THOUGHT
I myself am inclined to hold that man really thinks very little and
very seldom.—WILHELM WUNDT
§ 61. =The Nature of Thought.=—“The train of thoughts, or mental
discourse,” wrote Hobbes in 1651, “is of two sorts. The first is
unguided, without design, and inconstant; in which case the thoughts
are said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a
dream. The second is more constant; as being regulated by some desire,
and design: and because the end, by the greatness of the impression,
comes often to mind, in case our thoughts begin to wander, they are
quickly again reduced into the way.” Hobbes is here distinguishing, so
far as unaided observation allows him, between the mental connections
that reflect a random play of the associative tendencies, and those
whose course is directed by some determining tendency. The former,
to be sure, are never wholly random; ideas are grouped together by
the situation in which they appear (p. 165); and it is only fair to
say that Hobbes himself, in other passages, recognises this guidance.
There is, nevertheless, a marked difference between the two kinds of
‘mental discourse,’ between (say) the casual flow of conversation
and the working out of an argument; and it is the second kind, the
progressive movement of ideas towards an end, that modern psychology
has technically named =thought=.
You notice that we have spoken of a ‘progressive’ movement; and you
notice that Hobbes writes a little cautiously of regulated discourse;
even in that, our thoughts may ‘begin to wander,’ These are merely
different ways of saying that _thought goes on in the state of
secondary attention_; it is an experience of the same general type
as recollection, constructive imagination, selective and volitional
action. We therefore ‘think,’ in the technical sense, far less often
than the popular use of the word would suggest. For, on the one hand,
we accept a great many judgements, ready made, from our surroundings;
parents and teachers and friends are constantly expressing opinions
which we adopt without question, opinions which they themselves have
adopted, for the most part, in the same unquestioning way. The present
generation takes the motor-car and the air-ship for granted; it finds
them natural and obvious; and every generation falls heir to a body
of social, political, religious, æsthetic, and moral judgements which
also seem natural and obvious; thought is not needed, and so is rarely
undertaken. Secondly, even if we are obliged to think, we still tend
to think no further than is necessary for the practice of life; we
attain a certain level of thought, in the mastery of our business or
profession, and there stop; the pattern of secondary attention is
replaced by that of derived primary attention. _Most of our thought_,
in other words, _is either borrowed thought or routine thought_, that
is, is not (in the psychological sense) thought at all; independent,
sustained, original thinking is as rare as creative imagination or as
sagacious and farsighted action. In all probability, it always has been
rare; our ancestors probably thought as we think, only a few with real
seriousness, and they only between whiles; but a very little thinking
gives man an immense superiority over the lower animals!
We have now to ask, first, about the _terms_ in which thought goes on;
and we shall find that it may go on in imaginal complexes, in words,
and in mental attitudes. We then discuss the _pattern_ of thought;
and we shall find that thinking is characterised by the ‘division
into pairs’ which we mentioned on p. 205. Lastly, we shall take up,
separately, some of the special features of this general pattern.
§ 62. =Imaginal Processes in Thought: The Abstract Idea.=—A great deal
of controversy has raged about the abstract or general idea. We can
see to-day that the name is, psychologically, a misnomer. Just as no
idea is, in its own right, an idea of memory or of imagination, so also
no idea is, in its own right, an abstract idea; _an idea becomes, is
made into, an_ =abstract idea= _whenever its context and determination
carry the meaning of abstractness and generality_. The associationists,
however, looked at things differently; they thought that any idea
which _means_ ‘abstract’ must also itself _be_ abstract; and so they
distinguished a special class of abstract ideas. We obtain such ideas,
they said, in this way: we review a large number of particular ideas,
and we separate out the elements that are common to all of them; this
common remainder is then a general or abstract idea which represents
the whole group of particulars. Thus, “by leaving out of the particular
colours perceived by sense that which distinguishes them one from
another; and retaining that only which is common to all; the mind makes
an idea of colour in abstract which is neither red, nor blue, nor
white, nor any other determinate colour.”
An emphatic protest was raised against this theory by the idealistic
philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753). “The idea of man that I frame
to myself must be either of a white or a black or a tawny, a straight
or a crooked, a tall or a low or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any
effort of thought conceive [that is, mentally picture] the abstract
idea above described.” It is, truly, a little difficult to _imagine_
an abstract ‘colour’ with all the specific colour-elements left out!
