764 



REPORT — 1902. 



II. Return showing Admissions of Patients to the District Asylums named, 

 suffering from ' General Paralysis of the Insane,' for the period from 1890 

 to 1900 inclusive. 



7. A Study in the Psychology oj Primitive Man. By A. Amy Bulley. 



Sufficient information is now available with regard to primitive man to afford 

 a general view of the trend of his ideas. We are thus enabled to estimate his 

 intellectual calibre, and ascertain which among the mental processes he carried on 

 with ease, and which were feebly and tentatively performed. Perfect certainty 

 cannot be attained, but the results of the survey should be useful in testing the 

 correctness of theories crediting primitive man with particular ideas and beliefs. 

 Negative conclusions only are aimed at here. By ascertaining the limits of primi- 

 tive man's intellectual powers we can rule out theories as to his beliefs which are 

 incompatible with his actual stage of development. If found weak in certain 

 mental processes he cannot be reasonably credited with conceptions implying their 

 free working. 



Investigation does not warrant us in attributing any absolute mental deficiency 

 to primitive man. He appears to have been capable of all mental processes. 

 The higher and more complex processes, however (ideation, analysis, synthesis^ 

 and the formation of complex concepts), were performed with facility only when 

 concerned with the details of daily life and the struggle for existence. Where 

 these were not present the higher processes were but imperfectly performed. In 

 the world of abstract ideas we must predicate for primitive man, as for his 

 descendants, a considerably lower level than in the practical world. 



The most conspicuous failing in primitive man was inability to differentiate. 

 He perceived similarities rather than differences, the latter involving clearer per- 

 ception, and being therefore a later product of the intelligence. Things which were 

 alike were to him identical, or at least equivalent. To employ the terminology of 

 Principal Lloyd Morgan, he ' sensed ' objects singly, and without anything more 

 than a hazy perception of their relation to one another. 



The results of this deficiency were : — 



1. Inability to generalise. 



2. No distinction recognised between essential and non-essential charac- 

 teristics. 



3. Imperfect understanding of cause and effect. 



1, Generalisation demands differentiation, the analysis of separate qualities, 

 and their re-combination in a new concept covering a wide field of observation. 

 These processes primitive man could only perform imperfectly. 



