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The Physiology of Mind in the Lower Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

W. Lauder Lindsay
W. Lauder Lindsay*
Affiliation:
Murray Royal Institution [for the Insane], Perth
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Extract

“In all departments of investigation, it is right to commence with the study of that which is most common, simple, and regular: and thence to proceed to inquiries respecting that which is unusual and irregular.”

Information

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 17 , Issue 77 , April 1871 , pp. 25 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1871 

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References

* “Manual of Psychological Medicine,” 1858.Google Scholar
† “Lectures on Comparative Pathology:” “Medical Times,” Jany. 7, 1860, p. 5.Google Scholar
‡ I fully illustrated this proposition, so far as regards Pathology, in a paper published in 1858—“On the Transmission of Disease between Man and the Lower Animals,”—in the “Edinburgh Veterinary Review and Annals of Comparative Pathology.” Google Scholar
* They are referred to in the author's Papers entitled—Google Scholar
(a) “Experiments on the Communicability of Cholera to the Lower Animals:” “Edin. Medical and Surgical Journal,” 1854.Google Scholar
'b) “Choleraization:” “Lancet,” vol. ii. for 1866, p. 600.Google Scholar
* It seems to me not only legitimate, but proper, to use what are called “personal” pronouns, in speaking of certain, at least, of the lower animals; to employ he or she, his or her, who, whose, whom, instead of it, its, which. “Are not these dumb friends of ours persons rather than things?” asks Dr. John Brown (p. 115); and I have little doubt that Sir Walter Scott, who, as his biographer Gilfillan tells us, “had lived much with the lower animals …. and learned to understand their habits, and had entered further than most men do into their natures,” regarded the dog at least in this light, as Byron and many other distinguished authors have done, both before and since his time.Google Scholar
* Goodsir points out the development of mental activity without brain (p. 366).Google Scholar
† Huxley (p. 102).Google Scholar
* Article Instinct: “Chambers' Encyclopædia,” vol. v, 1863, p. 598.Google Scholar
* Article Instinct: “Chambers' Encyclopædia,” p. 597.Google Scholar
* Such anecdotes—more especially relating to the dog—are, nevertheless, “worthy of all the consideration which they can receive from the most philosophic mind.” (“Chambers Encyclopædia:” Art. Dog.) Google Scholar
* Professor Aitken, in his “Science and Practice of Medicine” (4th ed.: 1866), very properly, as I think, associates instinct and sensation with volition, emotion, and reasoning as mental qualities.Google Scholar
† “Reason is but a higher development of instinct,” says A. W. Bennett, F.L.S., in “Nature,” Novem. 10, 1870. “Whether it be instinct or reason, is only a question of degree,” says Clayton (p. 217). Lord Brougham also expresses the opinion that there is “No specific difference, but rather a diversity of degree.” Agassiz and Huxley are represented as holding similar views. (Trans. of the New Zealand Institute: vol. ii, 1869, p. 278.) Maudsley holds that in fishes and reptiles reason is gradually developed from instinct.Google Scholar
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† “Dissertation on the Passions.” Google Scholar
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‡ Youatt wrote a work on the “Humanity of Brutes:” and Jesse speaks with perfect appropriateness of the humanity of the dog. Gilfillan, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott” (1870, p. 671), tells us that the great novelist “loved” his many “dear canine companions … for the human elements which they exhibited;” while Byron's reason for a similarly strong attachment to the dog was the very reverse one of their “unlikeness to men.” Lord Monboddo and White speak of the Human-like character and appearance of the ourang. (Maudsley: “Genesis of Mind,” p. 86); and Ruskin writes, “There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity; a flash of strange light. through which their life looks out, and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul.” Google Scholar
*. …. “What is a man— If the chief good and market of his time Be but to feed and sleep? A beast—no more!” (Shakespeare.) Google Scholar
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“In those that suffer it a sordid mind, Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man's noble form.” Another Poet exhorts us to “Move upward! working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die!” Google Scholar
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‡ “They are not then,” says Menault (p. 114), “so very unlike us; and we, like them, are animals.” Google Scholar
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* “Anecdotes illustrating …. the intelligence and affection of dogs are familiar to every one, and form one of the most pleasing parts of many a book of natural history.” Anthony Trollope, the well-known popular novelist, who is, however, obviously more conversant with human than with animal nature, speaks singularly of “affection and fidelity as things of custom with him” — the dog.—(“The West Indies and the Spanish Main,” Sixth Edition, 1867, p. 60.)Google Scholar