Yet the theory is so plausible, as long as process and meaning are
confused, that it has been revived again, though in somewhat altered
form. The suggestion has been made that an abstract idea is a sort
of _composite photograph_, a mental picture which results from the
superposition of many particular perceptions or ideas, and which
therefore shows the common elements distinct and the individual
elements blurred. A passage from Huxley illustrates this view. “An
anatomist who occupies himself intently with the examination of several
specimens of some new kind of animal, in course of time acquires so
vivid a conception of its form and structure, that the idea may take
visible shape and become a sort of waking dream. But the figure which
thus presents itself is generic, not specific. It is no copy of any one
specimen, but, more or less, a mean of the series.” To which we reply
that ‘the figure which presents itself’ is as specific and particular
as any other idea; only, it _means_ the genus; the anatomist is working
under the suggestion of a type, of a composite picture that will make a
diagram in a text-book or monograph; and his idea is abstract in virtue
of this determination and context, and not because it pictures the mean
of a series.
The fact is, to repeat, that _any idea is made into an abstract idea
when context and determination carry the meaning of abstractness_;
and there is no doubt that, in minds of a certain type, imaginal
processes other than words may take on this context and suffer
this determination, so that _thought may go on in imaginal terms_.
Experiments show that visual imagery may play its part, along with
verbal ideas and attitudes, in a single train of thought; one recent
writer describes visual images of a complex kind as centres of
‘activity’ in the progress of thinking. Blindfold chess-players, if
they are of the motor type, think of attack and defence in terms of
‘lines of force’ which connect the various pieces on the board, and
which they themselves ‘feel’ in kinæsthetic imagery as pushes and pulls
in hand and arm. We saw on p. 77 that such general notions as ‘virtue’
and ‘commerce’ may come to mind in the form of habitual images. No
doubt, these images were at first contextual processes surrounding a
verbal idea; they are therefore secondary, and not original; yet they
may now replace the verbal idea, and do duty by themselves as abstract
ideas. There are probably a good many of us whose abstract idea of
‘triangle’ is simply a mental picture of the little equilateral
triangle that stands for the word in text-books of geometry.
_Is there, then, no truth at all in the theory of the composite
photograph?_ Not an atom, so far as regards the genesis of the
abstract idea; one might superpose individual ideas _ad infinitum_,
and one would still have nothing more than an individual idea. But
if we leave the abstract idea out of the question, and consider the
_history of ideas_, in minds of the imaginal type, then the composite
photograph has more to say for itself. For we know from p. 156 that
the associative tendencies, if left to themselves, gradually die
out; and that the weaker die out more quickly than the stronger.
Consider what this means! I have a mental picture of a landscape, and
I do not see the actual scene for some years. The picture fades out;
but it fades out unevenly; its various features are correlated with
associative tendencies of varying strength. So I shall always imagine
a semicircle of mountains with the valley opening towards me, and the
river meandering down the valley; for these are features common to many
landscapes and strongly impressed upon my nervous system; but I shall
lose the relative heights of the mountains, and the particular turns
of the river, and the special distribution of villages and churches;
for these are individual features, and have been less frequently
repeated. _My mental picture of the landscape thus approaches a type_;
and the same thing is true of all complex images, if they are left
to themselves, and the underlying associative tendencies decay from
old age. These typical images are, nevertheless, ideas of particular
scenes or things or faces; their rounding and smoothing do not make
them abstract; while, conversely, the image that carries an abstract
meaning may be as firmly outlined as a steel engraving. The typical
image depends upon the inherent strength and weakness of associative
tendencies; the abstract meaning is due to determinations which cut
across the associative tendencies, perhaps to arrest or short-circuit,
perhaps to rearrange them; there can be no necessary connection between
typical image and abstract idea.
§ 63. =Thought and Language.=—It has often been said that thought
would be impossible without words; and it is true that we can hardly
conceive of human thought save as formed and embodied and expressed
in language. Thought and articulate speech grew up, so to say, side
by side; each implies the other; they are two sides of the same phase
of mental development. The old conundrum ‘Why don’t the animals talk?
Because they have nothing to say’ contains so much of sound psychology;
if the animals thought, they would undoubtedly use their vocal organs
for speech; and since they do not talk, they cannot either be thinking.
All this is true: and yet we must acknowledge that _thought is not
necessarily wedded to speech_; it probably appeared, at least in
rudimentary guise, before words came into being, and it persists (so to
say) after words have ceased to be. There is a gesture-language that
can serve as the medium of thought, and that is probably older than
speech; and there is a thinking in images and attitudes that dispenses
with words.
