From this table, and the expansions which it sums up, rise the following conclusions.
1. Each kingdom is characterised by a certain number of phenomena, whose existence is independent of all hypothesis and theory.
2. The phenomena increase in number from the sidereal to the animal kingdom.
3. In passing from one kingdom to another, and proceeding from the simple to the composite, a number of phenomena appear, which are entirely unknown in the inferior kingdoms.
4. The superior kingdom presents, independently of its special phenomena, the characteristic phenomena of the inferior kingdoms.
5. Each group of phenomena indicated in the table is connected with a small number of fundamental phenomena, which can, in some cases with certainty, in others with more or less probability, be referred to a single cause.
6. All these causes are equally unknown to us as regards their nature and mode of action. We know them merely by phenomena. We can, therefore, make no conjecture asto the relations, more or less close, which may exist between them.
7. We nevertheless give names to these causes for the sake of convenience, and of facilitating the discussion of the facts.
VIII. We can now return to the problem which gave rise to these expansions, and ask the question: Whether Man should take his place in the animal kingdom? a question which evidently leads to another: Is man distinguished from animals by important and characteristic phenomena, absolutely unknown in the latter? For more than forty years I have answered this question in the affirmative, and my convictions, tested by many controversies, are now stronger than ever.
But it is neither in the material disposition, nor in the action of his physical organism, that we must look for these phenomena. From this point of view, man is neither more nor less than an animal. From an anatomical point of view, there is less difference between man and the superior order of apes, than between the latter and the inferior orders. The microscope reveals equally striking resemblances between the elements of the human organism and those of the animal organism; and chemical analysis leads to the same result. It was easy to foresee that the action of elements and organs would be exactly the same in man and beast, and such was found to be the case.
Passions, sentiments, and characters, establish between animals and ourselves equally close relations. The animal loves and hates; we recognise in it irritability and jealousy; unwearying patience, and immutable confidence. In our domestic species, these differences are more apparent, or perhaps we only notice them more closely. Who has not known dogs which have been playful or snappish, affectionate or savage, cowardly or courageous, friendly with everybody, or exclusive in their affections.
Again, man has true instincts, were it only that of sociability. Faculties, however, of this order, which are so fullydeveloped in certain animals, in man are evidently very much reduced in comparison with the intelligence.
The relative development of the latter certainly establishes an enormous difference between man and animal. It is not, however, theintensityof a phenomenon which gives value to it from our present point of view, but simply itsnature. The question is whether human intelligence and animal intelligence can be considered as of the same order.
As a rule philosophers, psychologists, and theologians, have replied in the negative, and naturalists in the affirmative. This opposition can be easily understood. The former make the human mind, considered as an indivisible whole, their principal study, and attribute to it all our faculties. Unable to deny the similarity, external at least, between certain animal and human acts, and yet being anxious to clearly distinguish man from the brute, they have given to the acts different interpretations as they have been performed by one or the other. Naturalists have regarded the phenomena more closely without thinking of anything else, and when they have seen the animal behave in the same manner as they themselves would have done under the given circumstances, they have concluded that the motives of the action must be fundamentally the same. I must ask permission to remain a naturalist, and to recall some facts, and regard them from this point of view.
The theologians themselves allow that the animal possesses sensation, formation and association of images, imagination, and passion (R. P. de Bonniot). They allow that the animal feels the relation of fitness or of unfitness between sensible objects and his own senses; that it experiences sensible attractions and repulsions, and acts perfectly in consequence, and thatin this sense the animal reasons and judges(l’Abbé A. Lecomte). Therefore, they add, we cannot doubt but that the animal possesses a principle superior to that of mere matter, and we may even give it the name of mind (R. P. Bonniot). But in spite of all,theologians and philosophers maintain that the animal cannot be intelligent, because it has neitherinnate sense,consciousnessnorreason.
Let us leave for a moment the last term, with which the idea of phenomena which we shall presently discuss, is connected in the mind of our opponents. Is it true that animals are wanting in innate sense, and are not conscious of their actions? Upon what facts of observation does this opinion rest? We each one of us feel that we possess this sense, that we enjoy this faculty. By means of speech we can convey to another the results of our personal experience. But this source of information is wanting when we come to deal with animals. Neither in them nor in ourselves are innate sense and consciousness revealed to the outer world by any special characteristic movement. It is, therefore, only by interpreting these movements, and by judging from ourselves, that we can form an idea of the motives from which the animal acts.
