COMPLICATIONS OF MENTAL LIFE
_A. THE INTELLECT_
§ 14. PERCEPTION
1. _Characteristics of Perception_
At every moment of waking life a multitude of impressions are received
by the mind through the eyes, the ears, the cutaneous and all other
senses, giving information about processes in the external world and in
the subject’s own body. However, because of the peculiar laws of mental
activity, the actual conscious experience differs greatly from a mere
sum of all those impressions--from what would be the content of
consciousness if mind were nothing but an accumulation of senses. In
order to distinguish the actual consciousness from the abstractly
conceived sum of sensations, we use as a specific term the word
_perception_.
Does not a newspaper look different if held in the right way or turned
upside down, a landscape if seen in the ordinary way or through our
legs? In the latter case there are in our consciousness a multitude of
incomprehensible details, lines, figures, colors; in the former we are
conscious of one thing, a landscape, with its divisions, each of these
divisions with its subdivisions, and so on. The one consciousness is
practically the result only of simultaneous sensory stimulations; the
other consciousness, in addition to these stimulations, is determined by
the laws of organized mind, by attention, memory, practice.
A percept contains both less and more than the sensations corresponding
directly to the stimulations. According to the conditions discussed
under attention, certain sensations become focal at the expense of
others which become marginal. For example, of all things impressing
themselves upon my retina, only a few--usually, but not always, those in
the center of the field of vision--attain a high degree of
consciousness. And of these things again not all the qualities, but only
a few become highly conscious. If, as in this case, the visible things
happen to become highly conscious, the simultaneously existing audible
or tastable things are apt to remain at a low degree of consciousness.
That which is important for the needs of our daily life is specially
favored and becomes a part of the percept. That which has no practical
importance does not easily become a highly conscious part of the present
mind. The variations in color of a gown forming many folds are rarely
noticed. All parts of the gown are perceived as parts of the same
substance. That the whole gown is made of one kind of cloth is
practically important. That the various folds appear to the eye--because
of the variation of the illumination--somewhat different, is of no
practical consequence. Many quite common phenomena, after-images,
overtones, difference tones, are never known by the majority of people,
because of their practical unimportance.
But a percept contains not only less, but also much more than the
sensations corresponding to the stimuli of the moment. Numerous images
are woven into this system of sensations and thus give additional
meaning to it. We may be said to _see_ that the things are hot or cold,
rough or smooth, heavy or light, although our eyes as mere sense organs
cannot give us any such information. In the same way we may be said to
see that the things are at this or that distance from our head, and that
this thing is nearer, that thing farther from us, although our inherited
ability to see things spatially does not give us any other information
than that of shape and size in the field of vision. By incessantly
repeated experiences we have learned, at an early age, that changes in
the distance of things which in this or that way have come to our
knowledge, are regularly accompanied by definite changes in their size,
their coloring, their appearance when the right eye’s image is compared
with the left eye’s image, and many similar changes of the impression.
Whenever such signs of changes in the distance are impressed upon our
mind, we immediately supplement them by ideas of the distances
themselves. Thus our original two-dimensional perception of space is
expanded into a three-dimensional perception.
All knowledge of things, of their properties, their names, their uses,
their meanings, consists in supplementing our consciousness of those
qualities which they present to our senses, by images previously
obtained through any senses. The force of this supplementing can be
understood from the drawings of children and primitive peoples. That
which appears in the field of vision is often left unrepresented. Linear
perspective, for instance, does not exist in such drawings, although it
is a part of the sensory impression. On the other hand, many things are
given by the draughtsman which are invisible under the circumstances of
the situation, but which he regards as essential parts of the thing
because of their practical importance: for instance, both eyes of a
person seen in profile, equal length of all the legs of tables and
chairs, equal size of things at a distance and things near by.
The significance of this supplementing by ideas is illustrated also in
pathological cases. It happens that some of the associative connections
in the brain are destroyed by disease, reducing the mind to a condition
like that of early childhood, when direct sense impressions alone
determined action. Patients may see the shape and color of a thing
correctly, may even be able to draw it or paint it, but are unable to
tell the name of the object, although they are perfectly familiar with
it. They cannot answer our question as to what purpose the thing serves;
possibly they give ridiculous answers, fitting an altogether different
thing. Only when they are permitted to use the kinesthetic and tactual
senses by taking the thing in their hands, do they recognize it. In
other cases the patient, although possessing his normal sensibility to
touch, is unable to recognize things by his hands alone, but recognizes
them at once when permitted to open his eyes.
A particularly characteristic feature of our perception is the grouping
together into a mental unit of elements which are not united either
spatially by contiguity or nearness, or by similarity of their coloring,
or their other attributes. The grouping of such elements into a unitary
mental state is often the result of a repeated necessity for reacting
upon this sum of impressions by a unitary movement. The newspaper held
upside down does not invite the reaction of reading. Parts which are
separated by blank spaces or by black bars, are separately perceived.
But the words and sentences are not perceived, because we have not
previously been obliged to read under such conditions. Looking into a
furnished room I perceive at once tables, chairs, and other pieces of
furniture, although the legs of a chair, for example, are spatially and
by their coloring better connected with the carpet than with the back of
the chair. When I am looking at a portrait standing upside down, the
dark hair and the dark background become a mental unit, a percept of a
dark area. The light face is another mental unit. In upright position
the hair separates from the background and unites with the face. I then
perceive a person before a dark background, in spite of the similarity
of coloring between some parts of the figure and the background, in
spite of the difference of coloring between some parts of the figure and
other parts. The grouping of the elements in perception is therefore
widely different from that which would result from the stimuli directly.
It is determined by our habits of reaction upon such groups as
frequently appear together in the world in which we live.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--TWO POSSIBILITIES OF PERCEPTION.]