A =gesture= is _an expressive movement_; and all gestures have their
origin in the movements that express emotion. But a gesture can serve
as the medium of thought only if it is _made with the intention to
communicate_, to impart some meaning; and it is this intention that
seems to be the important thing, the specifically human endowment;
though we can say nothing more of it now than that it is one of the
ingrained tendencies of our nervous system (p. 135). Gestures, at
any rate, can give rise to a language of their own; and we may study
this language in various dialects; among deaf-mutes who have not been
subject to special training; in the Cistercian communities, which are
vowed to silence in the ordinary affairs of life; among uncivilised
peoples, like the Indian tribes of North America; and finally in the
lower strata of civilised societies,—here the Southern Italians are
typical. There is a strong family resemblance throughout. We find
that gestures express both the feeling-side and the idea-side of
emotions; and we find, naturally enough, that _development has gone
further on the side of idea_, where the gesture becomes a means for
the expression of thought. The simplest kind of ideational gesture
is the =demonstrative=, which points towards, directly indicates,
the object that excites emotion; we point our finger at the thing
that has frightened us, or shake our fist at the man who has made
us angry. =Representative= gesture depicts the object: whether by a
finger-drawing of its outline in the air, or by the reproduction of one
of its characteristic features, or by some purely symbolic movement.
Thus, a deaf-mute gesture for ‘smoke’ is a spiral action of the
forefinger from below upwards; for ‘child,’ the action of cradling and
rocking the right elbow in the left hand; for ‘truth,’ the movement of
the forefinger in a straight line from the mouth. This gesture-language
has its own syntax, its own laws of growth and change, its own
psychological history; but it could not hold its own against articulate
speech.
The struggle was, in all probability, brief; because, at the very
beginning, _speech itself was a gesture_; the essential thing about
it was not the sound, but the movement. If, then, gesture-language
is older than speech, it can hardly be much older; for the sound
that accompanied the gesture would soon attract attention, and the
superiority of articulate sound over visible movement would soon be
recognised. Attempts have been made, of course,—we may say ‘of course’
at this point of our psychological knowledge!—to read a meaning into
the sounds themselves. There is a theory which traces the origin of
language to the imitation of natural sounds, and so makes it begin
with words like _hiss_ and _roar_; and there is a theory which traces
it to ejaculations and merely mechanical utterances, and so makes it
begin with _oh_ and _ah_ and a sort of infantile babble. Neither of
these theories will hold water. Apart from the psychological arguments,
which we cannot here set forth, there is the evidence of fact: words
like _hiss_ and _roar_ form a very small part of the vocabulary of
any language; exclamations and interjections are emotive and not
ideational, and have had but little development; and the babble of
the human infant is not primitive, but corresponds with a stage in
the maturing of an inherited speech-mechanism. No! _the sound was,
at first, simply the incidental accompaniment of the gesture_, of a
movement which included the muscles of the larynx; it derived its
meaning from the gesture-context; and presently, under the influence
of continued social intercourse, it proved its superiority to gesture
and acquired its independence. We may say in the large that _the word
heard has never had any other than a derivative and symbolic meaning_,
and that _the self-sufficiency of the word-gesture, combined sound and
movement, is the origin of language_.
What a word should ‘mean,’ therefore, depended in the first instance
upon the context and determination of the articulated sound. Just as
any idea may serve as an abstract idea, so may any word whatever serve
as an abstract verbal idea, as what is technically called a =concept=,
provided only that its context and determination carry the meaning of
abstractness. We saw, however, that the context of the abstract idea
may drop away, and the mental correlates of its determination lapse,
so that finally some conventional image, like the triangle, is taken
as abstract, wears the very stamp of abstractness upon it. This is
preeminently the case with words. Every generation, we must remember,
inherits the speech of preceding generations; _language comes to us
ready made_. We learn from the study of language itself that the
abstract words were originally concrete; thus the Latin _sapio_, to
taste, _sapor_, taste, are connected with _sapa_, must, _sapo_, soap,
_sebum_, tallow,—with the names of substances that are readily diluted
or liquefied; but the situations that made them abstract dropped out of
mind long ago. The child finds language waiting for it, and finds that
every word incorporates a meaning; and so it comes about, not only that
the mental representation of honesty or pride may be the mere word,
‘honesty’ or ‘pride,’ as it occurs in internal speech, but also that
the same internal speech embodies the meaning of abstractness; _the
verbal image stands psychologically for an idea and logically for a
meaning_.