Proceeding in this manner, it seems to me impossible to refuse to allow animals a certain amount of consciousness of their actions. Doubtless, they do not form such an exact estimate of them, as even an illiterate man can do. But we may be very certain that when a cat is trying to catch sparrows on level ground, and creeps along the hollows, availing herself of every tuft of grass however small, she knows what she is about, just as well as the hunter who glides in a crouching attitude from one bush to another. We may be equally sure that kittens and puppies when they fight, growl and bite without hurting each other, know very well that they are playing and not in earnest.
I must here beg permission to relate the remembrance of my struggles with a mastiff of pure breed, and which had attained its full size, remaining, however, veryyoung in character. We were very good friends, and often played together. As soon as ever I assumed an attitude of defence before him, he would leap upon me with every appearance of fury, seizing in his mouth the arm which I had usedas a shield. He might have marked my arm deeply at the first onset, but he never pressed it in a manner that could inflict the slightest pain. I often seized him by his lower jaw with my hand, but he never used his teeth so as to bite me. And yet the next moment the same teeth would indent a piece of wood, I tried to tear away from them.
This animal evidently knew what it was doing when it feigned the passion preciselyoppositeto that which it really felt; when, even in the excitement of play, it retained sufficient mastery over its movements to avoid hurting me. In reality itplayed a part in a comedy, and we cannot act without being conscious of it.
It is useless for me to insist upon many other facts which I could bring forward, and I refer my reader to the works of those naturalists who have studied the question, especially those of F. Cuvier. But the more I reflect upon it, the more is my conviction confirmed that man and animals think and reason in virtue of a faculty which is common to both, and which is only far more developed in the latter than in the former.
What I have just said of the intelligence I do not hesitate to say also of language, the highest manifestation of the intelligence. It is true that man alone possessesspeech, that is to say thearticulate voice. But two classes of animals possessvoice. With us it is, again, only a high degree of perfection, nothing radically new. In both cases the sounds, produced by the air which is thrown into vibration by the voluntary movements accorded to the larynx, convey impressions and personal thoughts which are understood by individuals of the same species. The mechanism of the production, the object and the result are fundamentally the same.
It is true that the language of animals is most rudimentary and, in this respect, in harmony with the inferiority of their intelligence. We might say that it was almost entirely composed of interjections. Such as it is, however, thislanguage is sufficient for the wants of the mammalia and birds who understand it perfectly, while man himself can learn it without very much trouble. The hunter can distinguish the accents of anger, love, pleasure, sorrow, the call and the signal of alarm and makes use of these indications as an unfailing guide, and often imitates these accents and cries in such a manner as to deceive the animal. Of course I exclude from thelanguage of brutes, the song, properly so called, of birds, that of the nightingale for example. It appears to me void of all meaning, as are the notes of a singer, and I do not believe in the interpretation of Dupont de Nemours.
It is not, therefore, in the phenomena connected with the intelligence that we shall find the basis of a fundamental distinction between man and animals.
But in man the existence has been proved of fundamental phenomena of which nothing either in living beings or inanimate bodies has hitherto been able to give us any conception. 1st. Man has theperception of moral good and evilindependently of all physical welfare or suffering. 2nd. Manbelieves in superior beingswho can exercise an influence upon his destiny. 3rd. Manbelieves in the prolongation of his existence after this life.
The last two phenomena have always been so closely connected that it is natural to refer them to the same faculty, to that namely ofReligion. The first depends onMorality.
Psychologists attribute religion and morality to thereason, and make the latter an attribute of man. But with thereasonthey connect the highest phenomena of the intelligence. In my opinion, in so doing they confound and refer to a common origin, facts entirely different. Thus since they are unable to recognise either morality or religion in animals, which in reality do not possess these two faculties, they are forced to refuse them intelligence also, although the same animals, in my opinion, give decisive proof of their possession of this faculty every moment.
