The Dawn of Reason



The Dawn of Reason, by James Weir

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dawn of Reason, by James Weir This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Dawn of Reason or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals
Author: James Weir
Release Date: May 25, 2007 [EBook #21608]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAWN OF REASON ***

Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Anne Storer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies in hyphenation left in as per original text.
* * * * *
THE DAWN OF REASON
OR
MENTAL TRAITS IN THE LOWER ANIMALS
BY JAMES WEIR, JR., M.D.
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1899
All rights reserved
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
* * * * *
To My Father
WHO, WHILE NOT A SCIENTIST, HAS YET TAKEN
AN INTELLIGENT AND APPRECIATIVE
INTEREST IN MY WORK
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
* * * * *

PREFACE
Most works on mind in the lower animals are large and ponderous volumes, replete with technicalities, and unfit for the general reader; therefore the author of this book has endeavored to present the evidences of mental action, in creatures lower than man, in a clear, simple, and brief form. He has avoided all technicalities, and has used the utmost brevity consistent with clearness and accuracy. He also believes that metaphysics has no place in a discussion of psychology, and has carefully refrained from using this once powerful weapon of psychologists.
Many of the data used by the authors of more pretentious works are second-hand or hearsay; the author of this treatise, however, has no confidence in the accuracy of such material, therefore he has not made use of any such data. His material has been thoroughly sifted, and the reader may depend upon the absolute truth of the evidence here presented.
The author does not claim infallibility; some of his conclusions may be erroneous; he believes, however, that future investigation will prove the verity of every proposition that is advanced in this book. These propositions have been formulated only after a twenty-years study of biology in all of its phases.
Some of the data used in this volume have appeared in Appleton's Popular Science Monthly, Lippincott's Magazine, Worthington's Magazine, New York Medical Record, Recreation, Atlantic Monthly, American Naturalist, Scientific American, Home Magazine, Popular Science News, Denver Medical Times, and North American Review; therefore the author tenders his thanks to the publishers of these magazines for their kindness in allowing him to use their property in getting out this work.
"WAVELAND," OWENSBORO, KY., January 9, 1899.
* * * * *

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS MIND
PAGE Definition of mind--The correlation of physiology, morphology, and psychology--The presence of nerve-elements in monera--Conscious and unconscious mind--Unconscious ("vegetative") mind in the jelly-fish--Anatomy, physiology, and psychology of the jelly-fish --The origin of conscious mind. 1
CHAPTER I
THE SENSES IN THE LOWER ANIMALS
The sense of touch--The senses of taste and smell--Actinophryans having taste--The sense of sight--Modification of sight organs by surroundings --Sight in Actinophryans--Blind fish sensitive to light--Blind spiders --Blind man--Primitive eyes in Cymothoe--In the jelly-fish, sea-urchin, Alciope, Myrianida--The sight organs of the snail--Power of vision in the snail--Eyes of crayfish--Compound eyes--Vision in "whirligig beetle"--In Periophthalmus--In Onchidium--In Calotis--Organs of audition--In Lepidoptera--Hymenoptera--Orthoptera--Diptera --Hemiptera--Dyticus marginalis--Corydalus--Ears of grasshopper and cricket--Of the "red-legged locust"--Of flies--Of gnats--Auditory vesicles of horse-fly--Ears of butterflies--Cerambyx beetle--Long-horned beetle--Cicindelid?--Carabid?. 7
CHAPTER II
CONSCIOUS DETERMINATION
Definition--How conscious determination is evolved from the senses--The presence of nerve-tissue in Stentor polymorphus--The properties of nerve-tissue--Romanes' experiment with anemone--Action of stimuli on nerve-tissue--Reflection--Origin of consciousness--Time element in consciousness--Conscious determination in Stentor polymorphus--In Actinophrys--In Amoeba--In Medusa--In a water-louse--In a garden snail--In the angle-worm--In oysters--In a ground wasp. 39
CHAPTER III
MEMORY
Discussed under four heads, viz. Memory of Locality (Surroundings), Memory of Friends (Kin), Memory of Strangers (Other animals not kin), and Memory of Events (Education, Happenings, etc.)--Memory of locality in Actinophrys--In the snail--In the ant--In sand wasps--In beetles--In reptiles--Memory of Friends--In ants --Experiments with ants, Lasius flavus, Lasius niger, and Myrmica ruginodis--Memory of kin in wasps and bees--Experiments --Memory of Strangers (Animals other than kin)--Recognition of enemies--By bumblebees--Memory of individuals not enemies--By the toad--By the spider--By ants--By snakes--By chameleons--By birds --By cattle--By dogs--By monkeys--Memory of Events (Education, etc.) --In the wasp--In fleas--In the toad--In other insects. 60
CHAPTER IV
THE EMOTIONS
The higher animals--Laughter--In monkeys--In the dog--In the chimpanzee --In the orang-utan--Fear, dismay, consternation, grief, fortitude, joy shown by bees--Affection for the individual evinced by house wren --Anger, hate, fear, revenge, in the higher animals--Forgiving disposition in the monkey--Sympathy--In ants--Care of young by ants --Solicitude of butterflies--Of gadfly--Of the ichneumon fly--Of the mason wasp--Of the spider--Of the earwig--Anger and hate evinced by ants, centipedes, tarantulas, weevils.