Let us illustrate this by two figures. Figure 16 may be perceived as a
rabbit’s or as a duck’s head. When we perceive the figure as a rabbit’s
head, the white streaks to the right of the eye are two separate
sensation groups, each of them unified with respect to the effect
produced by them in our nervous system. They are then the animal’s lips.
At the same time the protrusions to the left make us conscious of
softness, warmth, flexibility. Now perceive the figure as a duck’s head.
Immediately those white streaks cease to be two separate units for our
mind. Together with the darker parts surrounding them, they affect our
mind as a single unit, the variegated back part of the duck’s head. And
at the same time the protrusions to the left make us conscious of
hardness, cold, rigidity. The sensory stimulations are exactly the
same, but they are differently grouped together, and they bring about
further nervous activities which greatly differ in these two
perceptions.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--VARIETIES OF PERCEPTION.]
Figure 17, when shown to a person, is perceived as the result of a
child’s careless handling of his ink bottle, as an ink spot. But ask
this person if he does not see a boy falling downstairs, and immediately
certain elements are grouped together and affect us as being the legs,
other elements of sensation are perceived as the arms, and so on. And
now suggest to the same person to turn the page slightly to the right
and see a man trying to put on his shirt. Quickly the perception changes
again; but this time not so much by the breaking up of the former units
into their sensory elements and the formation of new units, as by a
change of the accompanying ideas. The previous suggestion tends to make
us perceive these sensations in one or the other way because it guides
our attention. But this guidance is possible only because certain groups
of sensational elements (for example, the groups illustrated by our
figures) have very often occurred in our mind in consequence of the fact
that they originate from external objects which have often been
presented to our sense organs among greatly varying surroundings. Thus
we have learned to group these elements together and to neglect, more or
less, all other elements which may be presented simultaneously.
The total process of selective grouping and of furnishing the groups
formed with additional mental contents has often been called
_apperception_. But this meaning of the term apperception is not
universally adopted. Some mean by apperception mainly the selective
grouping of the elements, others mean by it exclusively the furnishing
with ideational contents. Because of its ambiguity the term
_apperception_ has been entirely omitted from the present book, and the
term _perception_ is used in its broadest sense, including both the
processes just mentioned. Perception thus means the working over by the
mind of any aggregate of sensational elements given at the time through
the sense organs.
2. _Illusions_
While the laws of perception are, on the whole, of the greatest benefit
to the organism surrounded by a confusing multitude of physical elements
bound together into a large number of more or less stable compounds, of
things, there are exceptional cases in which these same laws lead the
mind into a reaction not suitable to the situation presented.
That which has often occurred is likely to recur. But it does not
regularly recur in the same manner. There are exceptions. It happens
that certain things occur in surroundings different from their usual
surroundings. These things are then perceived, that is, grouped together
and supplemented by images, in harmony with their usual surroundings.
But the perception is then in discord with the actual surroundings. To
the inhabitant of the plains the colors of things appear rather
saturated, and the outlines sharp, when these things are at a small
distance from the observer. Walking toward them, he is soon able to lay
hands on them. But when the air happens to be unusually moist, and
because of its diminished weight, free from the particles of dust which
have settled because of their weight, things look unusually near, and on
walking toward them he discovers that it takes more time to reach them
than he expected. The same happens when he goes to the mountains for his
vacation, because there the air is always comparatively free from dust.
We have here a foreseeing of what ordinarily becomes the subsequent
experience, but fails to become it in this instance.
There is another kind of illusion based on the fact that sensations
which have been imagined just before the stimuli became effective, are
thereby favored and become unusually vivid. This law of attention holds
good also when the stimuli are not in exact correspondence with the
preceding images. In such a case the perception is more or less
assimilated to those images, so that the same stimuli result in somewhat
different percepts according to circumstances. “How heavy it is!” said a
friend of Davy’s, when the discoverer of potassium placed a little piece
of this metal on his finger. Potassium is so light that it floats on
water, but the metallic appearance produced the image of pressure and
changed the sensation into a percept of something heavy. When two pieces
of gray paper, equally bright but of slightly different coloring, are
put before me side by side, and I ask myself: is not the yellowish paper
lighter than the bluish paper, immediately it seems to be lighter. But I
begin to doubt and ask myself: is not the yellowish paper darker than
the other; and immediately it looks darker.
Let no one say that this is only “imaginary,” meaning by this word that
there are in my mind both the objectively true impression and an
incorrect image of something similar. Such is not the case. There is no
duality of consciousness. There is one unitary experience. Only
scientific reflection reveals the fact that this unitary experience has
two sources, one in the external stimulation, the other in the central
nervous excitation. The result of these sources, the percept, does not
betray the doubleness of its origin any more than a stream at its mouth
shows the doubleness of its sources. It is a universal property of
perception to be determined not by sensory stimulation alone, although
this is the primary factor, but also by images, by nervous dispositions.
The more vivid such images, the greater is their influence--now and then
their _deceptive_ influence--on our consciousness of the objectively
existing. Suggestion is a name which has recently been accepted for such
an influence. Illusion is another name for it, in case it is rather
pronounced and ill adapted to the object.
QUESTIONS
125. What kinds of mental states are called perceptions?
126. Illustrate the change of a percept into a mental state not
worthy of the name, caused by a change of the situation which
involves neither a subtraction nor an addition of stimuli.
127. What impressions become a part of the percept, and what
impressions do not?
128. Show that a percept contains not only less, but also more than
the sensations corresponding to the stimuli of the moment.
129. What can we learn about perception from the drawings of
children?
130. Illustrate the perception of a thing whose parts appear
spatially separate. (None of the illustrations in the text strictly
answers this question.)
131. What changes occur when a rabbit’s head is perceived as a
duck’s head?
