New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-09-26
ruE EVOLUTION OF MIND.
CERTAIN HUMAN FACULTIES HAVE
BEEN DEVELOPED.
arc WHICH MAN HAS IN COMMON WITH THE
..1NAIs MUSIC YOUNGER THAN MORALS
THE COLOR SENSE OLDER
THAN EITHER.


. c-eatlon. then those faculties which distin-
-, him from the brute must form a mos,
St suhiect of study. DIR. X. NJ. Buckle
,,,oI sjverntendent Of an insane asylum in
.aon ontario. discussed this subject in q
~ and fascinating way. a few weeks ago. be-
- tho British Medical Association, then in
'.si,D AZ Montreal. He regards psychology as
-. ,ooet interesting of all sciences, and. being
nvolutionist dixie all scientific mem. he has
Ion moved to inquire in what order the yari-
&c human faculties have been developed.
An Investigation of this kind. Dr. Buckle in
ISIS must include the lower animals. He says:
as mans bodily life rests upon and grows
,or, that Of countless prohuman ancestors; as
ION includes in his structure the heart of the
,n,;e the gs of the fish, we'll the
torms in outline of innumerable still lower
,ocss. so is his so-callod human mind rooted in
enc senses and instincts of all his ancestral
snscies: ami not only SO. but these senses and
,rstincts stiu live in him. making UP. indeed
Cor the larger part Of his current every day
Ito while his higher sychcal life is merely the
outgrowth and flower of them
In the Imagination Of the Canadian lecturer
there exists a boundary line about one hundred
,housand years old between the slow develop
q
,hs highes: hrutes. and those advances which
belong dst,nctively to the human soul. The
earlier Of these two processes he thinks. may
have been going on for millions of years"
The lowest phase OF intelligence OF which any
no,e Is taken is a vague nervous excitabiiity.
After q very long time there came a power of
dscrinina Ion in the absorption or rejection of
food The next. almost infinitely slow. advance
nerhaps. was a capacity for pleasure or pain
Memory and recognition Of offspring may have
come mex: and successfully thereafter arise
reason. rec ognition OF individuals and commune
cation OF IDEAS To this period OF history. Or.
Rucke Is disposed to believe. belongs the
branching out Of certain functions like far.
surprise anger. affection. pride revenge. shame.
jealousy sympathy and playfulnesS. And now
the mental plane OF the adult higher animals Is
reached II took millions OF years. according 10
his notion. TO get there: but the human infant
passes through all thosa stages so rapidly that
IL attains the same level al the age Of two
years
For instance" says Dr. Buckle. memory and
simple Consciousness appear within few days
after birth. curiosity ten weeks after. use Of
tools twelve months after. shame. remorse and
a sense Of the ludicrous-all Of them about fif-
teen months after birth. Now il is 10 be noted
that in every instance the time of the appear
ance OF a faculty in the infant corresponds with
the stage at which the same faculty appears
las far as can be at present ascertained) in the
ascending animal scale.
The interval between the age of two and three
years in the average child. corresponds On Dr.
Bucks mind with that lOO.OOO-year period
which he ir1agines to have existed between the
perfection Of animal intelligence and the dawn
OF humanity In that long stretch Of time, he
thinks man walked about in an erect position,
but lacked what we understand by selt-cOn-
sciousness. This trait. he says, appears in the
at the age OF about three years; 1t
appeared in the race several thousand years
ago" If this argument be correct, it follows
that at the time when an first began To rise
above the brutes. ne did not develop sef-con-
sclousness until he arrived at the fullest matu-
rty say ut the age OF thrty-hve, where now we
reach high-water mark in intellect. The prog
ress Of an individual man. therefore. from the
age Of three to that of thirty-hve represents
that Of the race during the several hundred
thousand years" which are supposed TO have
elapsed since the race began 10 separate Itself
from other animal life.
OF those characteristics which are exhibited
by man alone the only ones besides self-con-
sciousness which Dr.. Buckle considered in his
recent address were the moral sense the color
sense and musical sense. Regarding the first
Of these he says "A careful consideration Of
the records which have come down to US from
the early Romans Hellenes. Hebrews. Egyp-
tians, Assyrans and BabylOnians. would indi-
cate. think Enthusiastically that. as we go back
into the past this faculty tapers down toward
the vanishing point, and that il it continues 50
to taper as we ascend the ages. all Of what we