The Outline of Science, Volume 1

A human being begins as a microscopic fertilised egg-cell, within which there is condensed the long result of time—Man's inheritance. The long period of nine months before birth, with its intimate partnership between mother and offspring, is passed as it were in sleep, and no one can make any statement in regard to the mind of the unborn child. Even after birth the dawn of mind is as slow as it is wonderful. To begin with, there is in the ovum and early embryo no nervous system at all, and it develops very gradually from simple beginnings. Yet as mentality cannot come in from outside, we seem bound to conclude that the potentiality of it—whatever that means—resides in the individual from the very first. The particular kind of activity known to us as thinking, feeling, and willing is the most intimate part of our experience, known to us directly apart from our senses, and the possibility of that must be implicit in the germ-cell just as the genius of Newton was implicit in a very miserable specimen of an infant. Now what is true of the individual is true also of the race—there is a gradual evolution of that aspect of the living[Pg 75] creature's activity which we call mind. We cannot put our finger on any point and say: Before this stage there was no mind. Indeed, many facts suggest the conclusion that wherever there is life there is some degree of mind—even in the plants. Or it might be more accurate to put the conclusion in another way, that the activity we call life has always in some degree an inner or mental aspect. OKAPI AND GIRAFFE The Okapi is one of the great zo logical discoveries. It gives a good idea of what the Giraffe's ancestors were like. The Okapi was unknown until discovered in 1900 by Sir Harry Johnston in Central Africa, where these strange animals have probably lived in dense forests from time immemorial. In another part of this book there is an account of the dawn of mind in backboned animals; what we aim at here is an outline of what may be called the inclined plane of animal behaviour. A very simple animal accumulates a little store of potential energy, and it proceeds to expend this, like an explosive, by acting on its environment. It does so in a very characteristic self-preservative fashion, so that it burns without being consumed and explodes without being blown to bits. It is characteristic of the organism that it remains a going concern for a longer or shorter period—its length of life. Living creatures that expended their energy ineffectively or self-destructively would be eliminated in the struggle for existence. When a simple one-celled organism explores a corner of the field seen under a microscope, behaving to all appearance very like a dog scouring a field seen through a telescope, it seems permissible to think of something corresponding to mental endeavour associated with its activity. This impression is strengthened when an amœba pursues another amœba, overtakes it, engulfs it, loses it, pursues it again, recaptures it, and so on. What is quite certain is that the behaviour of the animalcule is not like that of a potassium pill fizzing about in a basin of water, nor like the lurching movements of a gun that has got loose and "taken charge" on board ship. Another feature is that the locomotor activity of an animalcule often shows a distinct individuality: it may swim, for instance, in a loose spiral. But there is another side to vital activity besides acting upon[Pg 76] the surrounding world; the living creature is acted on by influences from without. The organism acts on its environment; that is the one side of the shield: the environment acts upon the organism; that is the other side. If we are to see life whole we must recognise these two sides of what we call living, and it is missing an important part of the history of animal life if we fail to see that evolution implies becoming more advantageously sensitive to the environment, making more of its influences, shutting out profitless stimuli, and opening more gateways to knowledge. The bird's world is a larger and finer world than an earthworm's; the world means more to the bird than to the worm.