Seeking Due Credit for Discovery of Mental Heredity

Herbert Spencer

Update: Found it! The letter (signed "B.") urging credit to Philip St George Cooke for the idea of mental evolution appeared in the Detroit Free Press February 29, 1880:

MENTAL EVOLUTION.
Cooke, Spencer, Youmans.

To the Editor of the Detroit Free Press:

In an article in the October number of the North American Review, 1879, by Prof. E. L. Yonmans, on “Spencer’s Evolution Philosophy,” that author is credited with the discovery of mental and moral heredity, or mental evolution, so called; and this principium is treated as the basis of the work “Principles of Psychology,” published 1855, which Prof. Youmans says “revolutionized mental science,” placing it “upon a new basis.” The following extracts are all that is necessary to quote for my present purposes:

“The evolution of life involving accumulated changes through a long series of generations is, of course, based upon the principles of heredity; and this principle was recognized by Mr. Spencer as fundamental in the sphere of psychical life.

“Mr. Spencer showed in 1855 that this doctrine, applied to mind, ends a chronic antagonism between two classes of psychological students.

“The progress of modern thought furnishes no example so remarkable as this of a book appearing ahead of its time. While yet the notion of evolution was regarded as a baseless fancy unworthy the attention of sober-minded thinkers, Mr. Spencer revolutionized natural science by applying it to psychology.”

Now it appears to me that whatever credit may be due for originating or discovering the theory in question, or the ideas on which it is based, should be bestowed where it belongs.

From about the year 1827, till the Mexican war in 1846, P. St. G. Cooke, now Gen. Cooke, as an officer of the United States army, was almost constantly on duty on the Western plains and among the Rocky Mountains, where he found occasion to observe and study the life, character and destiny of the American Indians. In the midst of his active military service he also found time to make full notes of his observations and reflections, which he sent, in the form of articles, to the Southern Literary Messenger, then published at Richmond, Va. In the number of February, 1843, twelve years before Herbert Spencer’s discovery, the following extract may be found:

"To attempt to teach savages letters and the mysteries of the Christian religion (not even intelligible to the most cultured intellect) is evidently to contemn the experience of all nations. But taking for our guidance the gradual advances of Europeans, whose histories we possess, let them first be taught, step by step, the lessons of civilization; let us first on endeavor to make them herdsmen which alone will be found a difficult and most important advance; afterward direct their attention to agriculture and the simplest mechanic arts. The mental endowments of civilized men seem inherited like physical distinctions possessed at our birth. Let us not, then, shock the natures of savages by attempting to force upon them at once the manners and customs, the acquirements and the creed which the gradual progress and the recorded lessons of eighteen centuries have perfected for us, and ingrafted in our natures."

It appears that Gen. Cooke thus presents fully and graphically the same idea of mental and moral heredity which Prof. Youmans credits to Mr. Spencer, and this many years before the word “evolution” was adopted in the discussion of the subject. Nor could this have been a hasty, undigested or lightly considered idea of the General. He was using it in argument, and he brings it in as one which he had maturely considered, and which was material to be kept in view by the government in their treatment of the Indians.

He may lay claim to its authorship. Mr. Spencer was not the first, as stated by Prof. Youmans, to originate or discover the idea or principle in question. Gen. Cooke was several years in advance of Mr. Spencer, and so far as the record now stands, he takes rank of all others in the discovery and in the annunciation of the basis on which Mr. Spencer has erected his superstructure.

B.