132. Are illusions signs of mental abnormality? What are they?
133. What two classes of illusions are distinguished in the text?
§ 15. IDEATION
The same laws which govern the supplementing of impressions by images,
govern also the supplementing of images by other images. We refer to the
appearance of images supplementing other images by the word
_remembering_, or _ideation_.
What we remember is always deficient in details compared with what we
perceive. Remember a landscape, a street scene, a well-known person.
Innumerable details are always lacking in the idea, although they were
present in the corresponding percept. These details which are lacking
may be either parts separable from the object, or mere attributes of
sensation inseparable from the sensation. On the other hand, ideas are
richer than percepts. They contain elements obtained from other similar
perceptions and added by association, as when the idea of a landscape is
enriched by a tower, the idea of a person by a beard, which actually are
not present at these places.
Ideas are also strongly influenced and altered by other ideas which
happen to be in consciousness at the same time (“set of the mind”); for
instance by questions, particularly by questions in the negative
form--“did you not,” “was this not,”--by the wish to make a good
impression upon others, and by similar factors. We may have no intention
of exaggerating, in Falstaff’s fashion, the significance of our deeds;
nevertheless our memories become gradually modified so that the
uncommon, the important, the valuable in them is emphasized, and the
common, the insignificant, the unpleasant is obliterated. Wherever our
memories are fragmentary and indefinite, they offer but slight
resistance to questions attacking this point, for instance: Do you
believe that the gentleman was as tall as you are?
Memories are thus, not exceptionally, but universally inaccurate
representations of that which has been perceived. This has recently been
proved by direct experimental tests. Since percepts, although they rest
on a foundation of external stimulation, are so strongly influenced by
the mind’s own manner of functioning, the existence of this influence in
the case of imagery, lacking such a foundation, is not surprising.
Although memories are but rarely totally misleading, mankind has long
ago learned to rely upon memory in all important business and legal
transactions only when there is agreement between the memories of
several witnesses. The changeableness of memory is particularly strong
in the child’s mind. The perceptual experiences have not been so often
repeated as in the adult mind, and the practical importance of accuracy
of remembering has not made itself so much felt. For both reasons the
child’s memory is very unreliable.
The word _imagination_ is frequently used to signify a specially strong
ability to modify memories by associated images. Thus we speak of the
imagination of the child--but also of the artist and the scientist.
Without imagination the scientist would not succeed in his task of
making the phenomena of nature more comprehensible by showing the
consequences of the remotest relations between things. It is clear,
however, that imagination is not a fundamental “faculty” of the mind,
separable from other “faculties,” but a result of the fundamental laws
governing mental functions.
Let us turn to the fragmentary nature of reproduced experience and
discuss its significance. That previous experience can be reproduced
only in fragments is the direct result of the selective power of
attention, which asserts itself in both perception and ideation. Not
every quality of a thing presented is equally interesting. A child
having a watch takes interest mainly in the ticking and in the glitter
of the golden case. Meeting a dog, he gives attention to the terrifying
bark and the multiplicity of legs. Suppose now that the dog regularly
occurred together with a special impression, perhaps a spoken word; then
the recurring of this symbol will tend to reproduce in the child’s mind
the image of the dog. But the pressure of many competing tendencies does
not permit the reproduction of all the qualities of the dog which have
become conscious on former meetings with this animal. Only an extract,
so to speak, of these qualities is reproduced, and this is made up of
those which were formerly especially interesting,--the bark and the
legs.
Another factor determining the selection of special qualities of a thing
for reproduction is the frequency with which each quality reappears in
things which are different in certain respects, but in other respects
belong to the same class. The trees of a forest beside which I am
walking have many individual differences. But certain features are
common to all the trees. These common features reappear again and again,
while each of the other features appears only now and then. The same can
be said of various dogs met on the street, of various tones of a violin,
and so on. If the perception of the trees is experienced together with a
certain other percept which may serve as a symbol for the trees, for
example the word _tree_, the association of the symbol with those
regularly repeated qualities becomes firmly established, whereas the
association with the other, more or less varying qualities, remains
comparatively feeble. The result is that the symbol tends to reproduce
almost exclusively the former qualities. These come to make up a
separate group of images, a general idea.
The laws of attention, practice, and memory, together with the simple
uniformity of nature just mentioned, produce thus a peculiar result.
They remove ideation from the accidents of external events in an
incomparably higher degree than perception. They bring about ideas of
the separate qualities of the things perceived, _abstractions_, and
ideas of common features, _general ideas_. In many cases an idea is both
an abstraction and a general idea. Examples of such ideas to which no
equally simple concrete object corresponds, are the idea of a mere
length, the color red, sight, a dog in general, a tree in general.
These ideas are of eminent importance for all higher mental development.
Mind, in them, departs from that which nature presents, but only in
order to take possession of it more securely by systematization and by
overcoming the narrow limits of the capacity of consciousness.
By separating the common qualities of things from those which vary we
classify the things into kinds and species, we think of them as being in
various ways related. Instead of having an incomprehensible mass of
things standing side by side, we have a system of coördinated and
subordinated things, of groups formed according to closer or remoter
relationship; and thus it becomes a comparatively easy matter to survey
the multitude of things of which nature consists. Not only order, but
law too is thus brought into the phenomena of nature. If we collect
sticks of wood and set fire to the pile, we notice that some of them
burn lustily, others smolder and smoke, still others do not burn at all.
Why so? Repetition of similar experiences is necessary before we can
give an answer; but mere repetition of the same event does not enable
us to give the answer. The event must be broken up and general ideas
must be formed out of the elements of the event. Then only can we answer
the question. Some of the sticks burn because they are dry. Others do
not burn so well or do not burn at all because they are wet. Neither
shape nor color nor origin nor many other qualities of the sticks have
any causal connection with the difference of burning and not burning.