* Chambers compiler: article Ant, p. 24.Google Scholar
† See also what is said under the head of “Combinations for mutual Benefit,” and subsequent five sections.Google Scholar
* “Genesis of Mind:” pp.491, 492.Google Scholar
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§ Byron, in his “Darkness,”' says, the dog will be “faithful to a corpse, and keep the hounds and wolves away from it.” Google Scholar
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† The enterprising shopkeeper, who, observing on the sign-board of a rival on the opposite side of a street the—to him— puzzling phrase just quoted, and determining not to be outdone, inscribed, on his own shop-sign, what he considered the improved motto, “Men's and Women's conscia recti,” might, with quite as much propriety, have extended his phraseology so as at least to have included dogs' also! Google Scholar
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* Throughout this paper I have used the word “Eskimo” as the shortest modern equivalent of the older term “Esquimaux.” On the spelling of the words in question, as well as of Eskimo words in general, I have remarked in a contribution to the “Lichen-Flora of Greenland” in the “Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh.” Vol. x, 1870, p. 304.Google Scholar
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† Milne-Edwards, , pp. 161, 163: who also describes (p. 165) the mode of construction of the beaver's dwellings and dams; and pp. 165, 167, wasps' nests. On this subject, vide the recent works of the Rev. J. G. Wood, on “Homes withou Hands,” and “Strange Homes,” (1870).Google Scholar
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‡ The words educability and educate-ability—now frequently used in these days of Educational Reform—are both bad in their construction and ambiguous in their signification. They have no place in the two quarto volumes of Noah Webster.Google Scholar
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† If there are not many kinds or forms of Mind, there are at least many different forms or modes of its manifestation or expression. Google Scholar
‡ I am not to be understood as asserting that there are no mental differences between other animals and man. The object of the present paper, however, has been to indicate the general resemblances, not the special differences, between the respective mental systems of man and lower animals. Before enumerating or discussing the points of distinction, I would commend to the reader the consideration of the remarkable differences in intellect and morals, that characterise the educated as contrasted with the uneducated person, the civilised with the savage race, the adult with the child, the sane with the insane or idiotic individual, even the male with the female—among mankind! Google Scholar
* Geoffroy St. Hilaire made an attempt to establish a human kingdom, in the Zoological scale, on psychical qualities; an effort which Vulpian and Cauvet smiled at as “le dernier terme de l'admiration de l' homme pour l' homme.” Google Scholar
† Leroy was one of the Bangers of the Forests of Versailles and Marly, near Paris. He lived in the middle of last century, and wrote, under the pseudonym of “The Naturalist of Nuremberg,” a series of letters “On the Perfectibility of Animals.” These letters, translated, with certain additional chapters, are what are now published in this country.Google Scholar
† Has already reached three editions.Google Scholar
‡ Not until after my present Paper was sent to press—not, therefore, till my own inquiry was concluded—was my attention drawn to this important contribution to Comparative Psychology, by Professor Maudsley. From a somewhat different point of view, pursuing a perfectly independent line of research, he had arrived at conclusions that substantially agree with my own. His paper contains a number of interesting illustrative anecdotes: it enters into a comparison of the mental condition of the lower animals with that of children, savages, idiots, and other classes of the insane or uneducated; and it contains so much matter of a most suggestive kind that I would strongly recommend the student carefully to peruse his essay in connection with my own. The fact that so accomplished a psychologist should have arrived, from an independent course of inquiry, at similar results, gives me greater confidence in urging the conclusions embodied in my present essay on the attention of all students of the wide and perplexing domain of mind: not as dogmatically enforcing their acceptance, but simply as pleading for due consideration in the form of further inquiry. Google Scholar
§ Of this admirable work there are several editions.Google Scholar
† There are also several editions of this, as of the other excellent “Bridge-water Treatises.” Google Scholar
‡ See also Bib. Ref. No. 10 (“Bible Animals.”) Google Scholar
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