In departing from phenomena by successive abstractions and
generalisations, we rise to laws that are more and more extensive:
so in setting out from the individual, species, genera, orders,
branches, and the like, are formed by a succession of abstractions and
generalisations. We have already followed this labor of the intellect
in its primitive attempts to introduce order into the multiplicity and
variety of living beings (Ch. III.). We saw its start in the period
of generic images, its passage through the various degrees of the
concrete-abstract period, and its final outcome by diverse paths into
a unitary conception. We must now take up the subject from the point
at which we left it, and consider the nature of the classificatory
concepts at the final term of their development, the moment of their
highest scientific determination. If the geometers were the first who
abstracted from extension the essential data of Space; if the astronomers
accomplished an analogous operation for Time; the naturalists for
their part had by abstraction to disengage from among the numerous
characteristics of living beings, those which, as fundamental, enable
them to reduce individuals to species, species to genera, and so on.
They are the inventors of the concepts which govern this province of
experience.
The notion of the individual, which is the basis, and preliminary
material, of biological classification, is sufficiently clear so long
as we confine ourselves to the higher creatures; it becomes obscure
and equivocal in descending to the lower grades, where life multiplies
by budding, or by division. Hence it has been a great stumbling-block
to the naturalists. For our purpose, the point is negligible. We can
without inconvenience omit the debates on this subject, and presume
that individuality always has its fixed characteristics. The work of
abstraction and of generalisation alone concern us.
Among all others, the Concept of Species is certainly the one which—more
especially in our own day—has been the most studied and disputed. Many
efforts have been made to determine its essential characters, to which
some attribute, and others refuse, an objective value. In effect, and
broadly speaking—two contrary theories obtain in this connexion:
1. That of fixity of species, the oldest, and long paramount: still
perhaps finding its partisans. If we accept this, we admit at the same
time that the naturalist in determining species, reveals a mystery of
nature, and partially discovers the plan of creation.
2. The complete antithesis of the foregoing, which maintains that only
individuals exist. In its absolute and radical form, this assertion seems
rarely to have been brought forward. It has, however, been said that
“the idea of species is not given to us by nature itself.”[131] In point
of fact, the contention of the transformists is different. They do not
refuse to recognise the grouping of living beings, according to their
degrees of similarity, into varieties and species; but they grant to
species only a momentary fixedness in time and space. It does not exist,
it is not a natural type, it is transitionally a stable variation; the
individual is the reality. From our point of view, this signifies that
the specific characters isolated by abstraction are of value only as
practical means of simplification in no way helping us to penetrate into
the nature of things.
However this may be,—and without for the moment inquiring whether the
work of abstraction in this province gives objective or subjective
results, whether it limits itself to simplification in relation to man,
or discovers in relation to nature,—let us follow it in its ascending
progress. Once again, we can distinguish two principal stages: that of
species corresponding to empirical and concrete law; that of genera, and
the still higher forms, corresponding to theoretical and ideal laws.
I.
The nature of a concept is fixed by the determination of its _constituent
elements_; these are determined by abstraction. Abstraction that is not
vulgar and arbitrary, but scientific, should disclose characteristics
that are the substitutes for a group (here living beings in general),
taking its place, and enabling us to think it. These constituent elements
of the concept of species are met with in nearly all the naturalists’
definitions.[132] They are two in number; species is determined by
two essential characteristics: similarity (morphological criterion),
filiation (physiological criterion).
1. Similarity seems at first sight easy to determine—as though we had
only to open our eyes; yet by this elementary procedure we hardly pass
beyond the level of generic images, and there is risk of falling into
many errors. It is necessary to penetrate into resemblances deeper than
the superficial; and here is the first degree of complexity. Buffon
observed that “the horse and the donkey, which are distinct species,
resemble each other more than the water spaniel and the harrier, which
are of the same species.” The facts which our contemporaries denote by
the name of _polymorphism_, entirely baffle the criterion of similarity.
Not to speak of the obvious difference between the larva and the perfect
insect, the caterpillar and the butterfly, or between the males, females,
and neuters of bees, ants, and termites; there are cases in which the
disparity between the two sexes is so great that the male and the female,
taken respectively as two different creatures, have been classified in
distinct _genera_, and even _orders_: e. g., the lampyris or glow-worm,
_Lernea_, and many others. The character of the resemblance is thus too
often vague, sometimes deceptive, nearly always inadequate: it follows
that we must resort to the other, to filiation.
2. This, the physiological criterion, again appears to leave no opening
for equivocation, since it can be materially stated. Generally speaking,
one is imbued with the notion that children resemble their parents, that
the immediate product is the reproduction of the type of the progenitors.
But the alternating generations (metagenesis, geneagenesis) discovered
in the course of the present century, show that this conception is
too simple, and often fallacious. This mode of reproduction is by
no means rare; we meet with it among a great number of the lower
plants, infusoria, worms, and even insects. “The dominating fact in
the reproduction of all these creatures, is that a _sexual_ being, of
definite form, gives birth to _a-sexual_ beings which do not resemble
it, but which in their turn produce by a sort of budding, or by fission
of their bodies, the sexual creatures similar to those from which they
issued.” Vogt, accordingly, in his definition of species, is forced to
include the case of alternate generation by saying: “Species is the
reunion of all the individuals that originate from the same parents, and
are in themselves, _or in their descendants_, similar to their primordial
ancestors.”
In brief, the general notion of species depends upon two ideas, complex
notwithstanding their apparent simplicity, fluctuating in spite of their
apparent precision.
Till now, we have spoken of species as if it were directly superposed
upon individuals, as if it resulted from immediate generalisation. This
is not the naturalists’ position. Their classification descends from the
species to the individual by decreasing generalisations of the race and
the variation. Thus the human species comprises several races (white,
yellow, etc.), the white race comprises several variations (English,
Arab type, etc.). To the partisan of fixedness of species, these three
general notions have not the same value: species alone has peculiar
and irreducible characters, which are deduced from the function of
reproduction and the facts of cross-breeding.
Couple two individuals of distinct _species_: the union is generally
sterile. If otherwise, the hybrids which result from it are unfruitful.
If, as rarely happens, they propagate themselves, the offspring rapidly
return to the type of one of the ancestral species.
Couple two individuals of distinct _races_ or _variations_, the union
will be fruitful; the resulting cross-breeds are again fertile; the
progenitors are able to create and fix varieties, and even races.
Hence, it is concluded, species must be a thing that exists, that
protects itself, does not let itself be encroached upon.
Evidently the debated question is one of facts: and both the parties in
dispute adduce experimental evidence. Few in number as they may be, there
are fertile hybrids, which perpetuate themselves. They are found among
birds and mammals, e. g., the alpaca and the vicuna, the bull and the
zebu, the goat and the sheep—which have for issue the ovicaprinæ,—the
hare and the rabbit—whose offspring is the leporide, (their perpetuity
has been contested). On the other hand, if certain _species_ have thus
been formed by a durable blend, there exist _races_ that have been
refractory to all attempts at cross-breeding: i. e., the domestic and
Brazilian guinea-pig, different races of rats, of rabbits, etc.
We need not enter into the discussion, nor enumerate the observations
and experiments invoked on either side: they are to be found in special
works. Our aim was to discover the constituent elements of the notion of
species in its scientific aspect. Now, neither the morphological element
nor the physiological element has any distinguishing mark of permanence
and universality. The concept of species is possessed of no absolute
value; neither is it a simple replica in the mind of the “plan of
nature.” The result of abstraction and of generalisation, it corresponds
to something which is fixed for a certain time in certain conditions; it
has temporary and provisional objectivity.[133]
II.
Contemporary discussion is almost entirely centred upon species. Little
is said about genera, and still less of the higher divisions. We do not,
in any case, find what we require: the determination of constitutive
elements, of general acceptance, which shall be for the genus, family,
order, or class, the equivalent of the two denotative marks—morphological
and physiological—that are attributed to species.
This has not always been the case. At the time when there was general
belief in a scheme of creation, the naturalists were careful, by bringing
together species, genera, families, etc., to disengage more and more
general characters, which they regarded as essential, and determined by
the nature of the thing. We have already said that Linnæus was the first
to formulate a precise notion of genus, to which he expressly attributed
a _reality_: “You must know,” he says, in his _Philosophia botanica_,
“that it is not character that constitutes the genus, but genus the
character; that character devolves from genus, not genus from character;
that character exists not in order that genus should come about (_fiat_),
but so that the genus should be known.” In the binary nomenclature which
he adopted, the first term designates the genus, the second one of the
species included. Thus the dog and the wolf have characters by which
they resemble each other, and are distinguished from other animals (five
fingers on the anterior limbs, four only on the posterior, twenty-two
teeth in the upper and lower jaw, etc.) Linnæus classifies them as the
genus _Canis_, of which _Canis familiaris_, _Canis lupus_, _Canis
vulpes_, etc., are the species. Again, the genus _Felis_, determined
by the characters common to certain animals exclusively, comprises in
its species: the cat (_Felis catus_), the lion (_Felis leo_), the tiger
(_Felis tigris_), etc.
Agassiz, the last representative of the line of naturalists who
aspired at reproducing the order of nature in the hierarchy of their
classificatory concepts, characterises the genera and divisions superior
to them by vague formulæ. Of these we can judge from the following
passage:
“Individuals are the support, at the actual moment, of the characters
not merely of species, but of all other divisions. As representative of
_genus_, they have certain details of a definite and specific structure,
identical with those possessed by the representatives of other species.