Both order and law in nature are recognized by abstraction.
Equally important is the overcoming of the narrowness of consciousness
by abstraction and generalization. When I am thinking of trees, the
contents of my mind are very few. There may be a word image, a visual
image of something tall and branching; hardly more. All the special
features of trees of all kinds are absent from consciousness. So I can
easily think of additional things, for instance of the age which trees
may reach, or the elevation at which trees cease to grow. But the moment
I begin by accident to think of a thing which does not harmonize with
those features of the tree which thus far have been absent from
consciousness, immediately those features become conscious and inhibit
the contradictory thoughts. They have been unconscious and yet we cannot
say that they have been sheer nothing. The consciousness of the general
idea has in some way prepared the path for the special features from
which it has been abstracted. They have been carried close to the door
of consciousness, so to speak, and the slightest impulse coming from an
associated idea will cause them to enter. This is our meaning when we
say that within the general idea of which we are conscious all those
special features are included. They are included by representation, the
general idea being the deputy taking care of their interests. Thus our
mind is freed from the necessity of carrying at any moment a heavy load
of actual states of consciousness and is nevertheless able to act as
reasonably as if those mental states were present. In using
representative ideas, our mind has actually at its service the enormous
number of all those individual ideas which are represented by them.
QUESTIONS
134. Enumerate in what different respects ideation is (more or
less) similar to perception.
135. Why are reproduced experiences fragmentary?
136. How does a general idea originate?
137. What is the difference between abstractions and general ideas?
138. Can an idea be both an abstraction and a general idea?
139. Illustrate the formation of a natural law by means of
abstraction and generalization.
140. With what feature of political life may the service of a
general idea in mental life be compared?
§ 16. LANGUAGE
1. _Word Imagery_
There can be no doubt that animals are to some extent able to
generalize. A dog or a cat is trained to distinguish between indoors and
outdoors and to adjust its behavior accordingly. This would be
impossible if the dog possessed no general notion of room or street.
But these generalizations remain rather insignificant so long as they
are not connected with one definite image which stands as a symbol for
the whole class of things. Nature scarcely presents to us any images
which could be used as symbols of this kind. What are we invariably
conscious of when thinking of books, or of trees, or of
houses--something that is not only invariable, but also readily
separable in our imagination? It is difficult to name anything which
fulfills these conditions. But man created what he did not find in
nature, symbols which can be used as meaning whole classes of objects
and relations of objects. The totality of these symbols is human
language.
These symbols are normally divided into four classes of imagery, four
languages, so to speak, in such a manner that each class of objects has
a symbol in each of the four languages. The first of these languages
acquired by the child is the auditory language, made up of the sounds of
the words spoken by others. Soon after having begun to understand spoken
words, the child begins to speak himself. Thus he acquires a second
language, made up of kinesthetic imagery of his vocal organs. These
languages are the only ones possessed by illiterates. In school the
child learns to read, that is, he acquires a third class of symbols,
consisting of visual images of written and printed words. One might of
course speak of these as two visual languages, since the sight of
written words differs somewhat from the sight of printed words. Finally
the child learns to write, and thus acquires a fourth language, made up
of kinesthetic images of the writing hand.
These are, of course, not the only languages possible. The blind-born,
unable to acquire visual imagery, substitute tactual word imagery by
learning to read raised letters or the raised point script generally
taught in institutions for the blind. But a seeing person, too, may
acquire this tactual language in addition to the other four. The
deaf-born acquire a visual language made up of the images of the hand
and the fingers representing symbolically letters and words. But it is
hardly worth while to enumerate all these minor languages. The most
important ones practically are these four: the auditory, the visual
(written and printed), the kinesthetic of the vocal organs, and the
kinesthetic of the writing hand.
We saw that the origin of all these languages, that is, classes of word
images, is to be found in speech. How speech itself originated in the
human race is a problem which thus far is not solved, or at least, of
which no proposed solution has thus far been universally accepted. Some
light is shed upon it by the answer to the simpler question as to the
origin of speech in childhood. Only during the last few decades has this
question been given attention, obviously because this growth of speech,
as an everyday occurrence, seemed to ask for no explanation. The child
imitates!--what else should be said about it? But in order to imitate,
the child must first be able to produce the elements of the things to be
imitated. And by imitation speech only is acquired, but not the full
significance of language.
2. _The Acquisition of Speech_
(1) Speech originates from instinctive activities of the vocal organs.
As a child, when left to himself and feeling well, plays with his hands
and kicks, he also, in response to all kinds of external and internal
stimulations, moves instinctively (that is, because of his inherited
nervous connections) lips and tongue, larynx and chest, and produces a
great number of different sounds and sound combinations--not only those
which are used in the language of his people, but also the strangest
crowing and smacking and clucking sounds. He cannot produce speech
sounds without immediately hearing them. Thus an association is formed
between sound perception, kinesthetic perception, and motor activity;
and soon the sound of his own voice stimulates the child to further
production of these speech sounds. This explains why the same sounds are
often so many times repeated in an infant’s babble, and why baby talk
contains so many reduplications like papa, mama, byby, and so on.
(2) The sounds invented by the child are used by the parents and other
people in their communications with the child. They select from the
large number those which are like speech sounds of their own language.
They address the child with these words again and again, forming also
brief sentences, and thus stimulate the child to produce at will the
words which he has at his command, in these combinations and sentences.
The child thus becomes more and more skillful in the production of these
words. Meanwhile the numerous other baby words which have no
significance for the people surrounding him, are gradually lost from the
child’s mind, so that later they can no longer be produced voluntarily.
