CHAPTER XXIII.

INTUITIVE REASON.

Under the law of Natural Selection, everything is an advantage which serves to protect individuals from destruction from outer enemies, both organic and inorganic, or which enables them better to secure the means of subsistence. A race of large apes living in the vast forests of Central Africa or tropical Asia, where lions, tigers, leopards, and many other large and ferocious carnivora abound, would be the constant prey of these beasts, and especially liable to have their young carried off and devoured, thus rendering the existence of the species precarious. Lacking most of the means of defense, as well as of escape necessary to prevent destruction from such creatures, the only substitute possible for these is increased sagacity or cunning in outwitting their enemies. But increased sagacity can only come of increased brain-mass in relation to size of body. These creatures must have constantly found themselves "put to their wits' end" to devise means of preventing such attacks, and we seem fully justified in supposing that, from the recurrence of such efforts, in which bodily efficiency was not, and mental efficiency was, solely relied on, the development of the cerebral lobes went on rapidly under the law of direct adaptation. But, from the increased protection thus rendered both to adults and to offspring, the number of the latter enabled to survive was increased, and these inherited the increased brain-power of their parents, and again transmitted it, with an additional increment, to their offspring.

In addition to this negative influence, which was perhaps the strongest, there was also the positive influence exerted in the same direction in the struggles of these creatures for the means of subsistence. The discontinuance of their arboreal habits put a vast amount of their natural food beyond their reach. The rich nuts that hung from the branches of tall trees, the dates and other delicious fruits of the palm, the plantain, and the banana, must now be watched till, ripened by time, they fall to the ground, if happily the lesser monkeys, the squirrels, and the bears have not already devoured them all. These losses must be made up. This can only be done by increased cunning; and here, again, the direct impulse to further brain-development is exerted. From these two influences acting in the same direction, aided by natural selection, the entire amount of cerebral increase, with its corresponding cranial enlargement, necessary to bridge over the chasm between the true ape and the true man, between

the highest animal and the lowest human brain, can be readily accounted for without exceeding the time-limits within which geology requires this differentiation to have taken place. -Dynamic Sociology, I, 428–429.

Diesen letzten Schritt in der Ausdehnung und Vervollkommnung des Gehirns, und damit in der Erhöhung der Erkenntnisskräfte, thut die Natur, wie alle übrigen, bloss in folge der erhöhten Bedürfnisse, also zum Dienste des Willens. Was dieser im Menschen bezweckt und erreicht, ist zwar im Wesentlichen dasselbe und nicht mehr, als was auch im Thiere sein Ziel ist: Ernährung und Fortpflanzung. Aber durch die Organisation des Menschen wurden die Erfordernisse zur Erreichung jenes Ziels so sehr vermehrt, gesteigert und specificirt, dass, zur Erreichung des Zwecks, eine ungleich beträchtlichere Erhöhung des Intellekts, als die bisherigen Stufen darboten, nothwendig, oder wenigstens das leichteste Mittel war. Da nun aber der Intellekt, seinem Wesen zufolge, ein Werkzeug von höchst vielseitigem Gebrauch und auf die verschiedenartigsten Zwecke gleich anwendbar ist; so konnte die Natur, ihrem Geist der Sparsamkeit getreu, alle Forderungen der so mannigfach gewordenen Bedürfnisse nunmehr ganz allein durch ihn decken. - SCHOPENHAUER: Welt als Wille, II, 316–317.

For then they glorie, then they boaste, and cracke that they haue plaied the men in deede, when they haue so ouercommen, as no other liuing creature but onely man could: that is to saye, by the mighte and puisaunce of wit. For with bodily strength (say they) beares, lions, boores, wulfes, dogges, and other wild beastes do fight. And as the moste part of them do passe vs in strength and fierce courage, so in wit and reason we be much stronger than they all. - THOMAS MORE: Utopia, pp. 133-134.

If persons are helped in their worldly career by their virtues, so are they, and perhaps quite as often, by their vices: by servility and sycophancy, by hard-hearted and close-fisted selfishness, by the permitted lies and tricks of trade, by gambling speculations, not seldom by downright knavery. — JOHN STUART MILL: Chapters on Socialism.

L'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: Maxime

102.