As representative of _family_, they have a definite constitution,
expressive of a distinct and specific model, in forms resembling those
of the representatives of other genera. As representative of _order_,
they take definite rank, as compared with the representatives of other
families. As representative of _class_, they manifest the structural
plan of their ramifications by the aid of special means, and according
to specific directions. As representative of _branches_ the individuals
are all organised on a distinct plan which differs from the plan of other
branch-lines.”[134]
It was shown above (Ch. III.) that the contemporary classifications,
which are radically embryological, transformist, and generic, proceed
otherwise, and have a different aim. Their ideal is to draw up the
genealogical tree of living beings, with its multiple ramifications,
marking the principal moments of evolution.
But if, leaving aside the material of these (animal or vegetable)
classifications, we consider only the psychological labor by which they
are constituted, we find that the transformists and their adversaries
have at least one common point which is of cardinal importance. The
notion of fundamental types—conceived as fixed or provisory—is for
the one as for the other a compass, a guide in research, a normal,
by means of which deviations are appreciated. Hence, these concepts
have a practical value, and it is true that we find abstraction and
generalisation in their principal rôle, which is, not to discover, but to
simplify, above all to be useful.
In effect, the one side, yielding to the natural tendency of the mind to
reify abstractions, admit the permanence and objectivity of types: they
believe firmly that they have in certain concepts the possibility of an
ideal reconstruction of the entire world of living beings. This faith
sustains them and urges them on to more and more exact determinations.
Their opponents, the transformists of every degree, are guided by
a different ideal; they search after continuity, transition, forms
of passage. Species, genera, families, etc., are but provisory
starting-points, with intermediate lacunæ which they endeavor to bridge
over. Although the animal order, the chain of life, is itself only a
theoretical construction, a natural abstraction, many fine works could
be quoted which are inspired by this faith in continuity. Such, e. g.,
are Huxley, Cope, and others upon the genus _Equus_, establishing the
filiation of the four-fingered _Eohippus_ of the old Tertiary epoch,
with the Hipparion of the new Tertiary epoch, and with the Horse of the
Quaternary period.
The hierarchy of concepts formed by superposition of abstractions and
generalisations only facilitates the task. The sole incontestable
value that can be assigned to any notion of species, and still more
to genus, and other still more general concepts, is that of utility.
They are successful implements in the investigation of nature. All
other pretensions are open to discussion. One position more especially
is untenable: that which claims for concepts, the pure results of
abstraction, an absolute value. It is obvious that they can have none.
They are neither reality nor fiction, but approximations.
* * * * *
Laws and species—two general notions which must be connected—were
bound to vary in the course of evolution, because they are entirely
subordinated to the conditions which govern the existence of phenomena
and of living beings. Let us—merely as an illustration to fix our
ideas—admit the hypothesis of a primitive nebula. Imagine (which is
impossible) an intelligent being, able, at that point in the world’s
history, to draw up a scheme of the existing laws. He could discover
none but those which govern matter in the gaseous state,—some of which
are still extant, others unknown to us, and unknowable—since, their
conditions of existence having ceased, they are annihilated. When at
a later time this matter, uniformly diffused and dispersed through
space, became divided from one or other cause into vast nebulous
spheres commencing their slow revolution, our hypothetical being might
have surprised the birth of the astronomical laws. Subsequently, the
constitution of the liquid state of matter, and then of the solid state
in its different degrees, would give birth to new physico-chemical laws,
others meantime disappearing. When, finally, life—whatever may have been
its origin—appeared, other laws again loomed forth, and the possibility
of classification. Yet to the hypothetical spectator, these must needs
be highly singular, highly dissimilar from our own—unless we admit the
hypothesis of a world created at one throw.
It is needless to enter into the details of this long evolution, as
it is generally admitted to have been. Enough to remember that the
matter whence abstraction deduces laws and species has varied, and may
vary again in the course of ages. If, on the other hand, we consider
the slow progress of human knowledge, and the incessant corrections
imposed by experience and reasoning from century to century, we find
ourselves confronted with two variable factors, one objective, the other
subjective. No permanence can result from their union. Long as may be
the stability of laws and species, nothing guarantees their perpetual
duration. So that after two centuries which make a brave show in the
history of the sciences, we may still advance the formula of Leibnitz:
“Our determinations of physical species are provisional and proportional
to our knowledge.”[135]
Many other concepts might be added to the preceding, among them, those of
the moral sciences. I forbear, because the history of their fluctuations
would in itself exact a volume. Till now, these have been ill-determined,
badly defined. May we even speak of any regular evolution? Have they not
rather suffered _corsi e ricorsi_, which bring them back perennially to
their point of departure? Whenever—during a development of centuries—the
work of abstraction has succeeded, we have seen it pass through
successive phases:—generic ideas, intermediate forms, higher forms—but
not by any constant process. Sometimes it has rapidly attained the period
of complete simplification, as in mathematics; sometimes it is long
arrested in its progress, as in the natural sciences: sometimes, again,
as in the less established sciences, it is incapable even to the present
day of transcending the lowest stages.
CHAPTER VI.
CONCLUSION.
We have endeavored to show how the faculty of abstracting and of
generalising has been developed empirically, and to follow it in its
spontaneous and natural evolution as shown in history,—not in the
philosophical speculations which are only its efflorescence, and which,
for the most part, ignore or despise its origins. It remains to us,
in conclusion, to seek out how, and by what causes, this intellectual
process has constituted and developed itself: further—what are the
different directions it has followed in the course of its development.
I. To contemporary psychology, the mind is a sum of processes of
dissimilar nature, whose mode of appearance and of evolution depends
upon predetermined conditions. In the total of intellectual operations,
abstraction is a process of secondary formation: it does not belong
to the primary stratum of sensations and percepts, of appetites and
tendencies, of primitive emotions. We found however that it was there in
embryo. How then, instead of remaining in this rudimentary state, has it
been so differentiated as to become a function proper to the intellect,
and with a long development that is still in progress?
The primary condition is the existence of _attention_, which brings a few
points into relief, amid the general confusion. We have shown elsewhere
that attention itself depends originally upon the instinct of individual
preservation.[136] Attention, however, can only precede and prepare
for abstraction, because it is a momentary state of application to the
variable aspects of events, and does not isolate anything.
We know how the first labor of separation, of dissociation, takes effect
in the formation of generic images, and how the extracted quality
_fixed_ itself, for better or worse, by the aid of a visual, auditory,
tactile scheme, by a movement, a gesture, which confers on it a sort of
independence.
Finally, with the word—the substitute for the abstract intuition—the
mental dissociation approximates to a real dissociation: the abstract
character, incarnated in the word, seems, as happens only too often, to
exist by itself. The process of abstraction, with its fitting instrument,
is completely constituted.
During these successive phases, and afterwards, throughout the course
of the historical development of human intelligence, the progress of
abstraction and of generalisation, depends upon two principal causes: one
general, i. e., utility; the other accidental and sporadic, the advent of
inventors.
I. In his book on _Darwinism_ (Ch. XV.) Wallace, in contesting the
theory that applies the law of conservation of variations, useful in
the struggle for existence, to the mental faculties, insists at length
upon the mathematical faculty; he maintains that it is an inexplicable
exception, a case that cannot be reduced to law. The inaptitude of
inferior races for even the simplest calculations is well known;
how—from such a rudimentary origin—could it develop into the genius of
a Newton, a Laplace, or a Gauss? What motive power accounts for this
development? The author establishes by a host of sufficiently useless
historical details, that mathematical superiority played no part in the
struggle of tribe with tribe, and later on of people with people (Greeks
against Persians), and that the victory resulted from other causes, moral
and social. For this there is abundant evidence. But since mathematical
aptitude is only a particular instance of abstraction, albeit one of the
most perfect, the question ought to be proposed under a more general
form. Had the aptitude for abstraction, _ab initio_, any practical value?
Yes, “the motive power that caused its development, that Wallace claims
without specifying it, is utility.”
To avoid possibility of equivocation, let us remark that the development
of the attitude for abstracting and generalising may be explained in
a two-fold manner: by acknowledging the influence of heredity, and by
omitting it.
In the former case, it is supposed that this aptitude appears as a
“spontaneous variation” in the individual or race, that it fixes itself,
is reciprocal, grows by slow accumulation in the course of generations.
This theory postulates the heredity of acquired characters, which is
accepted by some, rejected by others, more especially since the advent of
Weismann. I refrain from invoking it, by reason of its hypothetical and
disputed nature. The probability of any transmission would moreover be
far harder to establish here than in other psychical directions, such as
imagination, or feeling.
In the second case, with elimination of the hereditary factor, progress
must be attributed to social causes, utility and imitation. From all time
there have been minds which when face to face with practical problems
knew better than others how to extract the essential, and neglect the
accessory, in the complex of facts. The utility of abstraction is
identical with that of attention, which does not require demonstration;
it may be summed up in a single word: to simplify. As the process
succeeds, it finds imitators. There is no need to admit at the outset
any reflected and fully conscious abstraction: a happy instinct, guided
by the needs of life, is sufficient at the commencement. Races that
are poorly gifted in this respect, or little apt at imitating their
betters, have never got beyond a low level. In effect, abstraction and
generalisation are the nerve of all knowledge that transcends sensation.
