The Evolution of Man, V.2 by Ernst Haeckel (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

Thus, while the brain of the mammals agrees a good deal in general growth with that of the birds and reptiles, there are some striking differences between the two. In the Sauropsids (birds and reptiles) the middle brain and the middle part of the hind brain are well developed. In the mammals these parts do not grow, and the fore-brain develops so much that it overlies the other vesicles. As it continues to grow towards the rear, it at last covers the whole of the rest of the brain, and also encloses the middle parts from the sides (Figures 2.301 to 2.303). This process is of great importance, because the fore brain is the organ of the higher psychic life, and in it those functions of the nerve-cells are discharged which we sum up in the word "soul." The highest achievements of the animal body--the wonderful manifestations of consciousness and the complex molecular processes of thought--have their seat in the fore brain. We can remove the large hemispheres, piece by piece, from the mammal without killing it, and we then see how the higher functions of consciousness, thought, will, and sensation, are gradually destroyed, and in the end completely extinguished. If the animal is fed artificially, it may be kept alive for a long time, as the destruction of the psychic organs by no means involves the extinction of the faculties of digestion, respiration, circulation, urination--in a word, the vegetative functions. It is only conscious sensation, voluntary movement, thought, and the combination of various higher psychic functions that are affected.

(FIGURE 2.302. Brain of a human embryo, twelve weeks old. (From Mihalkovics, natural size.) Seen from behind and above. ms mantle-furrow, mh corpora quadrigemina (middle brain), vs anterior medullary ala, kh cerebellum, vv fourth ventricle, na medulla oblongata.)

The fore brain, the organ of these functions, only attains this high level of development in the more advanced Placentals, and thus we have the simple explanation of the intellectual superiority of the higher mammals. The soul of most of the lower Placentals is not much above that of the reptiles, but among the higher Placentals we find an uninterrupted gradation of mental power up to the apes and man. In harmony with this we find an astonishing variation in the degree of development of their fore brain, not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively. The mass and weight of the brain are much greater in modern mammals, and the differentiation of its various parts more important, than in their extinct Tertiary ancestors. This can be shown paleontologically in any particular order. The brains of the living ungulates are (relatively to the size of the body) four to six times (in the highest groups even eight times) as large as those of their earlier Tertiary ancestors, the well-preserved skulls of which enable us to determine the size and weight of the brain.

(FIGURE 2.303. Brain of a human embryo, twenty-four weeks old, halved in the median plane: right hemisphere seen from inside. (From Mihalkovics, natural size.) rn olfactory nerve. tr funnel of the intermediate brain, vc anterior commissure, ml Monro-foramen, gw fornix, ds transparent sheath, bl corpus callosum, br fissure at its border, hs occipital fissure, zh cuneus, sf occipital transverse fissure, zb pineal gland, mh corpora quadrigemina, kh cerebellum.

In the lower mammals the surface of the cerebral hemispheres is quite smooth and level, as in the rabbit (Figure 2.304). Moreover, the fore brain remains so small that it does not cover the middle brain. At a stage higher the middle brain is covered, but the hind brain remains free. Finally, in the apes and man, the latter also is covered by the fore brain. We can trace a similar gradual development in the fissures and convolutions that are found on the surface of the cerebrum of the higher mammals (Figures 2.292 and 2.293). If we compare different groups of mammals in regard to these fissures and convolutions, we find that their development proceeds step by step with the advance of mental life.

Of late years great attention has been paid to this special branch of cerebral anatomy, and very striking individual differences have been detected within the limits of the human race. In all human beings of special gifts and high intelligence the convolutions and fissures are much more developed than in the average man; and they are more developed in the latter than in idiots and others of low mental capacity. There is a similar gradation among the mammals in the internal structure of the fore brain. In particular the corpus callosum, that unites the two cerebral hemispheres, is only developed in the Placentals. Other structures--for instance, in the lateral ventricles--that seem at first to be peculiar to man, are also found in the higher apes, and these alone. It was long thought that man had certain distinctive organs in his cerebrum which were not found in any other animal. But careful examination has discovered that this is not the case, but that the characteristic features of the human brain are found in a rudimentary form in the lower apes, and are more or less fully developed in the higher apes. Huxley has convincingly shown, in his Man's Place in Nature (1863), that the differences in the formation of the brain within the ape-group constitute a deeper gulf between the lower and higher apes than between the higher apes and man.

