DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



5" 



or the other animal in various typical 

 situations. Naturally this would mean a 

 comparison of the qualitative aspects of 

 characteristic elementary and complex 

 mental states of animal and man. The 

 arrangement of organisms into a psycho- 

 phylogenetic tree on the basis of their 

 general psychic level should follow rather 

 than precede a thoroughgoing analysis of 

 their actual inner conscious experience. 

 The principle of psychic levels as com- 

 monly employed was, in reality, only a 

 substitute for such an analysis of experi- 

 ence, although often pretending to repre- 

 sent genuine psychological analysis. 



Even those who contended that the 

 primary purpose of comparative psychol- 

 ogy was to secure a picture of the subjec- 

 tive life of infra-human forms were 

 exceedingly cautious about hazarding an 

 opinion regarding the qualitative aspects 

 of animal consciousness . After spending a 

 lifetime in the study of insects, Lubbock 

 hesitates to do more than make a few 

 shrewd guesses concerning their general 

 mental level. He lays down the principle 

 that we can know nothing whatsoever 

 concerning the experience of animals, 

 qua experience. Morgan, Wundt, Titch- 

 ener, and most other later writers agree 

 with him that even the quality of a 

 simple sensation or feeling cannot be 

 translated into terms of human conscious- 

 ness, and hence must remain forever 

 shrouded in mystery. But this is pre- 

 cisely the first and fundamental task of a 

 subjective comparative psychology. How, 

 indeed, can anthropomorphic analogy be 

 successfully employed in revealing the 

 more complex mental life of animals, if 

 inferences regarding the qualitative aspects 

 of the simplest mental states are admit- 

 edly impossible? 



The opinion of Lubbock that the 

 protozoan possesses most probably a 

 vague, confused consciousness, and that 



of Morgan and Thorndike that the mental 

 life of the higher vertebrates is unan- 

 alytical and devoid of free ideas, represent, 

 even if true, logical deduction rather than 

 psychological analysis. Among the few 

 attempts to portray the actual feelings of 

 the animal in human terms, that of Thorn- 

 dike (iii, page 113) will serve as a fair 

 example. He compares the characteristic 

 consciousness of the cat or dog to that of 

 the human being while in swimming, 

 when "one feels sense-impressions, has 

 impulses, feels the movements he makes; 

 that is all." Morgan "cordially endorses" 

 this interpretation, although Thorndike 

 is careful to say that it may be only a 

 fancy. 



It was inevitable, although extremely 

 unfortunate, that the speculative spirit 

 should have held so dominant a place in 

 the earlier decades of the period, hindering 

 as it did the normal progress of compara- 

 tive psychology along naturalistic lines. 

 The real difficulty lay in the fact that the 

 Cartesian conception of mind as an 

 entity was widely prevalent . This carried 

 with it the idea that at some point in the 

 phylogenetic scale the psychic factor as 

 something sui generis had made its appear- 

 ance. The whole matter had been dis- 

 posed of by Descartes by sweeping aside 

 with a grand gesture the notion of con- 

 scious life in all organisms below man. In 

 denying consciousness to lower organisms 

 only, Loeb, Bethe, and other extreme 

 mechanists were faced with the problem 

 of the origin and appearance of conscious- 

 ness, and the mode of its operation in the 

 higher animals. The view of Morgan 

 and the later conservatives that life and 

 mind in some sense are probably coexten- 

 sive avoided the question as to the first 

 appearance of consciousness, but substi- 

 tuted the equally ubiquitous one con- 

 cerning the psychical level of various or- 

 ganisms. As we have seen, no one had 