Is this mode of cognition useful? There can be no possible doubt as to
the answer.
2. The rôle of inventors corresponds to the fact which, in transformist
terminology, is known as spontaneous variation. By inventors, we mean
those who are born with the talent or the genius for abstraction. It
is superfluous to prove that such have been found, in considerable
numbers. They are abstract thinkers by instinct, as others are musicians,
mechanicians, designers. The biography of the great mathematicians
abounds in examples: Pascal inventing geometry out of a few vague
indications from his father; Newton divining Euclid’s demonstrations
from the simple enunciation of the theorems; Ampère, before he could
read or understand the use of figures, making long calculations by means
of a few pebbles; Gauss, at five years old, rectifying the arithmetic
of a workman, etc. If fewer analogous facts can be quoted from the
other sciences, it is because mathematical precocity is frequent, and
is more surprising. All that is the effect of innate disposition: this
word serving only to recapitulate our ignorance of the causes which
produce such minds. In the development of knowledge by abstraction and
generalisation, the first cause—utility—may be likened to the part played
by slow actions in geology; whether in the case of practical inventions,
or of the constitution of an idiom, it is continuous, collective, and
anonymous. The rôle of the great abstract thinkers, on the contrary,
resembles the rapid and epoch-making actions.
II. If we now consider the progress of abstraction from a more general
point of view (instead of following it step by step, from its lowest
to its highest degree, as in the preceding chapters), i. e., according
to its orientation towards a given end, we find that it has followed
three principal directions during its history: practical, speculative,
scientific. These are, indeed, inseparable, inasmuch as practical
abstraction leads to science, scientific abstraction is profitable to
practice, and speculation cannot entirely forego the other two.[137]
Abstraction and practical generalisation are necessarily the first in
order, as we found in studying their first appearance in the lower
animals, in children, and in savages. They serve to distinguish the
qualities of things by some word, or sign; they subserve the simple
adaptations of daily life. Later on, at a higher stage, they note the
appearance of mixed processes, which, while more especially directed to
utility, are already the prelude to scientific knowledge. Disinterested
curiosity has awakened, and timidly makes for daylight. A minimum
acquaintance with the history of the sciences teaches us that all were at
their origin processes of _applied_ research, and that often, in their
uncertain efforts, our forbears found what they were not looking for. The
numerative systems issued from the need of counting objects, and later
on, from rude commercial exchanges. Elementary geometry was required,
in order to measure the fields, to determine a right angle, to fix
relative positions, and to furnish the indispensable parts of primitive
architecture. The invention of the lever, of the balance, of rudimentary
engines for the lifting of heavy masses, gave the first foundations of
mechanics. Astronomy arose in the desire to regulate civil life and
the religious festivals, and the wish (e. g., among the Peruvians and
Mexicans) not to irritate the gods by delaying the sacrifices due to
them. Metallurgy, and later on the search for the philosopher’s stone,
and the elixir of life, were the prelude to scientific chemistry. The
historical outset of each science would furnish a profusion of similar
facts.
The two other operations issued by an internal division of labor from
this—at first the only—tendency of the mind.
First come purely speculative, i. e., philosophical or metaphysical
abstraction and generalisation. This new trend has clean and well defined
characteristics; and it was, in antiquity, the privilege of two peoples
alone, the Greeks and the Hindus. Abstraction leads immediately to the
highest generalisations; from the crude and direct simplification of a
few facts, the mind leaps at a bound to the final causes of things;
it skips the intermediate stages: it ignores the sequence of slow
and progressive evolution. This procedure where, in point of fact,
abstraction and generalisation are only the servants of a particular form
of imagination, found its first complete expression in Plato, and the
Theory of Ideas. With Plato, the human intellect tasted for the first
time the supreme pleasures of playing with the highest abstractions,
and believing firmly that the universe can be summed up, constructed
and explained by the help of some few entities. In this direction,
notwithstanding its manifold changes of aspect, the generalising process
has remained fundamentally the same, and has done no more than repeat
itself. We are here concerned with statement, not with criticism.
Psychologists must needs admit that this tendency to construct the world
(whether or no it be illusory) is a fact inherent in the nature of the
human intellect. Stallo, in the book already quoted,[138] gives an
incisive critique of the fundamental concepts of the physical sciences,
and their unconscious trend towards metaphysics. His appreciation of the
characteristics proper to the purely speculative process of abstraction
and generalisation is so apt, that we cannot do better than transcribe it:
“Whatever diversity may exist between metaphysical systems,
they are all founded upon the express or implied supposition
that there is a fixed correspondence between concepts and
their filiations on the one hand and things and their mode
of interdependence on the other. This fundamental error is
in great part due to a delusory view of the function of
language as an aid to the formation and fixation of concepts.
Roughly stated, concepts are the meanings of words; and the
circumstances that words primarily designate things, or at
least objects of sensation and their sensible interactions,
has given rise to certain fallacious assumptions which, unlike
the ordinary infractions of the laws of logic, are in a sense
natural outgrowths of the evolution of thought (not without
analogy to the organic diseases incident to bodily life) and
may be termed structural fallacies of the intellect. These
assumptions are:
“1. That every concept is the counterpart of a distinct
objective reality, and that hence there are as many things, or
natural classes of things, as there are concepts or notions.
“2. That the more general or extensive concepts and the
realities corresponding to them pre-exist to the less general,
more comprehensive, concepts and their corresponding realities;
and that the latter concepts and realities are derived from
the former, either by a successive addition of attributes or
properties, or by a process of evolution, the attributes or
properties of the former being taken as implications of those
of the latter.
“3. That the order of the genesis of concepts is identical with
the order of the genesis of things.
“4. That things exist independently of and antecedently to
their relations; that all relations are between absolute terms;
and that therefore whatever reality belongs to the properties
of things is distinct from that of the things themselves.”
The differences between this procedure and that proper to the third (or
scientific) direction need hardly be enumerated.
Here the advance is step by step, without for an instant losing hold of
the thread that leads back to the starting-point of experience. Even
where the mind takes giant strides, or leaps across the intermediate
generalisations, it pauses to verify its results and to take up the
thread it had loosed for the moment. This is the typical process. Since
it formed the basis of our discussion of the intermediate and higher
forms of abstraction, we need not here return to it. Yet in conclusion,
it is well to recall once more what makes it of sterling value.
To reduce the essentials of abstraction and generalisation to the
exclusive use of the word (or sign) as is customary, is an error that
can only be explained by the time-honored neglect of the function of
the _unconscious_ in psychology. The sign is no more than an instrument
of simplification, an abbreviated formula. When the mind works with the
aid of concepts, the co-operation of two factors, the one conscious,
the other unconscious or subconscious, is required, in order that its
labor may be legitimate and fruitful: on the one hand, we have words or
signs, accompanied sometimes by a vague representation; on the other
hand, a latent, potential, organised knowledge. We endeavored above (Ch.
IV.) to show how this _couple_ forms and fixes itself. The mechanism is
invariably the same, without exception. Whether we keep up a trivial
conversation by means of the abstract terms which compose our languages,
or whether we ascend to the highest generalisations, there is in the
mental state no more than a difference in degree; there is no difference
in nature. Beneath the words that are the clear factors, exists the dumb
travail, the vague invocation, of the organised experience that gives
life to them. Without this unconscious factor which may, often does,
become conscious, there is nought but illusion. When we induct, deduct,
traverse a long series of abstractions to demonstrate or to discover, the
useful work consists in new relations which establish themselves in our
organised potential knowledge; words are no more than the instruments
that commence the task, facilitate and mark its phases. When the mind
is grappling with the highest abstractions, and climbs from height to
height, what preserves it from catastrophe, and guarantees against error,
is the quantity and quality of the unconscious material stored up
beneath the words. The entomologist who at first sight, and immediately,
classifies one insect among millions of species, acts in virtue of
his long experience, impressed firmly in his memory with salient
characteristics: he proceeds from the sensory data to the name. In the
inverse operation, when he merely enunciates the name, all this acquired
knowledge is the substrate. The existence of these conscious-unconscious
couples is, so to speak, a rule in psychology: general ideas are but
a particular case, perhaps the least well-known: hence we previously
likened them (Ch. IV.) to _mental habits_.
It follows that in proportion as we ascend in generalisation we rise,
not into vacuity, as has been said, but into the simple—as also, it
must be confessed, into the approximate. The relatively empty concepts
(there are none that are absolutely void of content) are the product
of a discontinuous generalisation which prevents descent without
interruption or omission into the concrete. Of course these are chiefly
encountered in the world of pure speculation. They are names representing
a knowledge that is incomplete, partial, inadequate, or ill-organised;
they correspond not to elimination of what is useless, but to deficit of
what is necessary. Having no possible contact with reality, they float
in an unreal atmosphere, and are material for a fragile and quickly
crumbling architecture. The aim of thinking by concepts is to substitute
for complex states, simpler conditions that may be turned and re-turned
in every possible sense, in order the better to discover their relations:
whereas here, by the nature of things, the unconscious activity, the
labor that operates silently in the lower strata, is applied to a soil
that is full of faults and fissures, and can but project a false light
into consciousness.