Practically every child can, on the basis of his articulating instinct,
learn any language spoken anywhere on earth. But in later years, when
this instinct has weakened and has been replaced by the habit of
producing the sounds of a particular language, it is a difficult matter
to learn to speak a new language. The sound perception as well as the
sound production is then assimilated to the “native” speech, and the
words of the foreign language are consequently spoken in a manner
similar to the words of the native language. This is meant when we say
that foreign languages acquired in adult life are, as a rule, spoken
with an “accent.”
The activity of grown people influences the child’s talking in yet
another way. The child hears those words which are selected by the
people surrounding him, usually in the presence of the persons and
things and events for which the words serve as symbols. Thus new
associations are formed. To the kinesthetic and auditory word images is
added imagery of the word’s meaning. The child comes to experience the
words as symbols and to reproduce ideas of the words when the things
appear as percepts or images. Only then can we say that the child has
really learned to speak, to express his perceptions, his images, and his
feeling and willing in speech.
(3) When the child has reached this stage when he begins to comprehend
the practical importance of this activity of his vocal organs, he begins
to imitate voluntarily, eagerly, the speech of grown people. This
imitation is to some extent mechanical, without involving any
comprehension of the meaning of the words. The child simply enjoys being
able to produce the same words which grown people use. This imitation is
in many cases at first very imperfect, because many elementary sounds
necessary for these words have not been produced instinctively thus far
and therefore cannot be produced voluntarily, the kinesthetic imagery
being lacking. But soon even the more difficult sounds are produced
accurately. The vocal organs acquire the habit of assuming certain
normal positions, from which the special activity of speech in each case
of pronunciation proceeds. In a few years the total number of words
necessary for a command of the language is acquired. But voluntary
imitation is not restricted to mere pronunciation. It is applied also to
the modes of uniting words into compounds, phrases, sentences. The
result of this application is the creation of new compounds out of the
words which the child has at his command at the time, of new methods of
applying inflection, to the amusement of those who surround him. The
following are a few examples of such creations: _goed_ for _went_,
_chair_ for _sitting_, _more pencil_ for _I want the other pencil_,
_mussing down_ as the antonym of _mussing up_.
Voluntary imitation, therefore, does not altogether mean assimilation to
the language which the child hears spoken; to some extent it means
departure from that language, resulting from the mental capacities with
which he has been endowed by nature. In another way too the child’s
language must differ from that of grown people. All acquisition of
speech is based on perception and is subject to the laws of perception.
We have previously seen that perception is largely dependent on the
interest of the person who perceives, on his previous experiences.
A child’s interests are totally different from those of a grown person,
so that many words cannot assume in the child’s mind the meaning which
they possess in the adult’s mind. At a later stage this difficulty can
to some extent be overcome by the aid of language itself, by explaining
in words the meaning of a new word. At the beginning this is of course
impossible. So a large number of words used by adults remain for a long
time entirely meaningless to the child, especially abstract words,
relative words (_to-day_, _here_, _I_), and words meaning things with
which the child does not come in contact. Even those which he seems to
understand perfectly have a different meaning. A watch is to the child
something which ticks and sparkles. The adult’s meaning of the word can
in no manner be conveyed to the child. The name of a particular article
of food may be used for all things which are edible, also for eating,
for hunger, and so on. A certain baby called his father, mother, nurse,
sister, all by the same name, _dada_, then applied this word also to
his bottle, and finally to every interesting object.
This does not mean that children generalize more than adults, that they
have a superior logical capacity. The meaning of the child’s words is
often more general than that of adults because the child takes interest
in fewer qualities, and naturally finds these in a greater number of
objects. But the difference is not that of a greater power of
generalization. Very often the child’s words have a more special
meaning. A child is not likely to use the word _animal_ as meaning
worms, birds, and horses. The difference lies in the fact that the child
uses the word as a symbol for a thing or quality which is conspicuous to
_him_, interesting to _him_. A child’s language is amusing to grown
people only because they do not know the meaning which the words have in
the child’s mind, and are inclined to substitute the meaning which they
have in their own minds.
(4) In spite of all imitation, the individual’s language is largely his
own creation adapted to his individual needs. To the extent to which the
children of a community, of a nation, have similar interests and similar
experiences, these individual creations must be similar. But to the
extent to which interests and experiences differ, language must differ.
Baby talk which is quite comprehensible to the members of one family is
incomprehensible to those of another family. Similarly, the language of
one tribe of the human race has come to differ from that of another
tribe, one nation’s language from that of another nation. Family
differences, of course, cannot last long. The child’s language
assimilates itself to the language of the people at large as soon as the
child comes under the influence of people outside of the family. This is
the fourth stage in the development of an individual’s language,
lasting much longer than the three preceding stages, indeed practically
never ending. From mistakes in comprehending others, from mistakes of
others caused by his own language, or from special instruction in
school, the individual learns how the words which he uses are to be
understood in order to agree with the general usage of language, and
thus approaches more and more the ideal of uniformity of speech.
This uniformity, however, can never become complete. The number of words
of which various individuals have command always differs. Their meanings
always differ slightly, sometimes considerably. Accordingly the phrases
and sentences which one uses differ from those of others. Every one has
his own linguistic style. For most practical purposes the actual
uniformity of language is sufficient. Not a few misunderstandings,
discussions, quarrels, however, have their source in the insufficiency
of this uniformity. This is regrettable, but unavoidable. The nature of
mind creates language such as it is, and mind has to make the best of
it. It is only on a very high level of mental development that men
succeed in creating for definite purposes definite languages which admit
of almost no differences of meaning; for instance, the symbolic systems
of mathematics and chemistry. But these systems prove that the very
perfection carries with it an imperfection. The specific power, the art
and beauty of language, are not to be sought in mathematical and
chemical treatises. They depend on the speaker’s and hearer’s
individuality.
