II Human Traits of Character Inherited From Apes
The mental character of anthropoid apes—Their muscular strength—Their expression of fear—The awakening of latent instincts of man under the influence of fear
The facts of which I have given a résumé serve to show that evolution always leaves definite traces indicating its successive stages in the form of rudiments. It is probable, therefore, that the pre-human mental functions or psycho-physiological qualities, which have so long a history behind them, have also left more or less appreciable traces. These, however, must be more difficult to find than rudimentary organs which can be made visible by dissection.
If we turn first to the animals most nearly related to man, we find that the living anthropoid apes show in the clearest way their close relationship with the human race, and suggest that their kinship with our remoter ancestors must be even greater.
The anthropoid apes alive to-day are animals inhabiting chiefly virgin forests, and feeding on fruits and shoots, although they do not despise eggs or even little birds. To satisfy their wants, they climb with the greatest ease. Orang-outans and chimpanzees climb slowly and carefully, whilst gibbons show a greater agility and more perfect acrobatic power. They may be seen throwing themselves from branch to branch across spaces of forty feet with the greatest precision. They play at the top of very tall trees, hardly grasping the branches through which they pass, making leaps of from twelve to eighteen feet for hours together with little apparent exertion.
To give an idea of the dexterity and swiftness of gibbons, Martin took the case of a female which he observed in captivity. One time she hurled herself from a perch across a space at least twelve feet wide, against a window which one would have thought would have been immediately broken. To the great surprise of the spectators it was not broken. The gibbon seized with her hands the narrow board between the panes, and then in an instant twisted herself round and jumped back to the cage she had left, performing this manœuvre with great strength and the most marvellous precision.
The muscular force implied in the above narrative is possessed by all the anthropoid apes. Battel, an English sailor who gave the first description of the gorilla in the beginning of the 17th century, stated that the strength of that animal was so great that ten men could hardly master an adult specimen. The other anthropoids, although not so strong as the gorilla, nevertheless display surprising force.
Edouard, the young male chimpanzee which I used in my experiments on syphilis, struggled so much at the least touch that it took four men to master him. I had to give up allowing him to leave his cage because there was no way of getting him back to it. Even quite young chimpanzees, females not yet two years old, cannot be handled easily. Although they are very friendly, my specimens used to resist with all their strength when it was necessary to put them back in their cages for the night. Two men had much ado to shut them up.
Notwithstanding this great muscular force, the anthropoid apes are cowardly. They have no idea of their strength, but fly from the approach of the slightest imagined danger. My young chimpanzees, although their teeth and muscles were already formidable weapons, showed the greatest fear when I put with them animals even so weak and harmless as guinea-pigs, pigeons and rabbits. Mice frightened them very much at first, and it took them a considerable time before they got over their fear of so insignificant an enemy. When living in a state of nature the anthropoid apes scarcely ever assume the offensive. “Though possessed of immense strength,” wrote Huxley,153 “it is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he goes.” Savage154 wrote of chimpanzees that “they do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defensive.” When a female was surprised on a tree with her young ones “her first impulse was to descend with great rapidity and make off into the thicket.”155
The gorilla, the strongest and most ferocious of the apes, has sometimes been observed to take the offensive. Savage, quoted by Huxley, said that “they are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, never running from man, as does the chimpanzee. The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He (the male) then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession.”156 Only males take the offensive, nor can this be of frequent occurrence, as one of the most recent observers, Koppenfels,157 states that “the gorilla never attacks man spontaneously; he tries to avoid him, and, as a rule, takes to flight as soon as he sees a man, uttering peculiar guttural cries.”
Which of these characters are preserved in the human race? Man is naturally feebler and less of a gymnast than the great apes, but his disposition is cowardly. One of the earliest signs of mental activity in an infant is the fear of surrounding circumstances. The smallest change in its balance or its being put in a bath cause it to show signs of real terror. Later on, it is alarmed when it sees any kind of animal, exactly in the fashion of a young chimpanzee. The most harmless spider is enough to frighten it.
Although mental culture subdues fear to a large extent, fear reveals itself more or less strongly from time to time, and it is on such occasions that we may find in the human being psychological relics of his ancestors. An analysis of fear is of special interest.
The first result of the emotion of fear is flight. Consciousness of danger sets our limbs in motion, and our instinctive desire to escape displays itself even when flight is more dangerous than what we wish to avoid. At the first alarm of fire in a public building, people rush towards the exits and in so doing often perish from their wish to escape. Even in the extreme of terror, the desire of flight is one of the earliest impulses. Mosso, a well-known Italian physiologist, in a monograph on fear, relates that when a Calabrian brigand was sentenced to death “he uttered a sharp cry, heart-rending and terrible, looked around him as if he were eagerly seeking for something, and then stepped backwards as if to fly, and threw himself against the wall of the court, writhing, with arms outstretched, scratching at the wall as if he were trying to break through it.”