While cunning and sagacity are attributes of both animals and men, shrewdness and tact are generally limited to the latter. They represent a somewhat higher stage of development of the same faculty of mind. They are usually, though not necessarily, applied to human acts that relate to sustentation, especially in

its derivative forms. The pursuit of subsistence, which is direct in animals and the lowest human types, early becomes indirect in the social state. Instead of pursuing, seizing and devouring prey, or searching, finding, and eating the vegetable products of the earth, man soon acquired the habit of seeking opportunities for securing permanent supplies of subsistence, a step which is indeed taken through the aid of instincts by many animals. But with man in the social state, however primitive, foresight was exercised, which is itself a form of the intuitive faculty, and the habit of making provision for the future arose This had the immediate effect to render his wants unlimited by his immediate appetite. The consequence was that his desire for the means of subsistence, instead of being periodical, became continous and the pursuit of this end was incessant. Other collateral wants also arose as the necessary concomitants of social existence, especially in varying degrees those of clothing and shelter. A crude esthetic sentiment must have also been very early developed, for no tribe of savages has yet been found so low as not to be fond of ornaments, however grotesque, and where clothing was not needed decorations were demanded and sought with zeal. Other objects of desire multiplied themselves and their possession became an end of effort. Slowly the notion of property came into being and in acquiring this, as history shows, the larger share of all human energy has been absorbed. The ruling passion has from a time long anterior to any recorded annals always been proprietary acquisition. Pari passu with the development of this passion there also proceeded the development of that faculty which was most potent in securing its gratification. Both the passion and the means of satisfying it were conditions to the development of society itself, and rightly viewed they have also been leading factors in civilization. But here, as man must cope with man, a struggle went on similar, only on a higher intellectual plane, to that which goes on in the animal world, a veritable struggle for existence.

In this great struggle brute force played a diminishing part, and mind an increasing one. Low cunning and animal sagacity, though very prominent, were more and more supplanted by more refined and subtle manifestations of the same psychic principle. This advance was greatly accelerated by the growth of institutions and the establishment of codes of conduct requisite to life in collectivity. The rude animal methods were intolerable, and by natural selection, if not otherwise, society discarded them. Something less objectionable and more refined must control the relations of men in the social state. while social regulation grew stronger human acquisitiveness. strengthened also. With the legal protection of property its desirability increased and every art was resorted to in the universal effort to obtain it. No combination can be conceived of better calculated to call out, develop, and perfect a mental faculty than the prizes and temptations of the social state.

But

In Dynamic Sociology (Chap. VII, Vol. I, pp. 497–597) I have discussed somewhat exhaustively the law and the various modes of acquisition that prevail in the social world. At present it is only the peculiar principle involved in all this that it is sought to detect. The faculty of intuitive perception which was seen to prevail in the higher animals has now adapted itself to man, to society, and to regulative institutions. The pursuit of subsistence has become the pursuit of the means of subsistence, and of enjoyment in general. Animal activity has become industrial activity, and the general term applied to industrial activity is business. The great aim and object of life is success in business. Social regulation renders the animal methods unsuccessful and human methods are the ones chiefly employed. But the psychic principle remains the

same.

To mere subsistence, i. e., just so much as is necessary to life, considered as the end of effort, there must now be added a great number of things that are not required for that end. Everyone knows how in legal interpretation the word “neces

saries" has expanded, and how it is varied even in the same country according to the social standing of the individual. But while things that were not necessary in one age become so in another, and those not necessary for one class are considered necessary for another, there are innumerable objects which no law will declare necessaries that are nevertheless desired even more strongly than many that are really necessary to lifeluxuries, refinements, indulgences. An immense number of new desires unknown in the lower stages were created by social existence and civilized life. These include all those enumerated in Chapters IX and X, and many not mentioned there. Besides the heightened and intensified forms of the love of acquisition growing out of the struggle to preserve life, there had been developed the higher desires to which the reproductive instincts gave rise, including the passion of individual love, and the emotions arising through family relationships Add to these the esthetic, moral, and intellectual cravings, all vehemently asserting themselves and demanding satisfaction.

The indirect method which best insured success in business is perhaps most frequently expressed by the word shrewdness. The relations perceived are more numerous and complicated than those for which cunning is sufficient. (They are largely the acts of men and presuppose a knowledge of human nature. It is astonishing to observe how little the majority really know of human nature and how easy it is to take advantage of this general ignorance. The prevailing optimism is the chief element that blinds most persons in these matters, and acts, which to the good observer are obviously done from purely selfish motives, are so done as to produce the general belief in their complete disinterestedness. This explains the surprising gullibility of the general public, so obvious that it is common to speak of an actual "love of humbug." A great part of all that is said and done in society proceeds from this self-interest and requires to be interpreted and corrected by this equation.