3. _The Growth of Language_
Just as one individual’s language differs from that of another
individual, the language of one time differs from the same nation’s
language at another time. The words of a language change or are
replaced by new ones. The inflections change, are probably simplified,
or as in the case of the English language, almost completely lost. The
manner of forming compounds, phrases, and sentences is altered. The
meaning of the words is no more fixed; many words change their original
meaning entirely, even to the opposite. Changes of the former
kind--changes of the sounds, their inflections, and their
combinations--are brought about partly by external and fortuitous
conditions, such as the Danish invasion of England or the Norman
conquest, also by greater ease of pronunciation. But here the laws
governing mental life are also determining factors, and in the changes
of meaning every growth depends on these laws. The same forces which
build up the child’s language in conformity with his experiences,
thoughts, interests, and needs, bring about also the gradual changes of
a nation’s language in conformity with the changing experiences,
thoughts, and needs.
Under special circumstances one among all the properties or features of
a person or thing may occupy the mind almost exclusively, as of Julius
Cæsar the despotic power which he obtained, of Captain Boycott the ban
which was placed upon him. In such cases, when the name is heard and
pronounced, the special feature impresses itself upon the mind. The
speaker thinks of little else than this. And when the necessity arises
of expressing in a word that peculiarity in another place under
different surroundings, the individual name offers itself, since its
original meaning has already been modified, since it has already lost
most of its individual significance. The part of its meaning which is
retained is now generally applied. An expansion of the special meaning
has taken place.
On the other hand, words which were originally applied to many things
in many different situations come to signify a particular thing under
particular circumstances. This change of meaning is illustrated by the
names which the state or nation gives its officers. President,
secretary, general, captain, had originally a very broad meaning, but
when applied to the officers of the state have a very special meaning.
It is easy to explain this. The word _captain_, meaning originally
merely the chief of any aggregation of people, is naturally applied by
the speaker most frequently to the chief of that company of men in which
he is particularly interested. The chief of another company of men is
then no longer called by this simple name, but additional names are
used. The word when used without additional words comes to mean
exclusively the chief of the special group which is of main interest to
the speaker. Similarly, _city_ assumes for the person living in the
country the meaning of the city near by. _Gas_ means for the man who is
not a physicist only the ordinary illuminating gas.
Other changes of meaning resulting from associative connection and a
transference of attention are the metaphors and metonymies. A metaphor
is a figure of speech in which one object is spoken of as if it were
another; for example, when St. Luke says, “Go ye, and tell that fox,”
meaning Herod. A metonymy is the exchange of names between things
related. _Toilet_ meant originally a small cloth, a napkin, spread over
a table. Then it came to mean the table itself, used in the process of
dressing. Then it meant the process of dressing one’s hair, later the
general process of dressing one’s self. It also assumed the meaning of a
person’s actual dress, his costume; also the style of dress. More
recently it has come to mean the toilet room, the lavatory.
Many changes in the meaning of words result from certain secondary
purposes of the speaker. We usually address another person in order to
obtain something from him. In order to succeed, we must keep or make him
good humored, give him his proper honors and titles, flatter him rather
than call attention to his faults. The consequence of this exaggeration
of the person’s value is that all titles, all forms of appellation,
especially those addressed to the female sex, tend to deteriorate, to
lose their original value. _Lady_ no longer means the wife of a
nobleman, but is applied to a washerwoman. _Sir_ is used in a letter
addressed to any man, however low his rank.
Deterioration of the meaning of words is not restricted to those used
for appellation. Whenever we desire to convey any thought to others, we
must make it appear important enough to have people give attention to
it. We therefore choose terms which mean more than we intend to say,
rather than terms which mean exactly as much or less. We call things
lovely or horrid when we mean only agreeable or disagreeable, we speak
of heaven or hell when we mean only a good or a bad place. The
inevitable result is, of course, that the impressive words become
insipid. We call a student fair who is only mediocre, merely because of
our good will towards him. _Fair_ then comes to mean mediocre, and we
call a student fair who is a poor student. Finally, a fair student comes
to mean a poor student.
Those who are particularly anxious to use impressive language--young
people, students, soldiers--often use the other extreme for the same
purpose. They use words which signify low or bad things and relations
(slang) in order to refer to the things and relations of ordinary life
to which they want to call attention. “Grub” comes to mean human food.
“Being plucked” takes the place of “being rejected at an honor
examination.” _Puritan_ and _quaker_ are slang terms of the seventeenth
century which have entirely lost their original meaning of contempt and
ridicule. In the same way words of low meaning are all the time being
raised into the realm of good language.
Speech depends as much on the totality of mental life as perception. A
person’s choice of words, their forms and their connections, are
determined by previous habits of using words, by experience concerning
those qualities of things which are most important to his own interests,
by his consciousness of his present needs and ends. The general purpose
of communication between the members of society tends to obliterate
differences between individuals and between generations. But it never
does this perfectly. Individuality, circumstances, and special purpose
give to the language of each person an individual stamp; and the
succession of individuals, of historical conditions, of the varying
needs of successive generations, brings about unavoidably alterations in
the language. These alterations are retarded by the existence of a
written language, of literature. They may also be retarded artificially
by training and compelling the members of a community to use the same
words and the same rules of grammar and syntax. Such artificial
remedies, however, are not without serious disadvantages. They take the
life out of language. Force, beauty, and particularly truthfulness in
representation of thoughts are likely to be sacrificed unless we are
willing to admit a certain amount of lawlessness, which, after all, is
the outcome of the fundamental laws of the mind.
4. _The Significance of Language_
Aside from its social significance as the almost exclusive means of
communication among the members of society, language has its
significance for purely individual mental activity and mental growth.