The generality of the phenomena which we are discussing is, I believe, indisputable, especially since the investigation to which it has been subjected by the Society of Anthropology in Paris, where the question of the human kingdom has been long and seriously discussed. I cannot here reproduce the discussion, even in an abridged form, but refer my readers either to the summary in myRapport sur les progrès de l’anthropologie en France, or to theBulletinsof the Society. I shall, moreover, go into this subject in some detail in the chapters devoted to the moral and religious characters of the human races.
A host of manifestations of human activity are derived, as so many consequences, from the three facts which I have pointed out. Customs and institutions of every kind are connected with them; they alone explain some of the great events which change the destiny of nations and the face of the earth.
For reasons which I have several times pointed out already, we must give a name to theUnknown Causefrom which are derived the phenomena of morality and religion. We will call it theHuman mind(l’âme humaine).
I must here repeat the formal declaration which I have often made already. When I employ this term, which is established by custom, it is with the understanding that I strictly confine myself within the limits imposed upon anyone who intends to be exclusively faithful to science, experiment and observation. I consider the human principle as theUnknown Causeof exclusively human phenomena. To go beyond that would be to encroach upon the domain of philosophy or theology. To them belongs the solution of the formidable problems raised by the existence of the ‘something’ which makes a man of an organism entirely animal, and I give everyone leave to choose from the proposed solutions the one which agrees most satisfactorily with the demands of his own feelings and reason.
But whatever this solution may be, it will in no way affect the phenomena; those which I have just described willneither be diminished nor modified. Now they exist in man alone, and it is impossible to deny their importance. Thus they distinguish man from the animal as much as the phenomena of intelligence distinguish the animal from the plant, and as the phenomena of life distinguish the plant from the mineral. They are, therefore, the attributes of a kingdom, which we will call theHuman Kingdom.
From this conclusion it will seem that I am at variance with Linnæus, whose idea I have, however, only developed and stated more precisely. In fact, the immortal author of theSystema Naturæhas placed hisHomo sapiensamongst the mammalia in the class of primates, and has made him congenous with the gibbon. This is because Linnæus had recourse to theSystemin order to establish hisnomenclature. To classify man as well as other beings, he has made an arbitrary choice of a certain number of characteristics, and only taken those into consideration which were furnished by the body.
But the language of Linnæus is very different, even in his remarks relating to the genusHomo, and still more so in the kind of introduction entitledImperium Naturæ. He there almost places man in opposition with all beings, and particularly with animals, and in such terms as necessarily to suggest the idea of ahuman kingdom.
The reason of this is that here Linnæus no longer speaks ofphysicalman, but of manas a whole. Now, thanks to the labours of Adanson, Jussieu and Cuvier, naturalists now know that this is the right course to pursue in judging of the relations which exist between beings. TheNatural Methodno longer allows the choice of such or such a group of characteristics; it demands, together with an appreciation of their relative value, a consideration of all. It is on this account that I have been led to admit the existence of this human kingdom, which has been already proposed under several appellations by some eminent men, but to which I believe myself to have given a more precise and rigorous determination.
The table given above must then be completed in the followingmanner:—
Thus in the human kingdom we find by the side of the phenomena which characterise it all those which we have met with in the inferior kingdoms. We are consequently forced to admit that all theforcesand all theunknown causesto which we have attributed these effects are acting in man. From this point of view man deserves the name which has sometimes been given to him ofmicrocosm.
We have seen that in the vegetable kingdom the inanimate forces perform their functionsunder the control, so to speak, of Life, which afterwards, in the animal, showed incontestable signs of its subordination to the animal mind. Life now appears under similar conditions with regard to the human mind. In the most characteristic human actions, the intelligence almost always plays the most prominent part from the executive point of view; but it is manifestly under the direction of the human mind. All legislation affects to rest upon the one foundation of morality and of justice, which is only a form of it; the immediate cause of the Crusades, of the spread of the Arabs, and the conquests of Islam, was religious fervour. The true legislator and the great leader are indeed necessarily men of high intelligence, but is it not clear that in the cases mentioned the intelligence has been placed at the service of morality or of religion, and consequently of theUnknown Causeto which man owes these faculties?
But however preponderating the part claimed by thiscause in acts exclusively human may be, it has nothing to do with those phenomena which have their origin in the intelligence alone. The learned mathematician who seeks by the aid of the most profound abstractions the solution of some great problem, is completely without the moral or religious sphere into which, on the contrary, the ignorant, simple-minded man enters when he struggles, suffers, or dies for justice or for his faith.