Although in such a case it was futile and often is harmful, the instinct of flight from danger is inherited from ancestors from a time when it served to save life. Attempts to escape are not the only signs of fear. There is often a trembling fit which would make flight impossible. In Mosso’s case of the Calabrian brigand, “after his struggles, cries and contortions, he fell on the ground in a motionless heap, like a wet rag; he became pale and trembled more than I have seen any other person tremble; his muscles seemed changed into a soft and quivering jelly.” This condition of trembling inertia is another legacy from animals. Quivering of the muscles often manifests itself in terrified animals. Darwin158 wrote of it, “trembling is of no service, often of much disservice, and cannot at first have been acquired through the will, and then rendered habitual in association with any emotion.” The phenomenon seemed to him obscure and difficult to explain, a view shared by Mosso. The trembling of the musculature of the body is a generalised and exaggerated form of the movements of the cutaneous muscles in the condition known popularly as “goose-skin.” The latter, however, is a relic of an adaptation useful to some animals. The hedgehog rarely takes to flight at the approach of danger, but stands still, and using strongly developed muscles, rolls itself into a ball. In birds and many mammals, the muscles of the skin cause erection of the feathers or hairs. These movements often are performed during fright, and according to Darwin, serve not only to warm the skin, but sometimes to make the animal appear larger and more terrifying to enemies.
Fear and cold alike cause contraction of the superficial blood-vessels, and, in man, excite the contraction of the minute rudimentary muscles inserted to the roots of the hairs. “Goose-skin” is caused by the contraction of these muscles, the condition being a functional rudiment, no longer serving to warm the skin nor to make the body appear larger. In a few exceptional cases, “goose-skin” can be produced voluntarily. In the normal condition, the rudimentary cutaneous muscles of man are immobile, and it requires some special stimulation to set them in action.
Fear, which is occasionally able to excite the contraction of the involuntary muscles, also stimulates other muscles against the will. Under the influence of emotions that powerfully affect the nervous system, and particularly under that of fear, contractions of the bladder and intestines may be so violent that it is impossible to prevent the voiding of their contents. Accidents of this kind are not infrequent in the case of youthful candidates at examinations. Mosso relates of a friend, a volunteer in the war of 1866, that he was seized with terror during a battle and that the utmost efforts of his will failed to make his body endure the terrible spectacle.
The involuntary action of the bladder and intestines during fear is a legacy from animals. The phenomenon is common in dogs and monkeys. Chimpanzees, when laid hold of, discharge their urine and fæces. At Madeira I had an unusually cowardly Cercopithecus monkey which when at all alarmed discharged the contents of the rectum. Quite possibly such a mechanism was useful for the preservation of the individual. The emission of various kinds of excretions is of use in the struggle for existence. In that way the fox drives the badger from its earth and takes possession of it, whilst polecats and skunks defend themselves against more powerful carnivorous animals by discharging on them fœtid secretions.
Instinctive fear is therefore a very powerful stimulant, awakening functions which are rudimentary and almost completely extinct. Sometimes it sets in operation mechanisms which have long been paralysed. Pausanias gives an example of a dumb young man who recovered his speech when he was terrified by seeing a lion. Herodotus relates that the son of Crœsus, who was dumb, on seeing a Persian about to kill his father, cried out: “You must not kill Crœsus,” and from that time onwards was able to talk. These ancient narratives have been confirmed by many modern observations. A woman, for instance, who had been dumb for several years, on seeing a fire, was terrified and cried out suddenly “Fire!” after which her speech was restored. Such are cases of the awakening of a function which has been arrested only for several years. But fear can bring into activity other mechanisms which have been inactive from time immemorial.
Many different kinds of animals can swim instinctively. This is true in the case of most birds and mammals. There are some species which show a repugnance to water, but none the less swim well enough if they are thrown into it. Cats shun water as much as possible, but, none the less, can swim quite easily. Historians relate that Hannibal had great difficulty in getting his elephants to cross the Rhone. Some females were ferried across first, upon which the other elephants threw themselves into the water to pursue them and swam across the river without any difficulty (Lenthéric, Le Rhône, 1892, p. 81).
The lower monkeys can swim without being taught, but the anthropoid apes have lost this power, and man also is without it. M. Volz159 states that the different species of gibbons which live in Sumatra are separated by rivers. Their inability to swim makes these a complete barrier. It is probable that the lower races, in this respect, are better endowed than we are. It is said that in the case of negroes, children run to the sea or to rivers almost as soon as they leave the cradle, and learn to swim almost as quickly as to walk.160 In the case of white people, many find it very difficult to learn to swim, and it is at least certain that swimming is not instinctive as in the case of our animal ancestors. Christmann,161 the author of a treatise on swimming, states that the reason of man is a worse guide than the infallible instinct of the animal. Fear is able to stifle reason and to allow the instinct to come into play. It is known that children or adults may be taught to swim by throwing them into the water. Under the influence of fear, the instinctive mechanism inherited from animals awakens, and man soon becomes a swimmer. There are some teachers of swimming who use this method successfully. I have myself known an individual who learnt the art in that way, and M. Troubat, librarian at the International Library, has informed me that one of his friends, a journalist who died at Noyon several years ago, bathed in the Seine one evening at Neuilly when he could not swim. Unexpectedly finding himself beyond his depth, a sudden movement of fear saved him. Since then, he said, he knew how to swim.
Just as there are cases in which terror provokes flight, and others in which it causes an arrest of motion, so also fear may do a disservice to a swimmer. Those who employ fear as a means of teaching to swim, know that they must intervene if there is real danger. It is true, none the less, that up to a certain point fear can awaken functions which have been atrophied for numberless generations, and that we can learn from it something as to the evolution of the human race.