Philip St George Cooke wanted his nephew John Esten Cooke to press PSGC's claim for discovery of "mental heredity," long before Herbert Spencer.  PSGC saved an old letter from JEC promising to write about it, as Penny Barrott explains at Famous Men, Silent Women

In Detroit, General Cooke or a friend had already begun the campaign to get due credit for the discovery, as reported in the Army and Navy Journal, March 13, 1880:

A writer in the Detroit Free Press claims for Gen. P. St. George Cooke, U. S. Army, the first suggestion of the doctrine of mental and moral heredity, or mental evolution so called which, according to Prof. Youmans, appeared first in Herbert Spencer’s “Principles of Psychology" and “revolutionized mental science." “ From about the year 1827," the writer says, "till the Mexican war in 1846, P. St. George Cooke, now Gen. Cooke, as an officer of the United States Army, was almost constantly on duty on the Western plains and among the Rocky Mountains, where he found occasion to observe and study the life, character, and destiny of the American Indians. In the midst of his active military service he also found time to make full notes of his observations and reflections, which he sent, in the form of articles to the Southern Literary Messenger, then published at Richmond, Va. In the number of February, 1843, twelve years before Herbert Spencer‘s discovery, the following extract may be found:

‘To attempt to teach savages letters and the mysteries of the Christian religion (not even intelligible to the most cultured intellect) is evidently to contemn the experience of all nations. But taking for our guidance the gradual advances of Europeans, whose histories we possess, let them first be taught, step by step, the lessons of civilization; let us first on endeavor to make them herdsmen which alone will be found a difficult and most important advance; afterward direct their attention to agriculture and the simplest mechanic arts. The mental endowments of civilized men seem inherited like physical distinctions; are possessed at our birth. Let us not, then, shock the natures of savages by attempting to force upon them at once the manners and customs, the acquirements and the creed which the gradual progress and the recorded lessons of eighteen centuries have perfected for us, and engrafted in our natures.'"

PSGC was keen to establish precedence, so I don't understand why he did not cite the earlier printing of the same passage (almost verbatim) in the article "An Appeal for the Indian" by "F. R. D."  This "Appeal" appeared in the Army and Navy Chronicle for April 16, 1840.

Hamilton Gardner on Philip St George Cooke's Fictional Friend

Historians of the American West have little use for the invented "Friend" in Scenes and Adventures in the Army. Most commentators don't know what to make of him. Usually they just ignore him.
 
To his everlasting credit, Hamilton Gardner openly confronted the problem of reading numerous and seemingly extraneous fictions as veritable history.  Here is Gardner at his candid and pragmatic best, from the October 1953 article for The Colorado Magazine, titled "Captain Philip St George Cooke and the March of the First Dragoons to the Rocky Mountains in 1845":

"Not all of the 149 pages of his account of the expedition were devoted to strictly military facts. He was an unusually well-read man, with keen powers of observation of persons, events and places. In a rather striking literary style he comments freely on the Oregon emigrants, the Indians, the daily routine of the Dragoons, their non-duty activities such as their hunting, the wild life, the flora and fauna, scenic effects, scientific conclusions, in particular, geology, and allusions to local history. But most of the space is devoted to detailing fictitious conversations with a mythical "Friend," on all manner of non-military subjects. Frequently one must wander through a maze of irrelevant material in order to find a pertinent fact concerning the march."
(Colorado Magazine p249)

Gardner it seems did not know about the earlier publication of Scenes and Adventures, Part II, as "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the 1851-1853 Southern Literary Messenger.  So he would not have known about the prior textual evolution of this confounded "Friend" from Imaginary Friend to Frank.

speaking of butchers

"Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring us whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honour."  (Moby-Dick Chapter 24)

After supper—The Hunter in the mouth of his tent reclines, with a pipe, upon a glossy bearskin;—before him, a desert expanse of grass and river;—his attention is apparently divided between the moon, suspended over the western hills; the flickering blaze of a small fire, and the curling smoke which he deliberately exhales. His friend stirs a toddy, reading with difficulty a crabbed manuscript. Loquitur. "When I saw you yesterday, beside your usual duties, acting as guide, surgeon,—(for you have effectually cured the snake-bitten horse)—as hunter, or as butcher"—  

"Say commissary!"

