The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer. Gerard John
places this amongst his "transcendental" enigmas, to which an answer will never be found, whereas he thinks that the origin of vegetable life, although at present a mystery, may one day be explained. The expression of his opinion, – that by no possibility can we ever understand how consciousness could be evolved from matter – has, he tells us107 been vehemently contradicted, but, he adds, nothing in the way of argument, or beyond mere assumptions, has been brought against him. Of these assumptions he notices only that of Professor Haeckel, "the Prophet of Jena," who protests against such limitations of our possibilities as treason to the sacred cause of Evolution. The progress we have made in intellect, says Haeckel, beyond our barbarous progenitors, is sufficient to show that we are on the high road of development towards a stage as far in advance of the present, as this is of the past; and when that is attained, our knowledge will be full and will embrace all this. But, asks Du Bois-Reymond in reply, is this mighty progress of ours so very evident within the period concerning which we have any information? Has the mental capacity of our race notably improved since Homer?108 or its faculty of thinking since Plato and Aristotle? At our present rate of progress, long before the high-water mark prophesied by Haeckel is reached, the earth will have become uninhabitable. And, were it otherwise, the highest point of intellect to which conceivably man could attain, would be that of the "sufficient intelligence" whereof we have been told, which, from an inspection of the cosmic nebula could foretell all that was to issue from it. And, adds Du Bois-Reymond, even could we do this, we should still be unable to understand the origin of consciousness, which would require intelligence of another order than ours, however magnified.
So again Mr. Wallace tells us,109 after speaking of the beginning of life as we have already heard,
The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness, constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into existence, a thing that feels, that is conscious of its own existence. Here we have the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation – such as the statement that life is the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic universe from the amœba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was developed – can afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery.
Unquestionably, there is no lack of speakers and writers who flatly contradict such views, and assert that animal life, equally with vegetable, could be, and must have been, naturally evolved from inorganic nature. The above testimonies, however, amply suffice for our present purpose, and with them we may be satisfied; for at least they make it plain that Science has found no evidence as to the origin of sensation and consciousness conclusive enough to compel belief. And where there is no scientific evidence even alleged, such as might require the training of a specialist for its due appreciation, one man of ordinary intelligence is as competent a judge as another, and scientific experts are on a level with the rest of us.
(b) Rational thought and speech. What has just been said applies with equal force to this matter likewise. Unless Science have some positive evidence to bring, demonstrating how the gulf can be bridged which separates the intelligence of the most degraded races of men from the highest of the brutes, and how articulate language can spontaneously have arisen, which is the necessary appanage of reason, we have all equally the means of forming our conclusions on the subject.
That the gulf between man and the lower animals is here immense we have the evidence of Mr. Darwin.
No doubt [he writes]110 the difference is in this respect enormous, even if we compare the mind of one of the lowest savages, who has no words to express any number higher than four, and who uses no abstract terms for the commonest objects or affections, with that of the most highly organized ape. The difference would, no doubt, still remain immense, even if one of the highest apes had been improved and civilized as much as a dog has been in comparison with its parent form, the wolf or jackal. The Fuegians rank amongst the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with surprise how closely the three natives on board H.M.S. Beagle, who had lived some years in England and could talk a little English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental faculties.
Mr. Darwin goes on to argue, however, that the difference between man and beast is one of degree only and not of kind; that this can be "clearly shewn"; and that there is unquestionably a much wider interval in mental power between one of the lowest fishes, as a lamprey or lancelet, and one of the higher apes, than between an ape and a man; yet this immense interval is filled up by numberless gradations, from which he concludes that by a like series of steps, of which, however, no trace is left, our progenitors have been able to mount from the simian to the human level.
Clear however as Mr. Darwin pronounces the evidence to be, it is very far from being so considered by other eminent naturalists. So convinced an Evolutionist as Mr. Mivart, for example, declared on various occasions that his reason abundantly sufficed to convince him that there was a wider break in nature between man and the highest ape, than between the highest ape and an oyster or even a mushroom.
It is evident that the evidence which permits judgments so diverse as these cannot be said conclusively to prove the former existence of a bridge every vestige of which has, by the acknowledgment of all parties, entirely disappeared. We are therefore left to determine for ourselves, whether the powers of our own mind, as each knows them in himself, are of a totally different nature from those of dogs and horses, and chimpanzees such as the late lamented "Consul," or whether we are superior only in degree, as a sheep-dog is more intelligent than a sheep, or a fox than a goose.
If in any respect such an enquiry can be made definite and therefore profitable, it is clearly in regard of Language. This, as said above, is an essential adjunct of reason such as ours, and on the other hand it forms the plainest boundary between the domain of the human race and that of the brutes. It is, says Professor Max Müller, our Rubicon on the hither side of which men alone are found. Given reason such as ours, whatever mode of communication might be open to them, we cannot suppose its possessors failing to establish a medium of intercourse. In existing conditions, man can make an alphabet out of the clicks of a needle or the flashes of a mirror, and if his vocal organs were no better than those of a baboon, we cannot imagine him content generation after generation with inarticulate howls and yells. But this is just the case of the animals. They are never found to make the smallest progress in the direction of a code of signals. Dogs indeed, as Mr. Darwin says,111 having developed in captivity the new art of barking, have further learnt to vary this accomplishment according to the circumstances that provoke it, and have distinct tones to express the diversity of their feelings, as when hunting, or angry, or setting out for a walk, or shut up in a kennel or out of a house. Some dogs, he might have added, refine still further, and will betray by their style of bark not only that they are hunting something, but what it is that they have come upon, whether a rabbit, a cat, or a hedgehog. But, as the Chevalier Bunsen observes,112 and his observation includes such manifestations as the above:
Animal sounds are the echoes of blind instincts within, or of the phenomena of the outward world, uttered by suffering or satisfied animal nature, and in all cases resulting from mere passiveness.
By rational language, on the other hand, is signified, to quote Mr. Mivart:113
The external manifestation, whether by sound or gesture, of general conceptions: – not emotional expressions or the manifestations of sensible impressions, but enunciations of distinct judgments as to "the what," "the how," and "the why."
Consequently,
Professor Huxley, it must be remarked, speaks of Homer as a "half savage Greek" (
In his paper read before the British Association at Oxford in 1847.