§ 64. =Mental Attitudes.=—If you look back over a course of thought,
you will find verbal ideas, and you will perhaps find imaginal
complexes of various kinds; but you will also find experiences of
another sort, which have come to be known as =mental attitudes=. They
are vague and elusive processes, which carry as if in a nutshell the
entire meaning of a situation. _Some of them belong to the feeling-side
of mind_: for feeling enters into the train of directed thought no less
than into the freer play of association (p. 161): they are reported
as ‘feelings’ of hesitation, vacillation, incapacity, expectancy,
surprise, triviality, relevancy, and so on. _Others are more nearly
related to ideas_; they are generally reported by a phrase beginning
with ‘I knew that ...,’ ‘I was sure that ...,’ ‘I realised that ...,’
or some like expression. Suppose, for instance, that the observer is
required to solve ‘in his head’ some mathematical problem, or to think
out the answer to some difficult question that bears upon his special
line of study. He may say, in the course of his report: “At that point
it occurred to me _that_ I had lost the first partial product,” “It
seemed to me _that_ the whole thing was taking too long a time,” “I
suddenly realised _that_ I had never thought of that before,” “It
flashed upon me _that_ the question was only another form of the old
difficulty,” “I could not see the answer, but I knew _that_ I could
work it out,” and so forth. All these _that_-clauses may stand for
mental attitudes.
It is clear that, so far as the verbal expressions go, the observer is
reporting meanings and not processes. Our task is, then, _to discover
what processes lie behind the meanings; and here the opinions of
psychologists are sharply at variance_. One party believes that the
mental attitudes are unique and simple, that they cannot be further
analysed, and that they must therefore be given rank as mental elements
alongside of sensation and feeling. Another party, to which the author
belongs, believes that the attitudes are analysable, if only they are
taken out of the thought-context and examined by themselves under more
favourable conditions, and that their analysis yields nothing else than
sensations and feelings. The whole matter is still under discussion,
and you will do best to suspend judgement. Meantime we may look at a
couple of instances.
Consider, first, the attitude of =expectation=. It is not difficult
to devise experiments which shall set up in the observer an expectant
attitude; thus, in a very simple case, the experimenter might hang a
weight by a cord to the ceiling, tie a loose piece of string to the
cord, and light the end of the string; the observer would then watch
the progress of the flame, _expecting_ that it will presently reach the
cord, burn that, and so cause the weight to fall to the floor. What are
the processes in the observer’s mind as he watches? You will naturally
think of an image; the observer will imagine the fall of the weight.
Not necessarily; not even usually; _the image of expectation must go
the same road as the image of recognition_ (p. 184). _Ordinarily,
expectation consists simply of kinæsthetic and organic sensations_;
sometimes there are verbal ideas; only occasionally is there an image.
If the experience is novel, _the sensations are likely to be tinged
by feeling_; there is a trace of anxiety, of apprehension. Analysis
reveals nothing more.
We have, then, in expectation a _directed_ experience; the perception
of the flaming string acts as a suggestion, turning the observer’s
mental processes into a single channel. The kinæsthetic and organic
sensations derive in part from the bodily attitude of _attention_:
tense muscles, inhibited breathing, adjustment of the organ of
sight. Yet the observer is not merely attentive; the suggestion, the
determination is there; and the sensations derive in part from that.
They are _contextual_ processes, and carry the meaning that ‘so-and-so
is going to happen.’ They are therefore precisely like the ‘sensations
of intended movement’ that characterise the motor reaction (p. 241);
we might even call them, following that analogy, ‘sensations of future
occurrence.’ All the same, they are, if we regard them as processes,
just kinæsthetic and organic sensations, held together in a certain
pattern by the perceptive suggestion; expectation shows nothing unique
or ultimate behind or beyond them.
In course of time, if the situation is repeated, the feeling of anxiety
fades away, and the experience becomes indifferent. With still
further repetition, the ‘sensations of future occurrence’ also drop
away; the suggestion from the flaming string then sets the organism,
automatically, for the coming event; and the set has no mental
correlates whatever.
A like procedure might be followed with vacillation, triviality, and
the rest; and the outcome, in the author’s belief, would be the same.