"I conceived hopes of you, that the poetic spirit was layed; and when at supper to-night you ate so heartily of the elk-steak, I little thought you had been indulging again in such pathetic"—

"Pshaw! it serves for a gilding to Life's bitter pill! The delicious supper should have mended your humour: for I stake my reputation on it— as 'guide, surgeon and hunter'"—

Imaginary Friend. "And butcher"—

—"That the flesh, cooked, as it was, with a little pork, cannot be distinguished from that of the fattest buffalo cow that ever surrendered tongue and marrow-bones to hungry hunter.

I. F. Bravo! I have hopes of you! Kill your meat with a good conscience, and daily labour and excitement over, solid indeed is the hunter's comfort! With grass and bear-skin bed, his toddy, aud his soothing pipe—the musical ripple of the river sparkling in the moonbeams— I mean"—

"Fairly caught! I little thought when I heard you abuse my pathos over the noble beast that had yielded his life to my sport, that mere creature comforts would thus inspire you! Dear critic, and lover of bathos! hast thou found poetry in a full stomach?" 
(January 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

 Imaginary Friend is spelled out, in italics--so there's no doubt about what I. F. stands for.

The Lady of the Lake in the Hugh Glass narrative and Gansevoort Melville's New York High School

The writer calling himself "Borderer" in late 1830 and early 1831 was soaked in Sir Walter Scott, as John Myers Myers figured out in his book on the Hugh Glass saga. Myers did not look at the other "Borderer" material in Scenes and Adventures in the Army, namely the interpolated tales of Sha-wa-now and Mah-za-pa-mee.  Like the story of Hugh Glass, both were originally published in the St Louis Beacon.  In 1835, both were again published over the signature of P.S.G.C. in the Military and Naval Magazine of the United States.  There, as in the St Louis Beacon, the story of Sha-wah-now is titled A Tale of the Rocky Mountains. Before republication in the Southern Literary Messenger, the Rocky Mountain tale of Sha-wa-now featured this direct quotation from The Lady of the Lake, Canto I:

The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answered with their scream,
Round and around the sounds were cast,
Till echo seem'd an answering blast

Myers did recognize the romanticized duel between the Arikara Indian scout and Hugh Glass (as told by "Borderer," and later the narrator of Scenes and Adventures in the Army) as a dramatic recasting of the combat between Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James in Canto V of The Lady of the Lake.

Four years before the St Louis Beacon printing of the Hugh Glass story by "Borderer," Gansevoort Melville, Herman's older brother, is on record for his association in High School with this same Canto V of Scott's famous poem. Gansevoort was crowned best speaker (See Hershel Parker's biography, V1.36-7) before a packed assembly. For an encore he recited Halleck's Marco Bozzaris. As Parker also recounts in Melville: The Making of the Poet, a popular scene between Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James was subsequently enacted by two older boys--prompted by eleven-year-old Gansevoort. We know about Gansevoort's performance and prize from a December 28, 1826 letter by his naturally proud mother. Below is an excerpt from Maria Gansevoort Melville's letter to her mother Mrs. Peter Gansevoort, as printed in the 1984 article by Henry Murray, "Another Triumph for Maria's Firstborn":

... it was crowded we could with difficulty find a place to stand, after mounting Helen being the shortest of the party on a Desk, we turned to the Forum & saw Master Gansevoort making his Bow, he was the second call'd on to speak, he spoke rather faster than usual being unaccustomed to so large an audience otherwise he spoke well, when he had got through, two young men, tall, & about 20 years of age spoke the humorous piece of Doctor Pangloss & jac Doulass, then succeeded three or four more small boys, when those two tall Gentlemen again appear'd upon the Forum & spoke the Dialogue between Roderick Dhu, & Fitz James.  One thing really had a fine effect, Roderick Dhu Whistles when his clan arise & show themselves on all sides.  The Boys who were seated on a raised platform at the end of the room, at the sound of the Whistle at once arose & the clatter &c. had a fine effect. In the mean while Master Gansevoort was seated on the Forum at the side of Chancellor Kent with the Lady of the Lake in his hand prompting those two tall Gentlemen, one in particular--who could not remember his part, the other spoke well. (Melville Society Extracts No. 58)

‘Have then thy wish!’— He whistled shrill
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
From shingles gray their lances start,
The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
‘To plaided warrior armed for strife.
That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A subterranean host had given.

