NATURE 



169 



THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1882 



CHA RLE 3 DAK II 'IN l 

 V. 



THE effects upon Psychology of Mr. Darwin's writings 

 J- have been so immense, that we shall not over- 

 state them by saying that they are fully comparable 

 with those which we have previously considered as having 

 been exerted by the same writings on geology, botany, 

 and zoology. This fact at first sight can scarcely fail to 

 strike us as remarkable, in view of the consideration that 

 Mr. Darwin was not only not himself a psychologist, but 

 had little aptitude for, and perhaps less sympathy with, 

 the technique of psychological method. The whole con- 

 stitution of his mind was opposed to the subtlety of the 

 distinctions and the mysticism of the conceptions which 

 this technique so frequently involves ; and therefore he 

 was accustomed to regard the problems of mind in the 

 same broad and general light that he regarded all the 

 other problems of nature. But if at first sight we are 

 inclined to feel surprised that, although possessing none 

 of the special mental equipments of a psychologist, he 

 should have produced so enormous an influence upon 

 psychology, our surprise must vanish when we consider 

 the matter a little more attentively. For the truth of this 

 matter is that psychology, in being the science furthest 

 removed from the reach of experimental means and in- 

 ductive method, is the science which has longest remained 

 in the trammels of a priori analysis and metaphysical 

 thought ; therefore Darwin, by casting the eye of a 

 philosophical naturalist upon the facts, without reference 

 to the cobwebs which the specialists had woven around 

 them, was able to gather directly much new information 

 as to their meaning. And the rare sagacity with which 

 he observed and reflected upon the phenomena of mind 

 merely as phenomena or facts of nature, led to the re- 

 markable results which we shall presently have to con- 

 sider—results which have done more than any other to I 

 unmuffle the young science of psychology from the 

 swaddling clothes of its mediaeval nursery. 



The portions of Mr. Darwin's writings which refer to 

 mental science are very limited in extent— comprising, in 

 fact, only one chapter in the " Origin of Species," three 

 in the "Descent of Man," and a short paper on the 

 development of infantile intelligence. The importance 

 of the effect produced by them is therefore rendered all 

 the more remarkable ; but in this connection it seems 

 desirable to state that the chapters to which we have 

 alluded represent, in an exceedingly condensed form, the 

 result of extensive thought and reading. A year or 

 two ago Mr. Darwin lent the present writer the original 

 drafts of these essays, together with all the notes and 

 memoranda which he had collected on psychological sub- 

 jects during the previous forty years, and so we can testify 

 that any one who reads these MSS. is more likely to be 

 surprised at the amount of labour which they indicate 

 than at the effect which has been produced by the com- 

 pressed publication of its results. What strikes one most 

 in reading the MSS. is that which also strikes one most 

 in reading the published re'sumJ that has grown out of 



1 Concluded from p. 147. 



Vol. xx\i. — No. 660 



them— namely, the honest adherence throughout to the 

 strictly scientific, or, as the followers of Comte would say 

 positive method of seeking and interpreting facts ; specu- 

 lation, hypothesis, and straw-splitting are everywhere, not 

 so much intentionally avoided, as alien to the whole con- 

 ception of the manner in which the sundry problems are 

 to be attacked. We all know that this conception has 

 not met with universal approval— that more than one 

 writer, adhering to the traditional methods of psychologi- 

 cal inquiry, has expressly joined issue upon it. But 

 although it is an easy matter for a technical psychologist 

 to point to an absence of technical thought, and so of a 

 recognition of technical principles, in these parts of Mr. 

 Darwin's writings, we are persuaded that the expose only 

 serves to reveal a beam in the eye of the technical psycho- 

 logist which prevents him from seeing clearly how to 

 remove the mote from Mr. Darwin's. In other words, 

 although it is true that Mr. Darwin does not recognise 

 the niceties of distinction which seem so important to 

 what we may term the professional mind, it is no less 

 true that in the cases to which we have alluded, the pro- 

 fessional mind has failed in its duty of filling up for itself 

 the technical lacuna: in Mr. Darwin's expositions. Such 

 lacuna-- no doubt occur, but they never really vitiate the 

 integrity of the conclusions ; and a trained psychologist 

 would best fulfil his function as an under-builder, by sup- 

 plying here and there the stones which the hand of the 

 master has neglected to put in. To ourselves it alwa\ s 

 seems one of the most wonderful of the many wonderful 

 aspects of Mr. Darwin's varied work, that by the sheer 

 force of some exalted kind of common sense, unassisted 

 by any special acquaintance with psychological methods, 

 he should have been able to strike, as it were, straight 

 down upon some of the most important truths which have 

 ever been brought to light in the region of mental science. 

 These we shall now proceed to consider. 



The chapter in the " Origin of Species " to which we 

 have referred, is occupied chiefly with an application of 

 the theory of natural selection to the phenomena of in- 

 stinct, and in our opinion ic has done more than all other 

 psychological writings put together to explain what in- 

 stinct is, why it is, and how it came to be. Before this 

 chapter was published, the only scientific theory concern- 

 ing the origin of instincts that had been formed was the 

 theory which regarded them as hereditary habits. Be- 

 cause we know that in the individual intelligent adjust- 

 ments become, by frequent repetition, automatic, it wa 

 inferred that the same might be true of the species, ana 

 therefore that all instincts were to be regarded as what 

 Lewes has aptly termed " lapsed intelligence." In thi^ 

 view there is, without any question, much truth, and the 

 first thing we have to notice about Mr. Darwin's writing 

 with reference to instinct is that they not only recognised 

 this truth, but, by elucidating the whole subject of 

 heredity, placed it in a much clearer light than it ever 

 stood before. Mr. Darwin, however, carried the philo- 

 sophy of the subject very much further when he argued 

 that, in conjunction with the cause formulated as "lapsin, 

 intelligence/' there was another at least as potent in the 

 formation of instincts — namely, natural selection. Hi- 

 own statement of the case is so terse that we cannot do 

 better than quote it. 

 "If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three 