It is less easy to attack the =intellectual attitudes=, those expressed
by _that_-clauses. Suppose, however, that you have to write two
letters: the one to an intimate friend, dealing with your home-life and
things that have happened in your immediate circle, and the other to a
business correspondent, regarding some contract that must be drawn up
in precise terms. Do you not sit down to write with _a felt difference
of bodily attitude_, almost as if in the two cases you were a different
organism? There are different visceral pressures, differences of
tonicity in the muscles of back and legs, differences in the sensed
play of facial expression, differences in the movements of arm and hand
in the intervals of setting pen to paper, rather obvious differences
in respiration, and marked differences of local or general involuntary
movement,—all of them deriving from the different suggestions or
determinations which prompt the letters. Here, then, are two _thats_:
‘I was sure _that_ he would be interested in any gossip,’ and ‘I knew
very well _that_ I had to write carefully’; and the processes that
carry these meanings seem, again, to reduce to a certain pattern of
kinæsthetic and organic sensations, tinged very likely by feeling.
_When observation reveals such a wealth of sensory processes, it
seems unnecessary to assume a new mental element for the intellectual
attitudes._
We saw on p. 4 that the concern of science is with facts. But just
because facts are the staple of science, it is well that we should be
a little jealous about them, that we should scrutinise every alleged
fact as severely as our methods allow, and criticise it in the light
of every possible theory. That is the present condition of the mental
attitude; experiments are being made, and arguments brought forward,
for and against its novelty and uniqueness; and the struggle must be
carried through to the bitter end; for only in that way can the truth
come stably to light. Meantime, those who are in the fight must of
necessity take a side; the onlooker, as we have said, is well advised
to await the issue.
§ 65. =The Pattern of Thought.=—There is a broad general _resemblance
between the pattern of thought and that of constructive imagination_;
it has indeed been said, though with exaggeration, that thought is
an imagining in words, and imagination a thinking in images. The
thinker, like the artist, sets out with a plan or design, and aims at
a goal; and thought, like imagination, is a more or less steady flow,
in a single direction, from the fountain-head of nervous disposition.
‘Happy thoughts’ occur in thinking, as they occur in imagination; there
is a like movement between the poles of feeling; and the empathic
experiences of the artist are paralleled by the mental attitudes of the
thinker. In all these respects, the pattern of thought repeats what has
been said on pp. 198 ff. of the pattern of constructive imagination.
_Thought, however, has its distinctive features_; for it is subject to
two of the great directive tendencies that we mentioned on p. 205: the
tendency to objectify, to find ‘real things’ in the world about us, and
the tendency to dual division. The =tendency to objectify= underlies
perception as well as thought; the earliest ‘real things’ were, we must
suppose, external and material things; but with the growth of ideas
the tendency bears also upon the things of mind, upon concepts and
abstract ideas; these are taken _as_ real in every case of thinking.
The =tendency to dual division= is characteristic of thought; thinking
is essentially divisive, even if the goal of thought is constructive.
Here, then, is the main difference between thought and constructive
imagination: that imagination proceeds to the exhibition of a single
something, a statue or a picture or a poem; whereas thought proceeds to
the exhibition of two somethings in relation, and ends with what the
logicians call a =judgement=.
The tendency to dual division is so natural to us, and is impressed so
deeply in our nervous make-up, that we can hardly hope to go behind it.
We can hardly even describe a situation which calls for thought without
presupposing the very tendency which is characteristic of thought. For
what are the situations? They are _situations which ask a question_;
and we cannot ask a question without putting it in the form of a
judgement. Primitive man, wandering from place to place, comes back
to a scene that he knew under other circumstances; the tree which was
leafy is now bare, the river-bed which was full of water is now dry.
If there is no feeling of familiarity, and therefore no recognition,
the situation may still _ask_ him: ‘Same?’ and his reply ‘Same scene;
different features’ is the reply of thought. He has tried to understand
things; his secondary attention has played upon the scene perceived and
the scene remembered; he has in the upshot divided the permanent from
the changing, the ‘thing’ from the ‘properties’ of the thing; he has
reached a conclusion, or formed a judgement.
_All thought is of this kind, an answer to a question._ Let us take the
case of a scientific problem. Suppose that flints, which bear the marks
of human workmanship, are found in a Pliocene bed, which has apparently
remained undisturbed. The geologist is called upon to decide whether
the deposit really has been undisturbed, so that the ‘find’ is reliable
evidence of the existence of man in Tertiary times. The situation asks
him a number of questions: has the bed been misplaced by faulting? can
the materials have been brought to their present position by water?
are there any signs that Quaternary man used the place? are the flints
associated with bones of Tertiary animals? and so on and so forth.