IX. It was necessary to recall all the facts and theories which I have just summed up, in order to facilitate the comprehension and the justification of the method which alone can guide us in anthropological studies.
The object of anthropology is the study of manas a species. It abandons thematerial individualto physiology and medicine; theintellectualandmoral individualto philosophy and theology. It has, therefore, its own special field of study, and on that account alone its special questions, which often could not be solved by processes borrowed from cognate sciences.
In fact, in some questions, and in some of the most fundamental ones, the difficulty lies in the interpretation of phenomena connected with those which are characteristic of all living beings. For the very reason that they are to a certain extent obscure in man, we cannot seek for an explanation of them in man, since he becomes, so to speak, the unknown quantity of the problem. An endeavour to solve the problem by the study of man, who is the object of it, would be equivalent to a mathematician representing the value ofxin terms ofxitself.
How does the mathematician proceed? He seeks in the data of the problem for a certain number ofknown quantitiesequivalent to theunknown quantity, and by means of these quantities he determines the value ofx.
The anthropologist must act in the same manner. But where must he seek for the known quantities which will enable him to state the equation?
The answer to this question will be found in what we havesaid above, and in the table of kingdoms. Man, although he has his special and exclusively human phenomena, is above all an organised and living being. From this point of view he is the seat of phenomena common to animals and plants; he is subjected to the same laws. In his physical organisation he is nothing more than an animal, somewhat superior in certain respects to the most highly developed species, but inferior in others. From this point of view he presents organic and physiological phenomena identical with those of animals in general, and of mammalia in particular; and the laws which govern these phenomena are the same in both cases.
Now plants and animals have been studied for a much longer period than man, and from an exclusively scientific point of view, without any trace of the prejudice and party feeling which often interferes with the study of man. Without having penetrated very deeply into all the secrets of vegetable and animal life, science has acquired a certain number of fixed and indisputable results which constitute a foundation of positive knowledge, and a safe starting point. It is there that the anthropologist must seek theknown quantitiesof which he may stand in need.
Whenever there is any doubt as to the nature or signification of a phenomenon observed in man, the corresponding phenomena must be examined in animals, and even in plants; they must be compared with what takes place in ourselves, and the results of this comparison accepted as they are exhibited. What is recognised as being true for other organised beings cannot but be true for man.
This method is incontestably scientific. It is similar to that of modern physiologists, who, since they are unable to experiment upon man, experiment upon animals, and form their conclusions upon the former from the latter. But the physiologist devotes his attention to theindividualonly, and, therefore, examines little more than those groups which in their organisation approach most nearly to the being whose history he wishes to explain. The anthropologist on the contrarystudies thespecies. The questions with which he has to deal are much more general, so he is forced to direct his attention to plants as well as to animals.
This method is accompanied by its criterion; it allows the control of the various, answers which are often made to one question. The means of estimation are simple and easily applied.
In anthropology, every solution to be sound, that is to say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclusively human to the general recognised laws for other organised and living beings.
Every solution which makes or tends to make man an exception, by representing him as free from those laws which govern other organised and living beings, is unsound and false.
Again, when we reason and form our conclusions in this manner, we remain faithful to the mathematical method. To be received as true, a solution of a given problem must agree with admitted axioms, with truths previously proved. Every hypothesis which leads to results at variance with these axioms or these truths, is, on that account alone, declared false. In anthropology, the axiom or the truth which serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physiological identity of man with other living beings, with animals, with mammalia. All hypotheses at variance with this truth should be rejected.
Such are the absolute rules which have always acted as my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to have invented them. I have scarcely done more than formulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Blumenbach, Cuvier, the two Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, J. Müller, Humboldt, etc. But, on the one hand, my illustrious predecessors have seldom treated the subject with sufficient precision, and have too often omitted to give the reasons for their decisions. On the other hand these principles have been, and are daily forgotten by men who, in other respects, enjoy withjustice the title of great authorities. As I shall be compelled to disagree with them, I thought it necessary to show clearly the general ideas which serve as a foundation for my own scientific convictions. The reader will thus be able to appreciate and discern the causes of this difference of opinion.