It has frequently been stated that symbolic thought is thinking by
substitution. This formula is admissible only when we recognise that
the substitute supposes, nay expects, the _actual_ existence of that
for which it is substituted. Substitution is valid in consciousness,
but not for the total operation. To sum up in a word: the psychology of
abstraction and generalisation, is in a great measure the _psychology of
the unconscious_.
We have merely studied general ideas in so far as they have an assignable
origin in experience, and do not transcend its limits. Are there, as some
maintain, notions anterior to any sensory intuition—that can by no means
nor effort be derived from empirical data? It is not our part to discuss
this question. The thesis—whether or no it be legitimate—is a contention
in favor of innate ideas, and in whatever fashion it is conceived (_à
priori_ forms, hereditary disposition, cerebral conformation), it is the
problem of the ultimate constitution of human intelligence, which we have
rigorously eliminated from our present subject.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _La parole_ is here, and subsequently, translated by _speech_; _le
mot_ by _words_, or _language_,—_verbal_ language being throughout
understood.—_Trans._
[2] Schmidkunz, _Ueber die Abstraction_. Halle: Stricker, 1889. This
little work of forty-three pages contains a good historical and
theoretical exposition of the question.
[3] Schmidkunz, _loc. cit._ This author, who rightly insists upon the
positive character of abstraction (which is too frequently considered
as a negation) observes that no concept, not even that of infinity, is
in its psychological genesis the result of negation, for, “in order to
deduce from the idea of a finite thing the idea of infinity, it is first
necessary to abstract from that thing its quality of finality, which is
certainly a positive act; subsequently, in order to reach infinity, it
is sufficient either constantly to increase the time, magnitude, and
intensity of the finite, which is a positive process; or to deny the
limits of the finite, which is tantamount to denying the negation.”
[4] _Psychology of Attention._ Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Co.
[5] See especially Hoeffding, _Psychologie_. German translation. Second
Edition, pp. 223 et seq.
[6] W. James, _Psychology_. Vol. I., p. 459.
[7] Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_. Vol. I., Part 2, Chapter
II.—Bain (in the last chapter of _Emotions and Will_) says that nothing
more fundamental can possibly be assigned as a mark of intelligence than
the feeling of difference between consecutive or co-existing impressions.
“There are cases, however, where agreement imparts the shock requisite
for rousing the intellectual wave; but it is agreement so qualified as
to be really a mode of difference.” For a review and ample discussion
of this problem see Ladd’s _Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory_,
Chapter XIV. The earlier psychologists, in considering the “faculty of
comparison” which acts by resemblance and difference, as primordial, had
observed the same fact, although they described it in different terms.
[8] W. James, _Psychology_. Vol. I., pp. 502 and 506.
[9] This term is borrowed from the well-known works of Galton on
composite photographs, which are scarcely more than twenty years old.
Huxley in his book on Hume (Chapter IV.) appears to be the first who
introduced it into psychology, as shown by the following passage: “This
mental operation may be rendered comprehensible by considering what
takes place in the formation of compound photographs—when the images
of the faces of six sitters, for example, are each received on the
same photographic plate, for a sixth of the time requisite to take
one portrait. The final result is that all those points in which the
six faces agree are brought out strongly, while all those in which
they differ are left vague; and thus what may be termed a _generic_
portrait of the six is produced. Thus our ideas of single complex
impressions are incomplete in one way, and those of numerous, more or
less similar, complex impressions are incomplete in another way; that
is to say, they are generic.... And hence it follows that our ideas of
the impressions in question are not, in the strict sense of the word,
copies of those impressions; while at the same time they may exist in
the mind independently of language.” Romanes employs the word “recept”
for “generic images,” as marking their intermediate place between the
“percept” which is below, and the “concept” which is above them.
[10] For details see Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, Chapters III. and
V. As to the probability of their possessing means of communication for
assistance in their co-operative labors see below, Chapter II.
[11] Romanes. _Animal Intelligence_, Chapter III.
[12] C. Lloyd Morgan. _Animal Life and Intelligence_, Chapter IX., p. 364.
[13] Houzeau, _Etudes sur les facultés mentales des animaux_, Vol. II.,
p. 264 et seq. The same author gives an example of generalisation in bees.
[14] Darwin, _The Descent of Man_, Vol. I., Chapter III.
[15] Romanes, _loc. cit._, Chapter XVII.
[16] At the end of the passage in question there is an extraordinary
account of the arithmetical powers of a dog which Lubbock explains by
“thought reading.” I omit this instance, since we are deliberately
rejecting all rare or doubtful cases.
[17] _Mental Evolution in Man_, Chapter III., p. 58.
[18] J. Sully, _The Human Mind_, I., 460. The author gives excellent
diagrams to represent the difference in the two cases. For reasoning from
particular to particular, cf. also J. S. Mill, _Logic_, II., Chapter
III., p. 3; Bradley, _Logic_, II., Chapter II., p. 2.
[19] _In re_ analogy, consult Stern’s monograph, _Die Analogie im
volksthümlichen Denken_, Berlin, 1894.
[20] _Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of Thought, delivered
at the Royal Institution_, appendix, p. 6, letter 4; Chicago, 1888. It
should, however, be remembered that the writer who thus uses the logic of
images has a mind preformed by the logic of signs: which is not the case
with animals.
[21] _Psychology_, II., 348 et seq. James, however, recalls the case
of another dog accustomed to find and carry wedges for splitting wood.
One day he did not return. After half an hour they looked for him; he
was biting and tearing at the handle of a hatchet stuck in a block
(the wedge was not forthcoming). Had this animal clear perception of
the common character of the two instruments used for splitting? “This
interpretation is possible, but it seems to me far to transcend the
limits of ordinary canine abstraction.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 352.) James
attempts another explanation. It is singular that he does not invoke
training, and association with man: that this is an influential factor
in the intellectual development of animals cannot be doubted. It is
advisable to adduce exclusively their spontaneous inventions, with no
possible suggestion: such facts alone are clear and convincing.
[22] Lloyd Morgan, whose tendencies have already been indicated,
distinguishes three sorts of inferences: (1) unconscious inference on
immediate construction (perceptual); (2) intelligent inference (conceded
to animals), dealing with constructs and reconstructs (perceptual); and
(3) rational inference, implying analysis and isolation (conceptual).
(_Op. cit._, p. 362.)
[23] _Nouveaux Essais_, Book III., Chapter I.
[24] Cf. Taine, _L’Intelligence_, Vol. I., Book I., Chapter II., Part 2,
Note 1. Preyer, _Die Seele des Kindes_, Chapter XVI.
[25] Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 283.
[26] B. Pérez, _op. cit._, 210.
[27] Houzeau, _op. cit._, II., 202.
[28] Cf. _Revue Philosophique_, July, 1890.
[29] Max Müller, however, is an exception. He has not made the smallest
concession on this point in any of his works, including the last
(_Three Lectures_, etc., cited above). He even maintains that a society
of deaf-mutes would hardly rise above the intellectual level of a
chimpanzee. “A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass
and his inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable
of few higher intellectual manifestations than an orang or a chimpanzee,
if he were confined to the society of dumb associates” (p. 92). This
thesis was attacked by thirteen critics, including Romanes, Galton, the
Duke of Argyle, etc., but Max Müller meets them all and replies to them
without flinching. It must be confessed that the arguments invoked by his
correspondents are very unequal in merit. Some are convincing, others
not. The Duke of Argyle says happily that “words are necessary to the
progress of thought, but not at all to the _act_ of thinking.” Ebbels (p.
13, appendix) shows that Max Müller has unduly limited the question by
excluding all processes anterior to the formation of concepts; we think
in images; the transition from one form to another is imperceptible,
and the faculty of abstraction does not appear suddenly along with the
signs. On the other hand, we cannot admit as evidence the facts invoked
by other correspondents, e. g., chess-players who combine and calculate
solely by the aid of visual images; answers to letters, conceived in the
first place as a general plan before they are developed in words, etc. It
is forgotten that the persons capable of these operations have had long
practice in verbal analysis, thereby attaining a high intellectual level.
So, in the physical order, the practical gymnast, even when not executing
any particular feat, possesses a suppleness and agility of body, due to
exercise, which translates itself into all his movements.
[30] _De l’Education des sourds-muets_, 2 vol., 1827. Notwithstanding
its somewhat remote date, the book has lost none of its interest in this
particular. It must also be remembered that institutions for deaf-mutes
are far more numerous now than at the beginning of the century, and
that the children are placed in them much earlier. Formerly they were
abandoned to themselves or instructed very late; in proportion to their
age, they presented better material for the study of their development.
[31] Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, p. 80. Romanes, _Mental Evolution
in Man_, Chapter VI.
[32] Kussmaul, _Die Störungen der Sprache_, Chapter xxx.
[33] Cf. as proof, the story related by Kussmaul (_op. cit._, VII.): A
young deaf-mute was arrested by the police of Prague as a vagabond. He
was placed in an institution and questioned by suitable methods, when
he made known that his father had a mill with a house and surroundings
which he described exactly; that his mother and sister were dead, and his
father had re-married; that his step-mother had ill-treated him, and that
he had planned an escape which had succeeded. He indicated the direction
of the mill to the east of Prague. Inquiries were made, and all these
statements were verified.
[34] Romanes, _Mental Evolution_, etc., p. 150.
[35] W. James, _Psychology_, I., 266, for the second observation;
_Philosophical Review_, I., No. 6, p. 613 et seq. for the first.