This has already been referred to above. Language makes possible an
almost unlimited refinement of abstract thought, a complete analysis of
the data of perceptual, ideational, and affective life into their
elements, and the construction out of them of new concepts, first
according to their similarities, then according to purposes. Such
concepts as acceleration, pitch of tone, irrational number, atomic heat,
justice, bliss, would be impossible without language. To the invention
of such abstract concepts mankind owes its subjugation of nature. It is
difficult to think of the exact manner in which bodies fall when they
are dropped; some fall slowly, others with great velocity, some do not
fall at all, but rise. But think of them as being in space from which
the air has been exhausted, and apply the concept of acceleration. At
once the matter is very simple, and it includes even the heavenly bodies
with which we never come in direct contact: all bodies fall with
_constant acceleration_.
This is but one of innumerable instances. Practically all laws of
physics, chemistry, philology, psychology, and all the other sciences
are stated in terms of highly abstract concepts. Imagine, for example,
the sine or tangent of an angle, electromotor force, molecular weight,
consonants and vowels, intensity of sensation. None of these abstract
concepts and none of the laws in which they appear could have been
invented without the aid of language. How restricted, further, would be
our knowledge without language! How limited the exchange of opinions!
Think of such a phrase as “the events of the last thirty years.” What a
multitude of ideas is suggested by it in the most economical manner! Few
of these ideas actually become conscious; but all of them are made ready
to serve if their services should be needed.
Language further enables us to overcome, whenever this is necessary, the
ambiguity of its own elements (the words) which results from the
individual and historical conditions influencing the growth of speech.
The meaning of words can be fixed by definition. Such words as _circle_,
_energy_, _freedom_, have many different meanings (a circle of friends,
the energy of style, the freedom of a city). The physicist defines
energy as the capacity for performing mechanical work, excluding any and
all other meanings. The philosopher defines freedom as the possession of
the power to act in accordance with one’s inherent nature, independent
of external causes. Because of the association between the defined and
the defining words, the latter keep the defined word from being used
wrongly, by entering consciousness when the defined word happens to be
used in an improper connection. It is true that, in order to insure
constancy of meaning, the defining words, too, should be defined again
by others, and so on. A perfect definition is therefore an ideal which
can be approached, but never reached. In spite of this, the value to
human thought and knowledge of clearly defined concepts is immeasurable.
QUESTIONS
141. Why does generalization play such an insignificant part in the
mental life of animals?
142. What are the four languages of educated normal people?
143. Which of these languages is acquired first by the child?
144. How does baby talk originate?
145. How are the reduplications of baby talk to be explained?
146. What is the origin of “a foreign accent” in speech?
147. Why does voluntary imitation of speech sounds by a baby
develop at first very slowly?
148. Illustrate the inventiveness of children in learning to
speak.
149. What could make one think that children surpass grown people
in the ability to generalize?
150. What are the four stages in the development of an individual’s
language?
151. What is the advantage or disadvantage of uniformity and
individuality in the use of language?
152. Illustrate how a word of individual meaning changes to a
general meaning.
153. Illustrate how a word of general meaning changes to an
individual meaning.
154. Explain the psychological origin of a metaphor and a metonymy.
155. Illustrate and explain the deterioration of words.
156. Illustrate slang and explain its origin.
157. Is it desirable that the written language should retard the
growth of the spoken language? Give reasons for your answer.
158. What significance has language besides serving as a means of
communication?
159. What is a definition? Why can a definition never become
perfect?
§ 17. JUDGMENT AND REASON
1. _Coherent Thought_
When I receive a letter from a friend, I perceive its words, I become
conscious of their meaning, I remember my relations to him; for
instance, the time of our first meeting. But my thought proceeds. I
wonder how he is getting along now, whether better or worse than myself,
whether he has succeeded in overcoming through his greater energy the
obstacles which retarded my progress. This is more than perception,
imagination, or abstract consciousness. It is a _coherent process of
thinking_. The best way of describing its characteristics is to tell
what the opposite of _coherent_ thought is.
First, coherent thought is not dreaming. The elements of a dream are of
course united by something. But they are united only like the links of
a chain. If the second link were removed, nothing would hold the first
and the third together. This chain-like thought is frequent in the
insane. The following is an example from Diefendorf’s _Psychiatry_:--
“My mother came for me in January. She had on a black bombazine of
Aunt Jane’s. One shoestring of her own and got another from
neighbor Jenkins. She lives in a little white house kitty corner of
our’n. Come up with an old green umbrella ’cause it rained. You
know it can rain in January when there is a thaw. Snow wasn’t more
than half an inch deep, hog-killing time, they butchered eight that
winter, made their own sausages, cured hams, and tried out their
lard. They had a smoke house. [Question: But how about your leaving
Hartford?] She got up to Hartford on the half-past eleven train and
it was raining like all get out. Dr. Butler was having dinner,
codfish, twasn’t Friday, he ain’t no Catholic, just sat with his
back to the door and talked and laughed and talked.”
In other cases, mere similarity of words of different meaning, rhyme,
familiar questions, or spatial contiguity of things lead consciousness
from one idea to a second, from the second to the third, and so on,
without any common tie which would unite all these ideas into one
system.
Coherent thought, secondly, is no endless recurring of the same few
ideas, as when I am brooding over something, when a song which I have
heard occupies my mind and gives me no peace, when the thought of having
possibly failed to lock the door properly prevents me from sleeping.
This recurring kind of thought, too, is a frequent symptom in cases of
mental derangement; for example, as a continuously present desire to
kill somebody, or as the permanent idea of one’s own sinfulness and
worthlessness.
