DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



491 



inclusive of the genus homo thus became the 

 storm center of the whole controversy 

 #ver Darwinism. The notion that mind 

 as well as bodily structure and func- 

 tion had developed from natural causes 

 amounted to a denial of the primacy 

 of man in any but a purely quantitative 

 and naturalistic sense. The mind-body 

 dichotomy was rather clear cut in the 

 public mind because of the fact that the 

 philosophic thought of the time was more 

 \qt less permeated by Cartesian dualism. 

 The bitter attacks of theologians and 

 .religious leaders, who thought they saw in 

 [the new doctrine the collapse of moral 

 culture and religious faith, added tense- 

 ness to the situation. It was this stub- 

 born refusal on all sides to accept the fact 

 of mental evolution, insofar as it applied 

 to man, that was in large part responsible 

 for the anecdotal movement in compara- 

 tive psychology. 



The anecdotalists confined their efforts 

 almost wholly to the collection of stories, 

 sometimes of doubtful veracity, empha- 

 sizing the human-like behavior of the 

 higher animals. The lower organisms 

 were of slight interest since the traditional 

 science and theology had placed the 

 impassable gap to mental continuity 

 between the higher animals and man. 

 The problem thus practically narrowed 

 down to showing that the higher animals 

 possessed a rudimentary intelligence, out 

 $E>f which the more diversified human 

 mental life might conceivably have 

 developed. The need of the hour, if the 

 doctrine of mental continuity and evolu- 

 tion were to survive, was for a mass of 

 concrete evidence, tending to show the 

 beginnings of rational, emotional, social 

 and moral capacities in the higher ani- 

 mals . In the absence of first hand obser- 

 vations, appeal was had to the anecdote, 

 which had always been in good repute in 

 illustrating unusual conduct in animals in 

 natural history collections. 



Darwin himself made considerable use 

 of anecdote and few if any of the writers 

 on natural history of this period avoided it 

 altogether. Scores of anecdotal collec- 

 tions appeared in which the tendency to 

 humanize and eulogize the mental powers 

 of higher animals reached the ridiculous. 

 These collections often included material 

 from Aristotle, Pliny, Plutarch and other 

 of the ancients in addition to that gathered 

 from contemporary story-mongers. In 

 many cases the anecdotes were taken from 

 unreliable sources or were mere hearsay, 

 and in all cases the moral to the story was 

 that the animal concerned was "almost 

 human" if not actually so. The collec- 

 tions of Romanes (74, 75, 77), Biichner 

 (2.6), Lindsay (66) and Perty (70) are 

 among the most extensive and dependable 

 of those which have survived to our own 

 day. Romanes in particular attempted to 

 select his stories with due concern as to 

 the reliability of the original sources. 



The essential argument in much of the 

 anecdotal material is difficult to follow on 

 account of the loose manner in which 

 fact and fancy are thrown together. In 

 general, however, the anecdotes may be 

 grouped so as to constitute the following 

 three main lines of evidence in support of 

 the contention that the higher animals 

 possess a rudimentary human mind: C 1 ) 

 anecdotes purporting to show some 

 measure of reasoning ability, (z) anec- 

 dotes supposedly illustrating social be- 

 havior of a high order, and (3) anecdotes 

 in which the characteristic human emo- 

 tions indicative of sympathy, shame, 

 deceit, courage, timidity, suspicion, 

 jealousy, curiosity, emulation, sense of 

 justice, sense of humor, etc. are apparently 

 exhibited. Cunning and ingenuity in the 

 natural environment such as that shown 

 by the beaver in building its dam at 

 strategic positions, or in domestic and 

 captive animals in outwitting man, or 

 learning tricks with or without tuition 



QUAR. REV. BIOL., VOL. Ill, NO. 4 



