony in 

 such a work as his, I cannot venture to take up your time with 

 controversy on this subject ; but apart from Buffon's protest 

 against "equivoque," it is incredible to me that he should have 

 carried on a sustained irony through so voluminous a work — 

 thus making its whole teaching absolutely mendacious. One 

 remark of Buffon's, which has been strangely misinterpreted by 

 this writer, I shall have occasion to notice directly ; but I think 

 it may suffice to clear Buffon's character from the aspersion of 

 his admiring assailant, to point out that in the table of contents 

 in the final volume of his "History of Mammals"^ (which 

 table gives the pith and gist of his several treatises), he distinctly 

 affirms the distinctions maintained in the body of his work. 



The following were Buffon's views. In his "Discourse on 

 the Nature of Animals," ' he says, "Far from denying feelings 

 to animals, I concede to them everything except thought and 

 reflection" .... "they have sensations, but no faculty of 

 comparing them one with another, that is to say, they have not 

 the power which produces ideas." He is full of scorn'' for that 

 gratuitous admiration for the moral and intellectual faculties of 

 bees, which Sir John Lubbock's excellent observations and 

 experiments have .shown to be indeed gratuitous. Speaking of 

 the ape, most manlike (and so man-like) as to brain, he says : ' 

 "II ne pense pas: y a-t-il tine preuve plus evidente que la 

 matiere seule, quoique parfaitement organisee, ne pent produire 

 ni la pensee, ni la parole qui en est le signe, i moins qu'elle ne 

 soit animee par un principe superieur?"' Buffon has been 

 accused of vacillation Avith respect to his doctrine concerning 

 animal variation, but no one has accused him of vacillation 

 with respect to his views concerning reason and instinct. 



I come now to the passage which I said has been so strangely 

 misunderstood. It is that in which he expresses his conviction 

 that "animals have no knowledge of the past, no idea of time, 

 and consequently no memory." But to quote this passage with- 

 out explanation is gravely to misrepresent the illustrious French 

 naturalist. Buffon was far from ignoring, indeed he di.-;tinctly 

 enumerates the various obtrusive phenomena which often lead 

 the vulgar to attribute, without qualification, both knowledge 

 and memory to brutes. But, in fact, he distinguishes between' 

 memory and memory. His words are : "Si Ton a donne 

 quelque attention a ce que je viens de dire, on aura deja senti 

 que j e distingue deux especes de memoire infiniment differentes 

 I'une de I'autre par leur cause, et qui peuvent cependant se 

 ressembler en quelque sorte par leurs effets ; la premiere est la 

 trace de nos idees, et la seconde, que j'appellerais volontiers 

 reminiscence ^ plutot que memoire, n'est que le renouvellement 

 de nos sensations," and he declares'' true memory to consist in 

 the recurrence of ideas as distinguished from revived sensuous 

 imaginations. 



This distinction is one which it is easy to perceive. That we 

 have automatic memory, such as animals have, is obvious ; but 

 the presence of intellectual memory (or memory proper) may be 

 made evident by the act of searching our minds (so to speak) for 

 something which we know we have fully remembered before, 

 and thus intellectually remember to have known, though we 

 cannot now bring it before our imagination. 



As with memory, so with other of our mental powers, we 

 may, I think, distinguish between a higher and a lower faculty 

 of each ; between our higher, self-conscious, reflective mental 

 acts — the acts of our intellectual faculty — and those of our 

 merely sensitive power. This distinction (to which I have else- 

 where '" called attention) I believe[to be one of the most funda- 

 mental of all the distinctions of biology, and to be one the ap- 

 prehension of which is a necessary preliminary to a successful 

 investigation of animal psychology. It is, of course, impossible 

 for us thoroughly to comprehend the minds of dogs or birds, be- 

 cause we cannot enter into the actual experience of .such animals, 

 but by understanding the distinction between our own higher and 



^ Op. cit, tome i. p. 25. .^ Op. cit, tome xv. 3 op. cit. t^me iv. p. 41. 



■1 Op. cit. tome iv. p. gi. 5 Qp. cit. tome x>. p. 61. 



^ Mr. Butler cites objections brought forward in a certain pass.age (from 

 pp. 30 and 31, vol. xiv.), as if they were Buffon's own. _ But they are the 

 objections of an imagined opponent whose views Buffon himself combats. It 

 is worthy of note that Buffon long anticipated our contemporaries with 

 respect to man's place in nature in so far as concerns his mere anatomy. 

 For he did not hesitate to affirm that the Orang differs less from us structur- 

 ally than it differs from some other apes. 



7 Op. cit. tome iv. p. 60. 



8 Here he follows, without citing, the old distinction of Aristotle between 

 memory and reminiscence. 



^ Op. cit. tome iv. p. 56. 

 *" '* Lessons from Nature " (Murray, 1876), p. 196. 