(From The Lady of the Lake, Canto 5, The Combat)

John Myers Myers on Sir Walter Scott in the Hugh Glass narrative

Impressively quick to spot a literary borrowing, John Myers Myers figured out that the climax of the Hugh Glass tale in Scenes and Adventures in the Army is reworked from The Lady of the Lake.  Presumed author Philip St George Cooke appropriates details from the combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu when imaginatively presenting the fight to the death between Hugh Glass and an Arikara scout. Myers could not bring himself to charge the veracious Cooke with romancing fact, so he reasoned as follows in The Saga of Hugh Glass:

Taken by itself the duel that followed would not be suspect, but sandwiched between two other near-mortal misses, it has the look--as does nothing else in any of the versions--of deliberate high-piling. Not by Cooke himself, for he was a ramrod of uprightness, loathed by many a superior officer for his refusal to bend.  But it would certainly seem that, before the story reached his ears, somebody threw something in for the fun of it, whereas the other changes rung by the sundry accounts appear nothing more than the normal variants of a story which as been sifted through a spread of memories...

...all in all it's hard to keep from wondering whether this combat didn't originate in the brain of Sir Walter Scott, who had described one marvelously like it in The Lady of the Lake:

They tug, they strain! Down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.

But before being thrown by Roderick Dhu, Scotland's disguised king had wielded a rapier, which had repeatedly let out blood belonging to the wild Highlander. So just as Clan Alpine's chief was getting set to polish Fitz-James off with a dirk, Roderick collapsed instead.

As Scott's narrative poem was first published in 1810, it could logically have inspired the ensuing parallel:

And here his [Hugh's] career would probably have closed, but that in truth it seemed that he bore a charmed existence. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his soul's departure. ... Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.

But whether true or a borrowing from a then very popular verse romance, the incident still left Glass short of a haven.  In telling how he reached one, Cooke wrote much to the same effect as his fellow authorities.  (Saga of Hugh Glass 161-3)

Myers was right! Except, no need to qualify the finding: Walter Scott is definitely, not probably the source, as the verbatim use of "Redeemed, unhoped" from The Lady of the Lake Canto V proves:

He faultered thanks to Heaven for life, Redeemed, unhoped, from desperate strife;

For his authoritative text, Myers seems to be quoting from the 1830 newspaper sketch of "Some Incidents in the Life of Hugh Glass, A Hunter of the Missouri River" in the St Louis Beacon, signed "Borderer" (December 2 and December 9, 1830).  Since I don't have either article copied yet from the Beacon, here below is the whole episode of the duel, transcribed from the September 1842  installment of Scenes and Adventures in the Army in the Southern Literary Messenger:

Glass had thus far again escaped a cruel fate. He had gained the almost impervious concealment of drifted and malted willows, and undergrowth, when the dread ebullition of triumph and death announced to him the evil he had escaped, and his still imminent peril. Like the hunted fox, he doubled, he turned, ran or crawled, successively gaining the various concealments of the dense bottom to increase his distance from the bloody scene. And such was his success, that he had thought himself nearly safe, when at a slight opening he was suddenly faced by a foe. It was an Arickara scout. The discovery was simultaneous, and so close were these wily woodsmen, that but the one had scarce time to use a weapon intended for a much greater distance. The deadly tomahawk of the other was most readily substituted for the steeled arrow. At the instant, it flew through the air, and the rifle was discharged; neither could see or feel the effect produced, but they rushed into each other's grasp, either endeavoring to crush his adversary by the shock of the onset. But not so the result; the grappling fold of their arms was so close, that they seemed as one animal:—for a while, doubtful was the struggle for the mastery;—so great was their exertion, that the grasped fingers met in the flesh! But Glass, not wholly recovered from his wounds, was doomed to sink beneath the superior strength of his adversary, by an irresistible effort, of which he was rolled upon the earth, the Indian above. At this instant the effect of his unerring shot was developed. The Indian's last convulsive exertion, so successful, was accompanied by a shout of victory—but dying on his lips, it had marked his spirit's departure. It was as if his proud soul, sensible of approaching feebleness, had willingly expired in the last desperate effort, and the shout of triumph with which he would have ushered both their souls into the presence of the 'Great Spirit.'