He forms a whole series of judgements; feature after feature of the
situation is attended to, and every one in its turn is supplemented by
ideas derived from previous knowledge; there is the familiar conflict
of secondary attention, repeated over and over. Every judgement
affirms or denies some property of the situation, in accordance with
the original problem; and the outcome of the series of judgements, of
the whole train of thought, is a final judgement,—still, of course,
under the determination of the problem,—‘this bed has (or has not)
been disturbed’. If the flints themselves are only doubtfully of human
workmanship, then the situation is doubly complicated; the questions
and the partial judgements are more numerous; but the general pattern
of thought is the same.
The tendency to dual division shows itself, then, in the form of the
judgement, in the opposition of ‘subject’ to ‘predicate’; it shows
itself further in the grammatical distinctions of substantive and
adjective, verb and object, verb and adverb. And _all thought or
reasoning seems to reduce, in the last resort, to a succession of
judgements which, under the particular suggestion or determination,
exhausts the possibilities of dual division_. The duality, however,
is not always obvious at first glance. Ideas are involved; and the
arousal of a particular idea may mean the excitement of a whole nest
of associative tendencies; subject or predicate or both may thus be
supplemented in manifold wise; and the train of thought may appear
to be variously and irregularly divided. Only a careful observation
will show that these supplementary processes derive, not directly from
the suggestive situation, but rather from the secondary excitement
of associative tendencies. Moreover, the judgements themselves are
not always explicit; they may occur in nutshell form, as mental
attitudes. _The tendency to dual division is thus masked in two ways:
by incidental associations, and by attitudes._ It seems, nevertheless,
to underlie the whole structure of thought.
We are still in the dark as to psychological details. We have evidence
that there is no psychological difference between an affirmative and
a negative judgement; but we do not even know whether the judgement,
affirmative and negative, implies a specific mental pattern of its own,
as the idea implies the pattern of core and context, or whether it may
express a variety of patterns. On the whole, the latter alternative
seems the more probable; _if there is any stable characteristic of
the judgement, it is not a definite pattern or arrangement of mental
processes, but rather a definite mental attitude_, the ‘feeling of
validity’; and this attitude seems to be allied to the feeling of
familiarity in recognition, and so to be remotely akin to the emotion
of relief. As far as our evidence goes, it appears to accompany every
true judgement, that is to say, every judgement which is formed in
the state of secondary attention. A ‘feeling of relation’ need not
accompany the final judgement, but is likely to crop up here and there
in the course of a train of thought, assuring us that certain things go
together, belong to the same ‘circle’ of ideas, and that certain other
things are contradictory, and cannot go together. These =relational
feelings or attitudes= are contextual affairs, deriving probably from
the kinæsthesis of bodily attitude; they are, however, very difficult
to analyse, and their precise psychological nature is still in dispute.
In conclusion, let us revert for a moment to the comparison of thought
with constructive imagination. We have said that the two are broadly
similar; and we may now add that judgements occur in imagination, and
fetches of imagination in a train of thought. The differences are,
nevertheless, great enough to justify the popular distinction of the
two mental modes; for _thought advances by repeated dissections of a
situation which is taken as real, while imagination realises in the
work of art a situation which at first was vague or fragmentary_.
§ 66. =Abstraction and Generalisation.=—We have spoken of the abstract
or general idea, as if the two adjectives were interchangeable; and
_abstraction and generalisation are, in fact, only two phases of the
same procedure_. When we abstract, we pick out the features of a
situation that are relevant to our present determination, and neglect
the other features. When we generalise, we bring to light resemblances
that have been merged with differences; but this statement implies that
we neglect the differences, as irrelevant, and pick out the likenesses,
as relevant; generalisation is thus only a special case of abstraction.
We have seen that every suggestion is double-faced, positive as well
as negative; and we may perhaps say that in thinking of abstraction we
emphasise the negative face, the discarding of the irrelevant, while in
thinking of generalisation we emphasise the positive face, the bringing
together of the similars which are relevant.