[36] _Sign-Language Among the North American Indians_, 1881. Published
in Report of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington. Cf. also: Tylor,
_op. cit._; Romanes, _op. cit._, VI.; Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation_,
Chapter VI.; Kleinpaul, _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsych._, VI., 353.
[37] Lubbock. _The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of
Man_, p. 417.
[38] Gérando, _op. cit._, II., note K, p. 203. Among the gestures that
are identical under their double form may be noted stone, water, large,
tall, to see, finished, man, house, good, pretty, now, etc.
[39] _Philosophy of the Human Mind_, Ch. I., sect. 2.
[40] Kleinpaul, _loc. cit._
[41] Writing, ideography, originated in an analytical process analogous
with the language of gestures. Like the latter, it (1) isolates terms,
(2) arranges them in a certain order, (3) translates thought in a crude
and somewhat vague form. Curious examples of this may be found in Max
Müller’s _Chips from a German Workshop_, XIV. The aborigines of the
Caroline Islands sent a letter to a Spanish captain, as follows: Above, a
man with extended arms, sign of greeting. Below, to the left, the objects
he has to offer; five big shells, seven little ones, three others of
different forms. To the right and centre, drawing of the objects wanted
in exchange: three large fish hooks, four small ones, two axes, and two
pieces of iron.
[42] _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_, VII.—Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, IV.
[43] _Animal Intelligence_, XVI., p. 445.
[44] The most interesting of the many observations on this subject
are those of Dr. Wilks, F. R. S., published in the _Journal of Mental
Science_, July, 1879.
[45] _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 137.
[46] _Der Ursprung der Sprache_ (1877). Fr. Müller maintained a similar
view.
[47] A. Lefèvre, _Les races et les langues_ (_Bibliothèque scientifique
internationale_), pp. 5-6.
[48] _Loc. cit._, 372.
[49] Heinicke, _Beobachtungen über Stumme_, 75, 137.
[50] Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, pp. 377-379.
[51] For documents, consult especially Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, V;
Sayce _Principles of Comparative Philology_, I., § 17.
[52] This list may be found in _The Science of Thought_, p. 406.
[53] How were primitive terms (roots or words) formed? A much-debated and
still unsolved question. Man had at his disposal one primary element, the
interjection. By all accounts this remained sterile, unfertile; it did
not give birth to words; it remained in articulate language as a mark
of its emotional origin. A second proceeding was that of imitation with
the aid of sound, onomatopœia. From antiquity to the present time, it
has been regarded as the parent, _par excellence_. This was accepted by
Renan, Whitney, Tylor, H. Paul, etc.; rejected by M. Müller, Bréal, P.
Regnaud, etc. No one disputes the formation of many words by onomatopœia,
but those who question its value as a universal process say that “if in
certain sounds of our idioms we seem to hear an imitation of the sounds
of nature, we must recollect that the same noises are represented by
quite different sounds in other languages, which are also held by those
who utter them to be onomatopœia. Thus it would be more just to say
that we hear the sounds of nature through the words to which our ear
has been accustomed from infancy” (Bréal). I have observed that those
who study the spontaneous formation of language in children, claim
for them but little onomatopœism. On the other hand, a word created
by undoubted onomatopœia is sometimes by means of association, or of
strange analogies, transferred successively to so many objects that all
trace of the transformations of meaning may be lost, and the imitative
origin actually denied. Such was Darwin’s case, cited above, where the
onomatopœia of the duck finally served to designate all liquids, all that
flies, all pieces of money. If the successive extensions of the term had
not been observed, who could have recovered its origin?
[54] Sayce, _loc. cit._, IV., §§ 3-5.
[55] We cannot doubt, however, that there is in the child (and so too for
primitive man) a period of pure and simple denomination, when, in the
face of perceived objects, he utters a word, as a spontaneous action,
a reflex, with no understood affirmation. But this act is rather the
prelude, and attempt at speech, an advance towards language proper.
[56] There is in Iroquois a word that signifies, “I demand money from
those who have come to buy garments from me.” Esquimaux is equally rich
in terms of this sort. Yet we must recognise that these immense composite
words, themselves formed from abbreviated and fused words, virtually
imply the beginning of decomposition.
[57] _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion_, ed. 1891, p. 196.
[58] Whitney, _The Life and Growth of Language_, Chap. X. Sayce, _op.
cit._, VI., 28, rejects them absolutely.
[59] Renan, _Histoire générale des langues sémitiques_, pp. 128 and 363.
[60] We can see how little the _real_ order of evolution resembles the
theoretical order of the XVIII. century, evolved from pure reasoning:
“The complex notions of substances were the _first_ known, since they
came from the senses, and must therefore have been the first to have
names” (Condillac). “With regard to adjectives, the notion must have
developed with _exceeding difficulty_, since every adjective is an
abstract term, and abstraction is a painful, or unnatural operation” (J.
J. Rousseau).
[61] P. Regnaud, _Origine et philosophie du langage_, p. 317.
[62] On this point, consult especially Sayce, _op. cit._, II., § 9, and
P. Regnaud, _op. cit._, pp. 296-299.
[63] “The word _être_ is irreducible, indecomposable, primitive, and
wholly intellectual. I know no language in which the French word _être_
is expressed by a corresponding word representing a sensible idea. Hence
it is not true that all the roots of the language are in last resort
signs of sensory ideas.” (V. Cousin, _Histoire de la phil. au XIII
siècle_, 1841, II., p. 274.)
[64] For the psychology of relation consult Herbert Spencer,
_Psychology_, I., p. 65, II., pp., 360 et seq.; James, _Psychology_,
I., pp., 203 et seq. The latter gives the history of the subject,
which is very brief, and remarks that the idealogues form an honorable
exception to the general abstention. Thus Destutt de Tracy established a
distinction between feelings of _sensation_ and feelings of _relation_.
[65] Regnaud, _op. cit._, pp. 304 et seq.
[66] It is superfluous to give examples of such a well-known fact. See
Darmesteter, _The Life of Words_.
[67] Intelligence is taken here in its restricted sense, as the synonym
of abstracting, generalising, judging, reasoning.
[68] _De l’intelligence_, Vol. I., Bk. IV., Chap. I., p. 254, first
edition.
[69] _De l’intelligence_, I., Bk. IV., Chap. I., p. 254, first ed.
[70] _Mental Evolution in Man_, pp. 74 and 75.
[71] As Paulhan remarks, “L’abstraction et les idées abstraites”
(_Revue Philosophique_, Jan., 1889, p. 26 et seq.), these two processes
are initially linked one with the other, so that we find analytical
syntheses, and synthetical analyses.
[72] _Op. cit._, VIII., 158-165.
[73] We have touched on this subject incidentally in _La psychologie
des sentiments_ (Part II, IX, § 2, pp. 305 et seq.). Many tribes do
not get beyond polydemonism, peopling the universe with innumerable
genii; this is the reign of the concrete. A certain progress is marked
by subordinating the genius of each tree to the god of the forest, the
different genii of a river to the god of the river, etc. At a degree
higher, the intellect constitutes a single god for water, one for fire,
one for the earth, etc. Thus there come to be genii of individual,
specific, and generic origin.
[74] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, I., gives abundant data on this
question. Chap. VII. is entirely devoted to it.
[75] In the account of his travels among the Damaras (in his _Tropical
South Africa_, p. 133) Galton says: “In practice, whatever they may
possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than
three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which
are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule
is to our English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because
no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required
for ‘units,’—yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover
the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but
by the absence of a face they know.” [This tallies with what we said
above, Chap. I., as to so-called numeration in animals and children.]
“When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus
suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep,
it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four
sticks. I have done so and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart
and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell.
Having satisfied himself that one was honestly paid for, and finding
to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the
account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the
transaction seemed to come out too pat to be correct, and he would refer
back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and
confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the
transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven
away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven
away.” Galton relates many other similar facts which he had himself
witnessed.
[76] And the barley-corn of English measure.—_Tr._
[77] Wundt (_Logik_, I., pp. 113 et seq.) gives what he regards as a
complete classification of concepts, but it does not correspond with our
design. It may be summarised as follows. Four classes: I. Identical or
equivalent concepts; Aristotle = Alexander’s tutor. II. Subordinate or
superordinate concepts; mammals and vertebrates, etc. III. Co-ordinated
concepts, comprising five species: i. Disjunctive concepts; sound and
noise, French and German, etc. They are subordinate to a larger concept.
ii. Correlative concepts, with reciprocal relations; men and women,
mountain and valley. iii. Contrary concepts; high and low, good and
bad. iv. Contingent concepts; such, i. e., as touch, with very minute,
perceptible differences; this highly important category comprises
numbers. v. Interferent concepts, which coincide or partially cross;
negro and slave, rectangle and parallelogram. IV. Concepts which are
interdependent; etc., space and movement, crime and punishment, demand
and supply, labor and wages. This table may suit the logician but not
the psychologist, because it presents the concepts under what may be
termed the static order, i. e., ready formed: we, on the other hand,
are considering them as dynamic, i. e., in their becoming and order of
genesis.
[78] For details, with quotations in point, consult Agassiz: _De
l’espèce_, Chap. III., and E. Perrier, _La Philosophie zoologique avant
Darwin_, Chap. II.
[79] Agassiz, _op. cit._, gives a summary of the successive improvements.