Redeemed, unhoped, from death, Glass beheld at his feet his late enemy, not only dead, but already stiffening, with hand instinctively touching the hilt of his knife.
Southern Literary Messenger, September 1842

The tale of Hugh Glass was reprinted widely from the 1842 Southern Literary Messenger in newspapers and other magazines, for example Seba Smith's The Rover.

Considering the clear debt to Sir Walter Scott, the writer's chosen pseudonym "Borderer" takes on added significance.  This Borderer not only locates himself on the Missouri River, at the western border of the young United States, but also identifies with the border heroes of Scottish history and song.

[Engraving illustrating Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake] - Walter Scott Image Collection

All of which makes me think again of Herman's brother Gansevoort Melville, but that's another post...

With happy something: revising the start of Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Revisions reveal the writer's choices and perhaps something of the writer's creative process. Choosing this over that word, phrase, grammatical construction may show on occasion a distinctive bit of one's identity--or personality, or persona.

Here now, some good things from the comparison of three beginnings to Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  The latest is the 1857 book version, where the writer took some pains to revise the language of the 1842 magazine version in the Southern Literary Messenger, which had already been revised from the 1840 version of a differently titled magazine series in a different magazine, the Army and Navy Chronicle.

Check this out, from what originally was the second paragraph.  Here's the 1840 version. Those interesting asterisks mean something has already been left out, cut.  What was cut, I wonder? 

The stage was at the door. * * *. Relieved from those sorrowful partings which harrow the soul, but can scarce touch the sympathies of elastic youth and inexperience, I enjoyed the rapid motion of the coach, always exhilarating, but which was then fast severing me, perhaps forever, from my best friends, and all the familiar scenes of childhood.  (1840 Notes and Reminiscences)

Then we have the 1842 magazine version. In revision the writer or editor suppresses a few symptoms of juvenile wordiness, replacing the idea of torture in "harrow the soul" with more neutral "pains"; and deleting the word "inexperience" as redundant.  But the 1842 version still keeps the asterisks!  

The stage was at the door. * * *. Relieved from those sorrowful partings, from the pains of which elastic youth recovers so soon, I enjoyed the rapid motion of the coach, always exhilarating, but which was then fast severing me, perhaps forever, from friends, and all the familiar scenes of childhood.  (1842 Scenes and Adventures in the Arm)

https://books.google.com/books?id=KepEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA405&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thirdly, the 1857 book version.  Asterisks are gone, removing now any evidence that something was cut from the manuscript, before even the first 1840 printing. In 1857 it is deemed desirable to specify "stage-coach," instead of only "stage."

By 1857 the writer has learned, too, that one-sentence paragraphs improve readability.

And in a nifty trick of compressed subordination, "over" eliminates the need for "relieved from."  More compression: "pains" gone, recognizing possibly they are implied in "sorrowful," yet also postponing and re-assigning them to others, hurting family members whose "hearts" are newly understood to have "trembled painfully."  And will you look at this? With improved subordination, you really don't need all these words: "of which elastic youth recovers so soon." No, you revise the second clause to just say "with happy elasticity":

The stage-coach was at the door.

Those sorrowful partings over, with happy elasticity, I was soon enjoying the rapid motion of the coach--always exhilarating--but then severing me from the safe haven of home affections, and hearts which trembled painfully as I was thus launched on life's perilous voyage.  (1857 book)

 Who talks like that?