Experiments upon =abstraction= may be made in the manner outlined
on p. 250: a complex stimulus (say, a visual stimulus that shows
differences of colour, of number, of arrangement) is exhibited for
a brief time; the observer is asked to attend to some one aspect of
it (say, colour); and then, his report given, is asked to state what
he can of the other aspects (number and form). Two general results
may be mentioned. It is found, as might perhaps have been expected,
that _things which make the least appeal to attention are also the
things most easily overlooked_. Colour and form, for instance, are
more attractive than number; and when the observer is told to attend
to colour or form, number may go entirely unnoticed; whereas, when
he is told to attend to number,—a relatively difficult task,—he
is still able to say something of colour and form. The result seems
only natural; but you may not see at once that it throws scientific
light on a matter of some practical importance. We all know from sad
experience that when thought, our own or another’s, flows smoothly and
easily, it is likely to be superficial; the very smoothness of the
flow means that difficulties have been overlooked. The obverse of this
fact is, now, that if we struggle with the knotty points of a subject,
we get a grip upon the whole; the interesting and attractive things
take care of themselves; their native appeal to the attention keeps
them in mind. So the experiments upon abstraction point a moral, at
the same time that they illustrate the nervous mechanism of thought
itself. They show, secondly, that _the negative effect of abstraction
varies in degree_; the aspects of stimulus from which we abstract may
be wholly suppressed, so that no report at all can be made of them, or
may be apprehended indefinitely, so that the report is general; thus,
form may be correctly named, while the colours are reported merely as
‘different,’ or as ‘dark.’ Another significant result! for it means
that _a concept is more easily touched off than a special name_; we
may fail to identify colours as red or blue when we can still say that
they are dark or different. The reason is that the concept, the general
name, is applied far oftener than the special name; its associative
tendencies are therefore both deeper seated and more numerous. We
have a parallel case in the image of p. 266, which slowly loses its
distinctive features and approaches a type; and we have others in the
gradual decay of memory with old age: a grandfather may forget the
names of his grandchildren, but he does not forget that they are ‘boys’
and ‘girls.’
[Illustration]
Experiments upon =generalisation=, that is, upon the positive
abstraction of similars, have been made by the aid of meaningless
forms, grouped as in the figure. The groups were of varying complexity,
but always contained one common element; and the instruction given
to the observer was that he should await the stimulus with as even
as possible a distribution of attention, and then, when the figures
appeared, should pick out the two that were alike. No less than six
modes of procedure were distinguished. The observer might work actively
through the forms, one by one; this is a laborious method, and was
employed for the most part only in the early experiments of the series.
Or he might travel over the groups, back and forth, until some figure
struck him as familiar; this is the method of simple recognition.
Or again he might start out on his journey of exploration, and find
himself suddenly arrested by an insistent form, some figure that stood
out more clearly than its fellows. Here are mixed methods, part active
search and part passive impression. In other cases, the two forms stood
out in quick succession, as if the one had drawn the other after it; in
still other cases, the two similars stood out simultaneously, sprang
forth as if of their own accord. Lastly, in rare instances, passivity
reached its maximum; the observer looked at the field, was at once held
by some outstanding form, and knew that this was the form required,
although he had not remarked the presence of its pair.
We cannot enter further into details; nor, indeed, is the time ripe
for discussion; the experimental study of thought-procedures has
hardly more than begun. You see, however, that _the pattern of thought
may vary widely in certain of its features, while yet the outcome of
thought, the abstraction or generalisation, is the same_; and this
conclusion may help you to understand why there need be no specific
mental pattern for the judgement.
§ 67. =Comparison and Discrimination.=—One of the commonest
occurrences in a train of thought is the comparison of present with
past, the harking back to a former stage of the procedure in order to
make sure that we have not missed or mistaken some item of experience;
and one of the commonest tasks set in the psychological laboratory
reduces this comparison to its lowest terms. Two stimuli are presented,
in succession; and the observer is required to say whether the
intensity or quality of the corresponding sensations, the duration of
the intervals, the magnitude of the forms, or whatever it may be, is
the same or different. Both the stimuli themselves and the time which
separates them may be varied in all sorts of ways; and the mental
processes involved in the comparison vary accordingly. Here we shall
mention only two points, which bear upon the course of thought at large.
It is a tradition in psychology that the comparison of present with
past experience implies the arousal of an _image_; we revive or
reproduce the old, and then set its mental picture alongside the new.
We have met a like tradition before, in our account of recognition and
of expectation (pp. 184, 273). Nothing, however, can be more certain
than that _the image is unnecessary; comparison may be direct, the
immediate outcome of a determination; and if it is indirect, the
processes involved need not be images_. Suppose, for instance, that
you are comparing two tones, sounded in succession, and that you are
to report upon their pitch; you are to say whether the second tone is
higher or lower than the first, or of the same pitch. In very many
cases, the second tone will evoke, at once and automatically, the
report ‘higher,’ ‘lower,’ or ‘same’; you find yourself uttering the
word, without further experience of any kind; the whole procedure
closes in on itself, very much as the impulse does in the motor
reaction (p. 241). In many cases, again, the comparison will be
indirect, but the intervening processes are sensations; strains appear
in chest or throat, in forehead or scalp; the observers report a
‘tightening’ which means ‘higher,’ and a ‘relaxing’ or ‘slackening’
which means that the second tone is lower. We may suppose that these
kinæsthetic processes are empathic; for in playing or singing or
listening to music we are likely to strain and hold the breath for
high-pitched passages, and to relax and settle down for the low.
