Enough has perhaps already been said to make the reader feel that the question wants reopening; I shall, therefore, here only remark that we may assume no fundamental difference as regards intelligence, memory, and sense of needs to exist between man and the lowest animals, and that in man we do distinctly see a tendency towards progressive development, operating through his power of profiting by and transmitting his experience, but operating in directions which man cannot foresee for any long distance. We also see this in many of the higher animals under domestication, as with horses which have learnt to canter and dogs which point; more especially we observe it along the line of latest development, where equilibrium of settled convictions has not yet been fully attained. One neither finds nor expects much _a priori_ knowledge, whether in man or beast; but one does find some little in the beginnings of, and throughout the development of, every habit, at the commencement of which, and on every successive improvement in which, deductive and inductive methods are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect, where we can best watch its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire for a definite object—in some cases a serious and sensible desire, in others an idle one, in others, again, a mistaken one; and sometimes by a blunder which, in the hands of an otherwise able creature, has turned up trumps. In wild animals and plants the divergences have been accumulated, if they answered to the prolonged desires of the creature itself, and if these desires were to its true ultimate good; with plants or animals under domestication they have been accumulated if they answered a little to the original wishes of the creature, and much, to the wishes of man. As long as man continued to like them, they would be advantageous to the creature; when he tired of them, they would be disadvantageous to it, and would accumulate no longer. Surely the results produced in the adaptation of structure to need among many plants and insects are better accounted for on this, which I suppose to be Lamarck’s view, namely, by supposing that what goes on amongst ourselves has gone on amongst all creatures, than by supposing that these adaptations are the results of perfectly blind and unintelligent variations.
Inequality Brief
Life and Habit — Part 149
2026-11-15 13:51:19 · Cedar Herald Index
Tags
WorldBusinessTechnologyScienceHealthCultureTravelSportsPoliticsEnvironmentEducationOpinion