They are of interest not merely to the zoölogist, but also from our own
point of view, as showing the increasing preponderance of analysis, and
search for fundamental characteristics, to the exclusion of the external
resemblances which served as basis for the more primitive classifications.
[80] Under the heading “Observations on General Terms” the _American
Journal of Psychology_, III. i, p. 144 (Jan., 1890) gives the results of
an investigation conducted upon 113 school children aged 13 to 18. The
words _being_, _the infinite_, _literature_, _abstraction_, _number_,
_play_, _coldness_, _horror_, etc., were written down, and a few moments
were given the pupils to transcribe their impressions in each case.
The summarised answers are not devoid of interest, but the object of the
inquiry is evidently very different from our own.
[81] The word “law” was purposely chosen for its ambiguity; physical
laws, moral or social laws. The immense majority of answers were in the
juristic sense. Ex., Code, Law of the Twelve Tables, a judge, woman with
scales, etc.
[82] For the word _infinity_, those who fall under this type see the
printed word, or the mathematical sign ∞.
[83] It should be noted that he lived among these animals and
experimented with them almost daily.
[84] The results of the investigation were published, partly in the
_Revue Philosophique_, October, 1891, partly at the International
Congress of Psychology, second session, London, 1892 (_International
Congress of Experimental Psychology._ London: Williams & Norgate, pp. 20,
et seq.).
[85] Thus Taine, who is usually regarded as a Nominalist, tells us
that, “A general idea is a name, nothing more than a name, a name which
_signifies_ and _comprehends_ a sequence of similar facts, or class
of similar individuals, accompanied usually by the sensory but vague
representation of some of these facts or individuals.” (The words
italicised for emphasis are not so distinguished in the text.)
[86] We are dealing only with comprehension, and not with invention
(discovery of a law, or of general features in nature). Invention
requires quite different mental processes.
[87] Cournot, _Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances_. I., § 109,
p. 231.
[88] Dugas. _Du Psittacisme et de la pensée symbolique_, pp. 121 et seq.
[89] Paulhan. _Revue philosophique._ July, 1889, pp. 77 et seq.
[90] Höffding. _Psychologie._ Eng. tr., p. 168.
[91] Maclellan & Dewey (_Psychology of Number and Its Application to
Methods of Teaching Arithmetic_, New York, 1895) made pedagogical
deductions from this fact. They ask, for beginners, that the examples
should be borrowed from continuous quantity, and that number be
considered as a particular species of measure.—In his book _Our Notions
of Number and Space_ (Boston, 1894) Nichols, taking a theory of James
about judgments of number as the basis of his experiments, tries to
show that the simultaneous sensation of two points applied to the skin
originates in the successive sensation of a distinct contact upon two
separate tactile circles.
[92] I do not insist on any such rash thesis. A discussion of it will be
found in the _Report of the Int. Congress of Exp. Psychol. in London_
(_cit._, pp. 35-41).
[93] _Psychology_, II., p. 653.
[94] Liard, _La science positive et la métaphysique_, p. 226. It should
be remarked that the process by subtraction is met with even among
uncivilised people, though very rarely. The plan of making numerals by
subtraction, says Tylor (_op. cit._, I., p. 264), is known in North
America, and is well shown in the Aino language of Yesso, where the words
for 8 and 9 obviously mean “two from ten,” “one from ten.”
[95] “The childish and savage practice of counting on the fingers and
toes lies at the foundation of our arithmetical science. Ten seems
the most convenient arithmetical basis offered by systems founded
on hand-counting, but twelve would have been better, and duodecimal
arithmetic is in fact a protest against the less convenient decimal
arithmetic in ordinary use. The case is the not uncommon one of high
civilisation bearing evident traces of the rudeness of its origin in
ancient barbaric life.” (Tylor, _loc. cit._, I. p. 272)
[96] For the most recent view of this discussion, with the arguments on
either side, see Couturat: _De l’Infini mathématique_ (1896). 2nd part.
Bk. III.
[97] Cournot, _op. cit._, I., p. 331 et seq. Renouvier, _Logique_, I.,
pp. 377-394. Poinsot, _Théorie nouvelle de la rotation des corps_, p. 78.
[98] For a summary of these investigations, see the chapter “Sensations
of Orientation” in Prof. E. Mach’s _Popular Scientific Lectures_, 3rd
ed., Chicago, 1898; and for original discussions of the whole subject of
space-sensations, see the same author’s _Analysis of the Sensations_,
Chicago, 1897.—_Trans._
[99] Münsterberg, _Beiträge zur experimen. Psychologie_, pp. 182 et seq.
Wundt, _Physiol. Psychologie_, 4th ed., II. pp. 95-96.
[100] This is not the place to enter into the well-known discussion
between the “nativists” and the “empiricists.” To the former all
sensation, visual or tactile, contains from its outset a _quantum_ of
extension which is the primitive element, and the foundation for our
spatial constructions. For the others there are only local signs, tactile
or visual, and movements whose synthesis suffices to constitute all the
modalities of existence. Whichever hypothesis be adopted, the extension
in point is always that given by concrete data (not that of space
conceived in the abstract)—directly cognised according to some, a genetic
construction according to others. This discussion has no direct relation
with our subject: for the full debate see Ribot’s _Psychologie allemande
contemporaine_, Ch. V. James (_Psychology_, II. Ch. XX.) has recently
taken up the nativistic theory, giving new arguments in its favor.
[101] Extracted from Spencer’s _Psychology_, Vol. I. § 90.
[102] Lotze, _Mikrokosmus_, II. p. 47.
[103] Stallo, _Concepts of Modern Physics_, Chap. XIII., p. 225, _Int.
Sc. Ser._, third ed. He also gives a very concise criticism of Mill’s
theory of induction in geology.
[104] _System of Logic_, I. Bk. II., Chap. 15, § 1.
[105] The complete history of this question, from its first beginnings to
contemporaneous work, may be studied in Nichols’s “Psychology of Time,”
_Am. J. of Psychol._, III. pp. 453-530.
[106] For these and the following experiments, cf. Wundt, _Physiologische
Psychologie_, 4th ed., I. pp. 408 et seq.
[107] _Psychol._, I. 642.
[108] M. Janet has studied this subject, under the title “Une illusion
d’optique interne” (_Rev. Phil._, 1877, III. pp. 497 et seq.) and
explains the illusion by supposing that the apparent duration of a
certain portion of time, in the life of each individual, is proportional
to the total duration of his life.
[109] Nichols, _op. cit._, p. 502.
[110] _Analysis of the Sensations_, Chicago, 1897, pp. 110 et seq.
[111] H. Spencer, _Psychology_, I., § 91, p. 215.
[112] Horwicz, _Psychologische Analysen_, III., 145. Guyau, _Genèse de
l’idée du temps_, pp. 35 et seq.
[113] _Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie_, II., 1889.
[114] Van Ende cites a large number of facts in point, but they are not
all equally convincing. _Histoire naturelle de la croyance_, pp. 208-212.
[115] Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, p. 314. It should be remarked that
the author only reports the fact from another witness—that the narrator
said it had occurred “thirty years before,” and “that he did not pretend
to remember under what precise circumstances the habit of coming into the
street was acquired.”
[116] According to Delambre, the Chaldæans could only discover the
cycle which the Greek mathematicians called _saros_ by studying their
commemorative notes; i. e., from a considerable mass of observations,
they _extracted_ or _abstracted_ a constant recurrence.
[117] For details see, in addition to Nichols’s article as previously
cited, Sully, _The Human Mind_, II., Appendix E, and James, _Psychology_,
I., pp. 632 et seq.
[118] Fouillée, _Psychologie des Idées-forces_, II., 81-204.
[119] Mach, _Analysis of the Sensations_, English translation (Chicago,
1897), pp. 111-112.
[120] Ward, article “Psychology,” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
Vol. XX., pp., 65 et seq.—On the metaphysics of time considered as pure
heterogeneity, see the recent work of Bergson, _Essai sur les données
immédiates de la conscience_, pp. 76 et seq.
[121] Lewes, _Problems of Life and Mind_, II. p. 375.
[122] For the discussion of this point, see Renouvier, _Logique_, II. 324.
[123] Romanes gives some examples of what he terms appreciation of
causality in animals, including that of a setter that was frightened
at thunder. “On one occasion a number of apples were being shot out of
bags upon the wooden floor of an apple room, the sound in the house as
each bag was shot closely resembled that of distant thunder. The setter
therefore became terribly alarmed; but when I took him to the apple-room
and showed him the real cause of the noise, his dread entirely forsook
him, and on again returning to the house he listened to the rumbling with
all cheerfulness.” Other analogous cases are to be found in his _Mental
Evolution in Animals_, Chap. X.
[124] For the study of Chance, see Cournot, _op. cit._, I., Chap. iii.