Coherent thought is intermediate between the two extremes just
mentioned. It is a train of thought regulated by the associative
connections between all the separate ideas and one central idea which
dominates and unifies the whole. The thought of a football game or of
the destiny of the United States branches out into innumerable partial
thoughts, each one leading to another one. But they are all united by
their relation to this game or to this nation. Such a coherent thought
need not possess a considerable length. Sometimes, as in unconstrained
conversation or in letter writing, it may soon be followed by another
coherent thought, this by a third, and so on, and these may be related
to each other merely like the links of a chain. Sometimes, however, it
lasts for hours, as in lecturing on a definite subject, or in writing or
reading a chapter of a book or a whole book.
Coherent thought depends largely on _memory_, on associative
connections. But it depends also on those conditions which determine
_attention_: unless the thoughts have an affective value, unless they
are interesting to the individual in question, they are not likely to
enter consciousness. Because of this dependence on the conditions of
attention, certain persons are capable of coherent thought in some
lines, but not in others. Whenever the purely _associative_ function
predominates over the conditions of _attention_, or conversely, those
abnormalities occur of which we have just spoken, mere chain-like
thought, or obsession by a single idea.
Nothing else favors coherent thought so much as the possession of
language. The simplicity of a word or phrase and its connection with
experiences of unlimited complexity enable the mind to keep within one
system of thought in spite of temporary deviations, numerous and winding
though they be. Such complicated ideas, inexhaustible to him who tries
to describe them, as propriety, honor, duty, may guide and determine a
long-continued train of thoughts and actions. The most important one of
all these guiding ideas, crystallizing around a single word, is the idea
of self, of _I_.
2. _The Self and the World_
Among the impressions received by a child through his sense organs, some
must very early distinguish themselves from the rest. (1) When the child
is carried about or creeps about, the majority of his impressions change
from moment to moment: instead of a wall with pictures, seen a few
seconds ago, he sees windows with curtains; instead of tables and chairs
he sees houses, trees, and strange people. Certain impressions, however,
hardly change. Whatever else he may see, he almost invariably sees also
his hands and some of the lower parts of his body. Whatever may be the
position of his body, sensations from his clothing, from the movements
of his limbs, from the processes in his digestive and other organs are
always present. (2) Another impressive phenomenon is this. The things
seen often move, and thus cause alterations in the field of vision. But
when these moving things are his own arms and legs, yielding to the pull
of their muscles, there is an additional experience, made up of
kinesthetic and usually also tactual sensations. Certain experiences are
therefore a kind of twofold experience as compared with others which are
of one kind only: visual plus kinesthetic-tactual. (3) In still a third
way certain experiences distinguish themselves. Whenever the child’s
hands and feet come in contact with external things, a tactual sensation
is added to the visual impression. But when one hand touches the other
hand or a foot or another part of the body, even a part which is not
seen, a peculiar double tactual impression is received. That this
double tactual sensation is particularly interesting may be concluded
from the concentration with which an infant plays with his feet, and the
enjoyment which a kitten seems to get from biting its tail.
For various reasons, therefore, the sensations of a child’s _own body_,
visual, tactual, organic, etc., become experiences of a special class.
By various peculiarities they distinguish themselves from all others and
become a special, unitary group. But the child’s _ideas and feelings_,
when compared with his perceptions, also form a peculiar system, often
keeping unchanged while the perceptions change because of movements of
the objective things or of the body itself. It is quite natural, then,
that in opposition to the external world _a dual system_ is conceived,
made up of the bodily sensations on the one hand and the ideas and
feelings of frequently repeated or especially impressive experiences on
the other. But in spite of this unison between the complex of bodily
sensations and the complex of ideas, forming a personal world as opposed
to the external world, there remains an opposition between the
constituents of the personal world as between a material and a spiritual
half of the whole.
This complex idea of a personal world, of personality, which constantly
increases in content, is given a special name, John or Mary, and still
later another name, _I_. The unity of the idea of personality, the
readiness of its appearance in consciousness in spite of the multitude
of its contents, is greatly enhanced by this name. The idea _I_ becomes
the omnipresent and dominating factor in consciousness. I can see
nothing, hear nothing, imagine nothing without, however vaguely,
thinking that it is _I_ who reads, _I_ who answers, _I_ who designs. It
is altogether impossible to express such thoughts in language without
reference to the _I_ or the _mine_. In the ecstasy of the mystic or the
mental exaltation of the insane, the idea of _I_ may be absent, but
never under normal conditions at an age beyond that of infancy.
Consciousness in which the idea of _I_ is rather pronounced is commonly
called self-consciousness.
It is plain enough that thinking of the other half of the world, other
than the self, is also facilitated by such names as “the world,” “the
external world.” But the concept of the external world does not easily
attain the unity of the concept of self, because the experiences
referred to are too changeable in comparison with those referred to by
_I_. We speak of the external world chiefly in order to distinguish it
from the self, not because of the unity of its conception.
The extraordinary support which the consciousness of self receives from
language has had also a certain undesirable consequence. We have
mentioned in an earlier chapter the universal desire to imagine the
world as being under the power of innumerable demons. The consciousness
of the self thus leads naturally to the thought of a demon who inhabits
the human body. When a person under ordinary conditions is conscious of
the _I_, there is no time for its content to unfold itself to any
considerable extent. Usually one small group of ideas enters
consciousness, even when I ask myself the question as to what I am:
ideas of a certain visual appearance, a certain position in society, a
certain age, certain aims in life. It seems then that the concept of
self is exceedingly simple. This apparent simplicity gives aid to the
idea of the existence of a simple demon, independent of time, eternal,
inhabiting and governing this body as long as its organs are held
together by their normal physiological functions, after the body’s death
going elsewhere--whither, we do not know. But this conclusion as to the
existence of a simple, unitary subjective reality is no more justifiable
than the statement that, because of the simplicity of the idea _it_ in
ordinary language, there must be an absolutely simple objective reality
which corresponds to it.