The comparative anatomy and physiology of the brain of the higher and lower mammals are very instructive, and give important information in connection with the chief questions of psychology.

(FIGURE 2.304. Brain of the rabbit. A from the dorsal, B from the ventral side, lo olfactory lobes, I fore brain, h hypophysis at the base of the intermediate brain, III middle brain, IV hind brain, V after brain, 2 optic nerve, 3 oculo-motor nerve, 5 to 8 cerebral nerves. In A the roof of the right hemisphere (I) is removed, so that we can see the corpora striata in the lateral ventricle. (From Gegenbaur.))

The central marrow (brain and spinal cord) develops from the medullary tube in man just as in all the other mammals, and the same applies to the conducting marrow or "peripheral nervous system." It consists of the SENSORY nerves, which conduct centripetally the impressions from the skin and the sense-organs to the central marrow, and of the MOTOR nerves, which convey centrifugally the movements of the will from the central marrow to the muscles. All these peripheral nerves grow out of the medullary tube (Figure 1.171), and are, like it, products of the skin-sense layer.

The complete agreement in the structure and development of the psychic organs which we find between man and the highest mammals, and which can only be explained by their common origin, is of profound importance in the monistic psychology. This is only seen in its full light when we compare these morphological facts with the corresponding physiological phenomena, and remember that every psychic action requires the complete and normal condition of the correlative brain structure for its full and normal exercise. The very complex molecular movements inside the neural cells, which we describe comprehensively as "the life of the soul," can no more exist in the vertebrate, and therefore in man, without their organs than the circulation without the heart and blood. And as the central marrow develops in man from the same medullary tube as that of the other vertebrates, and as man shares the characteristic structure of his cerebrum (the organ of thought) with the anthropoid apes, his psychic life also must have the same origin as theirs.

If we appreciate the full weight of these morphological and physiological facts, and put a proper phylogenetic interpretation on the observations of embryology, we see that the older idea of the personal immortality of the human soul is scientifically untenable. Death puts an end, in man as in any other vertebrate, to the physiological function of the cerebral neurona, the countless microscopic ganglionic cells, the collective activity of which is known as "the soul." I have shown this fully in the eleventh chapter of my Riddle of the Universe.

The sense-organs are indubitably among the most important and interesting parts of the human body; they are the organs by means of which we obtain our knowledge of objects in the surrounding world. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. They are the first sources of the life of the soul. There is no other part of the body in which we discover such elaborate anatomical structures, co-operating with a definite purpose; and there is no other organ in which the wonderful and purposive structure seems so clearly to compel us to admit a Creator and a preconceived plan. Hence we find special efforts made by dualists to draw our attention here to the "wisdom of the Creator" and the design visible in his works. As a matter of fact, you will discover, on mature reflection, that on this theory the Creator is at bottom only playing the part of a clever mechanic or watch-maker; all these familiar teleological ideas of Creator and creation are based, in the long run, on a similar childlike anthropomorphism.

However, we must grant that at the first glance the teleological theory seems to give the simplest and most satisfactory explanation of these purposive structures. If we merely examine the structure and functions of the most advanced sense-organs, it seems impossible to explain them without postulating a creative act. Yet evolution shows us quite clearly that this popular idea is totally wrong. With its assistance we discover that the purposive and remarkable sense-organs were developed, like all other organs, without any preconceived design--developed by the same mechanical process of natural selection, the same constant correlation of adaptation and heredity, by which the other purposive structures in the animal frame were slowly and gradually brought forth in the struggle for life.

Like most other Vertebrates, man has six sensory organs, which serve for eight different classes of sensations. The skin serves for sensations of pressure and temperature. This is the oldest, lowest, and vaguest of the sense-organs; it is distributed over the surface of the body. The other sensory activities are localised. The sexual sense is bound up with the skin of the external sexual organs, the sense of taste with the mucous lining of the mouth (tongue and palate), and the sense of smell with the mucous lining of the nasal cavity. For the two most advanced and most highly differentiated sensory functions there are special and very elaborate mechanical structures--the eye for the sense of sight, and the ear for the sense of hearing and space (equilibrium).

Comparative anatomy and physiology teach us that there are no differentiated sense-organs in the lower animals; all their sensations are received by the surface of the skin. The undifferentiated skin-layer or ectoderm of the Gastraea is the simple stratum of cells from which the differentiated sense-organs of all the Metazoa (including the Vertebrates) have been evolved. Starting from the assumption that necessarily only the superficial parts of the body, which are in direct touch with the