[Also J. Venn “The Logic of Chance,” etc.—_Tr._]
[125] Under the title _Zur Entwickelung von Kant’s Theorie der
Naturcausalität_, (_Philosophische Studien_, IX, 3 and 4), Wundt
gives us a rapid historical sketch. He holds that speculation, in
antiquity, is characterised by the method of contraries: the opposition
of being and becoming, etc. It is wholly qualitative. The ancients
progressed by definition. Elaboration of the concept of mechanical
causation was impossible, by reason of the absence of any quantitative
determination. This began with Galileo. The progress of mathematics,
and the introduction of fractional and irrational numbers made it
possible to search out, not merely measure, but also the relation between
magnitudes—i. e., _function_. This became the type, and at the same
time the goal of all intellectual elaboration, as applied to natural
phenomena. This method culminated in the seventeenth century, with the
predominance of the logical type. In consequence of the old concept of
substance, forces were taken as cause, phenomena as effect. The latter is
more frequently derived from cause by deduction, not by intuition. The
cause of a determined event might either be the total of its conditions,
or one antecedent event. This last conception prevailed, as being the
more favorable to the application of mathematics. The eighteenth century
marks the genesis of the biological sciences. The growing importance of
observation and experimental research made against the preponderance
of mathematics. The facts of experience were held more solid than the
conclusions of reason. The type of causality is placed no longer in
deduction, but in sensory intuition; it is the residuum of experience.
This tendency found its exponent in Hume. Kant endeavored to reconcile
the two theses; that which models object upon subject (seventeenth
century) and that which models subject upon object (eighteenth century).
[126] The question is sometimes raised as to whether psychical (and
consequently moral, social) facts ought to be included under the formula
of conservation of energy and correlation of forces. Since the only
evidence produced has been of the nature of theoretical affirmations, or
vague and partial experiences, without quantitative determination, the
question so far remains open. The concept of natural causality was in the
same way considered above in its positive sense, i. e., as a relation of
invariable sequence, without inquiring whether it extends to all forms of
experience,—or whether it is limited.
[127] W. James, _Psychology_, II., p. 671.
[128] Sigwart in his _Logik_, Book II. (English translation by
Helen Dendy) has made a profound study of the classification of the
psychological laws in psychology, and their relative value. He divides
them into three categories, according to the nature of the relations
which they express: 1. Psychophysical laws which formulate constant
relations between states of consciousness and the cerebral states. Ex.
the relation between the sensation directly received, and the image that
is reproduced in consciousness. 2. Psychological laws properly so-called;
these express the internal relations of the states of consciousness.
Ex. Law of conservation of impressions, law of association, law of
systematisation by volition. 3. Laws expressive of the reciprocal
action that human thoughts and volitions exert one upon the other: they
presuppose the intervention of social causes, and are to this day vague
and ill-determined; hence there are no fixed rules for the government of
humanity, or the bringing up of children.
[129] “Fundamental laws are, or should be, only the simplest, most
abridged, and most economical mode of expressing facts, within the limits
of precision possible to our observations and experiences. The laws of
nature are simple, essentially because—among all the possible modes of
expression—we choose the simplest” (see Mach, _Mechanics_, Chicago, 1893,
and _Popular Scientific Lectures_, 23d ed., Chicago, 1898, under the
headings “Economy of Thought,” “Law,” etc.). “In formulating a general,
simple, precise law, based upon relatively few experiences, which,
moreover, present certain divergencies, we only obey a necessity from
which the human mind cannot free itself.” (Poincaré.)
[130] Since our subject is the tracing out of the _concept_ of law in its
different degrees, starting from the generic image, we have no need to
study the nature of the laws proper to each science (logic, mathematics,
mechanics, physico-chemistry, biology, etc.), nor to discuss their value.
For this point, see Boutroux, _L’idée de loi naturelle dans la science et
la philosophie contemporaine_. Paris, 1895.
[131] Brown, quoted by Quatrefages (_Précurseurs de Darwin_, p. 218), who
adds, “If this were the case, one would not find many species denoted
by particular names among savages, and our own illiterate population.
The general notion of species is on the contrary one of those that are
forced upon us, directly we look round. The difficulty is to formulate
it clearly, to give it scientific precision, and this is a very real
problem.”
[132] Quatrefages (_op. cit._, pp. 219-222) gives a great number of
definitions of species. A few may be quoted: “Species should be defined
as a succession of wholly similar individuals, perpetuated by means of
generation” (De Jussieu).—“Species is a constant succession of like
individuals, which reproduce themselves” (Buffon).—“By species we mean
any collection of similar individuals, that have been produced by
individuals like unto themselves” (Lamarck).—“Species is the individual
repeated and continued in time and space” (Blainville).—“Species is the
totality of all individuals that have the same origin, and of those that
are as like them, as they are among themselves” (Brown), etc., etc.
[133] For the transformists, as is well known, variety, race, and species
are not fixed concepts. “From variety to race, from race to species,
there is a continuous insensible passage. Individual modifications, at
first slight, give rise to a variety or to a race. Continuing to augment,
and extending to a constantly increasing number of individuals, they
may come to constitute specific characters. Pursuing its evolution, the
species then finally reaches the rank of the genus, family, etc.”
[134] _De l’Espèce_, Ch. II., §§ 6 and 7.
[135] _Nouveaux Essais_, III, § 6, 23.
[136] _Psychology of Attention_, Ch. I. (Chicago: Open Court Publishing
Co.)
[137] For a study of the function and practical value of symbolism
consult Ferrero, _Les lois psychologiques du symbolisme_; Paris, F. Alcan.
[138] _The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics_, Ch. IX., p. 137, 3rd
ed.
INDEX.
Abstraction, a positive operation, 2;
a process of secondary formation, 216 et seq.;
has followed three principal directions: practical, speculative,
scientific, 220 et seq.;
higher forms of, 111 et seq.;
implies a dissociative process, 8;
intermediate forms of, 86 et seq.;
prior to speech, 1 et seq.;
stages of, 10 et seq.
Abstract thought, a skeleton, 135.
Acoustic space, 148.
Adjective, the, 76.
Agassiz, 7, 105, 107, 211.
Ampère, 219.
Analogy, 27, 84.
Animals, causality in, 184;
counting of, 19;
language of, 58;
psychology of, 11 et seq.;
reasoning of, 30;
time-sense of, 169.
Antecedent and consequent, 180, 183 et seq.
Ants, intelligence of, 12 et seq., 27, 55.
Arabic, 76.
Archimedes, 190.
Architecture, 28.
Aristotle, 45, 105 et seq.
Arithmogenesis, 139.
Articulation, 63.
Artists, 134.
Association of images, 18;
by similarity, 24.
Astronomers, the first, 173.
Attention, 134, 217.
Auditory types, 112, 121 et seq.
Aztec language, 73.
Baer, Von, 108.
Bain, 7.
Barter, 109.
Bees, intelligence of, 14, 56.
Belief in a universal law of causality, 185 et seq.
Belt, Mr., 13.
Bergson, 178.
Binet, 37.
Blainville, 206.
Boole, 38.
Boutroux, 203.
Bradley, 25.
Bréal, 70, 71.
Brehm, 170.
Brown, 205, 206.
Buffon, 206, 207.
Cases, grammatical, 81.
Causality, belief in a universal law of, 185 et seq.
Cause, empirical origin of, 181;
history of concept of, 180 et seq.;
universalisation of the concept of, 185 et seq.
Chaldæans, 173.
Chance, idea of, 187 et seq.
Charcot, 127.
Chess-players, 40.
Child, numeration in the, 35;
general ideas of, 31 et seq.;
time-sense of, 171.
Chinese, 62, 69.
Class, 211.
Classification, biological, history of, 103 et seq., 204.
Cognition, cardinal operations of, 1.
Communication, 55 et seq.
Compositors, 121.
Concepts, 11, 92, 135;
hierarchy of, 109, 213;
relatively empty, 225;
the inferior, 88;
ultimate nature of, 113.
Concrete type, 115.
Condillac, 31, 77.
Consciousness, the condition of any notion of time, 175 et seq.
Convertibility, 192.
Cope, 212.
Copernicus, 197.
Counting, 35, 99, 143.
Cournot, 134, 146, 187, 188.
Couturat, 144.
Cross-breeding, 208.
Cuvier, 107, 108.
Czermak, 160.
D’Alembert, 201.
Damaras, 99.
Darmesteter, 84.
Darwin, 12, 18, 34, 63.
Deaf-mutes, psychology of, 39;
language of, 41;
syntax of, 43;
numeration in, 45;
religious notions of, 46.
Decimal system, 143.
Declensions, 81.
Delambre, 173.
De Jussieu, 206.
De Quincy, 150.
Descartes, 197.
Determinism, 188, 193.
Dewey, 139.
Dietze, 161.
Differences, 90.
Dissociation, 27.
Dogs, intelligence of, 17, 20, 29.
Dual, the, 77.
Duck, 34.
Dugas, 136.
Duke of Argyle, 40.
Duration, concrete, 159 et seq.;
perception of, 161 et seq.;
reproduction of, 162.
Ebbels, 40.
Economy of thought, 202.
Effort, sense of, 182 et seq.
Elephant, intelligence of, 15.
Ellendorf, Dr., 13.
Empirical laws, 198.
Empiricists, 149.
Energy, conservation of, 192.
Esquimaux, 74.
Euclidean geometry, 156 et seq.
Evolution in our ideas, 195.
Exchange, 110.
Expectation, in reasoning, state of, 25.
Extension, concrete, feeling of, 147 et seq.;
characterised, 158.
Extracts, 70.
_Facultas signatrix_, 55.
Family, 211.
Ferrero, 220.
First causes, 190.
Fouillée, 177.
Fox, ruses of, 18.
Franklin, 55.
Function, notion of mathematical, 190.