  Ah God! may Time with happy haste

  Bring wail and triumph to a waste,

    And war be done;   

(Donelson, from Battle-Pieces by Herman Melville)

Finally, the nautical metaphor was also added in revision of the 1842 magazine version of Scenes and Adventures in the Army, itself a revision of the 1840 Notes and Reminiscences of An Officer of the Army.  This nautical metaphor, I mean, figuring (at the beginning of the memoir) home as secure port ("safe haven"), adult life as a hazardous journey at sea: "launched on life's perilous voyage."

...one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.  (Moby-Dick)

Comparing 1840, 1842 and 1857 versions

More experimenting with Juxta Commons:  check out the opening paragraphs for three versions of Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  The series that furnished the start of Scenes and Adventures was originally titled "Notes and Reminiscences of An Officer of the Army." 

Army and Navy Chronicle
June 18, 1840

profusion of compound words built on "self"

Walter E. Bezanson finely describes how important are terms of self and "the profusion of compound words built on 'self'" in Melville's Clarel:

If abdication from family, community, country, and creed has set most of the pilgrims loose from the institutions which ordinarily give men definable social roles, what is left?  Personality, character, self, soul—these suggest the remnant.  The preferred term of the poem is “self,” and the profusion of compound words built on “self” defines one of the energy centers of the poem.  At odds with the societies to which they belonged, they have variously mutinied or been shipwrecked.  We have here an assortment of Western men, cast away, as it were, on the Palestinian beach, jointly engaged in the struggle for moral and psychic survival.

(Intro to Hendricks House Clarel; and
Historical and Critical Note, Northwestern-Newberry Clarel, 579)

A footnote gives 21 examples in Clarel including self-love, self-consumings and self-exiled.

Well!  In Scenes and Adventures in the Army, especially Part II with the dialogues from "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" between the narrator and his Imaginary Friend, we find the same thing Bezanson observed in Clarel.  Here we have Western men before they washed up in Palestine: still as yet on the prairie of the American West, traveling and conversing as ever about literature and philosophy, art, astronomy and religion.

Alongside Bezanson's 21 in Clarel, I give you 15 from Scenes and Adventures in the Army including "self consuming" and two instances of "self-exiled":

Completely isolated, and beyond support, or even communication — self-dependent in any emergency that might arise, and in the midst of many thousands of Indians, whose concentration our long stay seemed to invite, the utmost vigilance was maintained.  (Scenes and Adventures, p56)

Fashion decides that modesty is not wanting in this self-praise;  (Scenes and Adventures p76)

Self-love dries up the sources of sympathy (Scenes and Adventures, 193-4)

these border inhabitants — self-willed and presumptuous, because ignorant. (Scenes and Adventures, p42)

a class of self-exiled wanderers and hunters, whose restless or savage natures, lead them to sever every tie of kindred and country (Scenes and Adventures, 134)

 the abusive, yet vigorous, the self-important Globe, (September 1851)

Capitalists great enough to be self-insured, must be "pound foolish," in appearance to you small-fry operators. (December 1851)

— Thy monologue I endured, whilst it touched of earth; but when self-forgetting, thou transformedst thy true friend to a spirit minister of hardly dubious sex, — who methinks, would wander here, from no comfortable abode of earth or sky —  [from Scenes Beyond the Western Border, December 1851 installment] 

....leading and protecting those pioneers and missionaries of civilization, the Oregon emigrants; the rude founders of a State. Self-exiled and led by a human instinct....      (April 1852); "self-exiled" etc. added in revision of Oregon, Ho!

And Cortez, like Columbus, was self-made ; (May 1852)

how magnanimous is their patience, their self-denial and devotion!  (June 1852)

 their men are idle, and have more use for mirrors in self-adornment: (July 1852)

— A false and self-consuming fire! that sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men...[Scenes and Adventures, p 333. Ooh, look how the term "self-consuming" results from revision of the original dialogue as it appeared in the July 1852 Southern Literary Messenger:  "I. F. Ay!  it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men..."]

the noblest oak, which trails its tender foliage high over the many self-dependent neighbors, (August 1852)

the boasted easy self-possession of civilized refinement,  (May 1853)