Galileo, 190.
Galton, 10, 40, 99.
Gauss, 148, 156, 218, 220.
Geese, time-sense of, 170.
Geiger, 63.
Genera, 210 et seq.
General ideas, thinking by, 9;
their grades distinguished, 101;
likened to mental habits, 131, 225;
meaning of, 135;
observations on, 114 et seq.
Generalisation, 9, 185.
Generic image, 10, 87 et seq., 93, 169, 183, 196;
an almost passive condensation of resemblances, 18;
a spontaneous fusion of images, 22;
comes half way between individual representation and abstraction
properly so called, 23.
Genii, 95.
Geometry, born of practical needs, 148 et seq.;
non-Euclidean, 156 et seq.
Gérando, 40, 41, 51.
Gesture, language of, 48 et seq., 66.
Glass, 163.
Goethe, 109, 134.
Guyau, 166, 178.
_Habere_, 79.
Haeckel, 108.
Hare, ruses of, 18.
Hebrew, 69.
Heinicke, 64.
Helmholtz, 62.
Heredity of acquired characters, 218.
Hoeffding, 4, 136.
Horwicz, 165, 166.
Houzeau, 17, 18, 36.
Huber, 55.
Hume, 187, 190.
Huxley, 10, 22, 212.
Hybrids, 208.
Hysterics, 127.
Idealogues, 68.
_Idées-forces_, 177.
Identity, sense of, 6.
Ideography, 53.
Images, logic of, 26 et seq., 40;
also 5 et seq., 111.
Imagination, forms of, 112.
Indifferent point, 163.
Individual, notion of the, 204.
Inference, 24, 26, 30.
Infinity, 144.
Intelligence, 87.
Inventors, rôle of, 219.
Iroquois, 74.
Isolates, 17.
James, W., 6, 9, 29, 30, 46, 80, 140, 149, 162, 175, 176, 194.
Janet, 163.
Kant, 137, 158, 175, 190.
Kepler, 197, 202.
Kirby, 55.
Kleinpaul, 52.
Kussmaul, 45, 46.
Ladd, 7.
Lamarck, 206.
Language, origin of, 31 et seq., 54 et seq.
Languages, natural organisms, 83;
savage, 95 et seq.
Laplace, 218.
Lapp, 76.
Law, origin of concept of, 194 et seq.;
theoretical or ideal, 200.
Laws, defined, 197;
called by the names of their inventors, 198;
vary in the course of evolution, 213.
Lefèvre, A., 61.
Leibnitz, 31, 129, 140, 214.
Leroy, G., 18, 19, 30, 57.
Lewes, 180.
Liard, 142.
Linnæus, 106, 210.
Lobachévski, 156.
Locke, 31.
Lotze, 150, 151, 178.
Lubbock, 20, 50, 55, 96.
Mach, E., 148, 163, 164, 178, 202.
Maclellan, 139.
Magpie, 20, 21.
Maine de Biran, 181.
Mallery, Colonel, 49, 50, 51.
Mariotte, 202.
Mathematical faculty, the, 217.
Mathematicians, 126.
Mathematics, originated in observation, 148.
Mayer, R., 191.
Measure of quantity, 100.
Memory, 132.
Mill, John Stuart, 24, 25, 26, 34, 138, 151, 154, 155, 181, 191.
Mimicry, language of, 52.
Mind, the, 9, 216.
Miracles, 186.
Mivart, St. George, 48.
Monkeys, intelligence of, 19.
Montesquieu, 197.
Morgan, C. Lloyd, 16, 30.
Motion, psychology of, 182.
Motor types, 112.
Müller, Fr., 60.
Müller, Max, 28, 39, 40, 59, 60, 69, 71, 74, 79, 80, 92.
Münsterberg, 148, 163, 166, 167, 177.
Muscular types, 112.
Mussels, 84.
Names, individual, appellative or general?, 32.
Nativists, 149.
Neanderthal anthropoid, 61.
Neo-geometers, 157.
Neretina, 7.
Newton, 218, 219.
Nichols, 139, 161, 164, 175.
Noiré, L., 60.
Nomenclature, 105 et seq.
Nominalists, 122, 128.
Normal time, 167.
Nothing, the answer, 127 et seq.
Number, concept of, history and theories of its origin, 137 et seq.
Numbers, sequence of, 142 et seq.;
nature of, 146.
Numeration, in animals, 19;
in the child, 35;
its development, 98.
Observations on general terms, 114 et seq.
Oken, 108.
Onomatopœia, 71, 72.
Order, 211.
Owen, Richard, 109.
Painter, 117.
Parallels, axiom of, 157.
Pascal, 219.
Paul, Hermann, 69, 71.
Paulhan, 90, 136.
Perception, utility its mainspring, 4.
Percepts, 111.
Pérez, B., 36.
Performing animals, 15.
Perrier, E., 105.
Physiologist, 119.
Phonogram, 71.
Photographs, composite, 10, 22.
Plato, 222.
Plurality, 139.
Poincaré, 202.
Poinsot, 146.
Polymorphism, 207.
Practical judgments, 93.
Present, the, its nature, 160 et seq.
Preyer, 33, 38, 72, 139.
Progress, 219.
_Quack_, 34.
Quantity, measure of, 100.
Quatrefages, 205, 206.
Ratiocination, 25.
Realism, 128.
Reasoning, signification of, 23;
prior to speech, 38.
Réaumur, 14.
Recepts, 10, 26, 89.
Reflexion, 94.
Regnaud, P., 71, 78, 79.
Regularity, conception of, 196.
Relations, 80, 81.
Renan, 59, 69, 71, 76.
Renouvier, 145, 146, 175, 181.
Representation, 5.
Representative faculty, 112.
Reproduction, 207.
Resemblances, 6, 90.
Respiration, 166.
Rhythm, 164, 165.
Ribot, his observations on general ideas, 135.
Riemann, 156, 158.
Romanes, 10, 13, 14, 19, 34, 35, 40, 43, 46, 55, 57, 63, 66, 89, 93,
170, 184.
Roots, 69 et seq., 75.
Rousseau, J. J., 77.
Rubicon, passage of the, 92.
Sanskrit, 69.
Savage languages, 95 et seq.
Savage races, time-sense of, 171.
Sayce, 67, 70, 73, 75, 77, 96.
Schelling, 108.
Schleicher, 83.
Schmidkunz, 2, 3.
Schneider, 7.
Sciences, origin of the, 221.
Scientists, 135.
Scott, 43.
Semi-circular canals, 149.
Sensation-limits, 166.
Sequence of numbers, 142 et seq.
Siamese, 62.
Sicard, Abbé, 44.
Sidgwick, Prof., 125.
Sigismund, 33.
Signs, logic of, 27;
imitative, 43;
language of, 49;
development of, 92;
the importance of, 144 et seq.
Sigwart, 199.
Similarities, 90, 195.
Simplification, 135.
Skeleton, abstract thought a, 135.
Smith, Adam, 31.
Song, speech is derived from, 62.
Space, origin of the concept of, 146 et seq.;
acoustic, 148;
sense of, 148;
abstract notion of, 151 et seq.;
_n_-dimensional, 156;
Euclidean, 157;
characterised, 158.
Species, origin and growth of the concept of, 203 et seq.;
fixity of, 205;
constituent elements of the concept of, 206;
defined, 206;
vary in the course of evolution, 213.
Specific characters, 205 et seq.
Speech, origin of, 54 et seq., 59 et seq.;
development of, 67.
Spence, 55.
Spencer, Herbert, 7, 62, 80, 137, 150, 165, 175.
Stallo, 153, 158, 222.
Steinthal, 59.
Stern, 26.
Stewart, Dugald, 31, 51.
Substantive, the, 76.
Substitution, 27, 110, 226.
Sully, J., 25, 160, 175.
Sylvester, 148.
Symbolic thought, 132, 226.
Symbolism, complete, 109.
Symbols, 145.
Taine, 33, 34, 73, 87, 129.
Temporal signs, 178.
Ten, the most convenient arithmetical basis, 143.
Thermodynamics, 192.
Time, origin of the concept of, 159;
consciousness of, 164 et seq.;
sense of, 164;
conception of infinite, 174;
measure of, 174 et seq.;
psychological process by which its primitive notion is constituted
in consciousness, 175 et seq.
Time-perception, simple repetition the elements of, 176;
the work of attention, 178.
Tracy, Destutt de, 80.
Tylor, 43, 50, 67, 71, 99, 142, 143.
Unconscious activity, 132.
Unconscious, the, 224;
psychology of the, 226.
Unity, idea of, 138;
abstract, 141.
Unity-type, 143.
Utility, 218, 219;
law of, 5.
Van Ende, 170.
Venn, J., 188.
_Vera causa_, 181.
Verb, the, 78, 97.
Vierordt, 163.
Visual types, 112, 119 et seq.
Vital force, 193.
Vocalisation, 61.
Vogt, 208.
Waitz, 178.
Wallace, 217.
Ward, 178.
Wasps, intelligence of, 14.
Weismann, 218.
Whitney, 69, 71, 75, 80.
Wilks, Dr., 58.
Will, the type of causality, 181 et seq.
Wizel, Adam, 126.
Words, do we think without them?, 40;
they pass to autocracy, 102.
Writing, 53.
Wundt, 103, 149, 161, 162, 163, 176, 189, 196.
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