Lastly, some imaginal complex may intervene; but even so it need not
be auditory; the observer may picture a printed score or the piano
keyboard, or may feel himself striking a note which is a semitone above
or below another. _The auditory image plays a part in the comparison_
only when the experiment is novel, when the second tone fails to touch
off a response, or when there is a conflict of impulses to report;
in other words, _only when the observer is hesitant and uncertain_;
otherwise, it either fails to appear, or appears and is disregarded.
That is the first point: the second is that _comparison is often
complete_—paradoxical as the statement may appear—_before the second
of the paired stimuli has been presented_; we are ready with our
answer before the full question has been put. If, for instance, we are
comparing the intensities of successive tones, and if the first tone
strikes us as unusually loud, or as ridiculously faint, then we are
prepared to declare the second tone ‘weaker’ or ‘stronger’ before we
have actually heard it. We receive from the first tone an _absolute
impression_ of loudness or faintness; and this impression—which,
as we saw on p. 125, is our nearest approach to an intensive
perception—suffices of itself to determine our report. Logically, we
may be said to ‘compare’ the very loud or very faint tone with a tone
of average intensity; psychologically, there is no comparison at all,
but _a direct response to the absolute impression_ made by the first
term of the stimulus-pair.
It need hardly be said that these paragraphs do not offer, even
in outline sketch, a psychology of comparison; they are not meant
to; for here again the time is not ripe for full discussion. They
should be enough, however, to drive home the lesson which the author
intends: that _the course of thought, whether we take the pattern as
a whole or consider separate aspects of it, is full of short cuts and
condensations_. It is probably as impossible to unravel the psychology
of thought, in every detail and to its first beginnings, as it is to
unravel the psychology of perception. For our thinking is subject, not
only to the inherited tendencies of the nervous system, but also to
the stereotyped thought of our social surroundings; we are bred up in
an atmosphere of meaning, and we hear words before we can speak them.
If men do not use language, as Voltaire cynically said they do, to
conceal their own thoughts, at least their facility of speech makes the
psychology of thought almost insuperably difficult to their children.
Questions and Exercises
(1) We found, in the last chapter, that selective action does not
follow directly upon impulsive action, but that there is between the
two a stage of ‘trial and error.’ Can you instance any form of thought
(from your own experience, or from drama or fiction) which corresponds
with the stage of trial and error in action?
(2) Can you suggest the circumstances under which an ‘intention to
communicate’ might naturally arise? Your answer must be speculative;
but it must also be scientifically reasonable!
(3) How is articulate speech superior to gesture? Write fully; do not
be satisfied with your first answer.
(4) Illustrate in detail, from your answers to previous questions in
this book, the advantages and disadvantages of language as the vehicle
of scientific description.
(5) In this chapter we have seen that speech replaces gesture; in
§ 51, we spoke of the conservatism of gesture, and said that the
speech-metaphor might lapse while the gesture persisted. Is there any
contradiction?
(6) It is said that the letters of the alphabet were originally
hieroglyphics, that is, pictures of actual objects in the external
world, and that they have only by very slow degrees become
sound-symbols. Suppose this to be true: can you outline the course of
change, in psychological terms?
(7) Try, as occasion offers, to analyse (_a_) the mental attitude of
questioning, and (_b_) the feeling of validity; keep your notes by you,
and try again and again. Compare your own results with those obtained
by your fellow-students.
(8) James writes that “we ought to say a feeling of _and_, a feeling
of _if_, a feeling of _but_, and a feeling of _by_, quite as readily
as we say a feeling of _blue_ or a feeling of _cold_” (Principles of
Psychology, i., 1890, 245 f.): that is to say, we ought to speak of
‘sensations of relation,’ just as we speak of ‘sensations of sight.’
Do you agree? Answer the question, first, in general terms, from the
point of view of a scientific psychology; and again in the concrete,
after you have observed the mental processes that come with an emphatic
_but_ or _if_.
(9) An examiner sets questions which shall test his students’
knowledge; he also sets questions in order to discover whether they
have thought for themselves. How can he tell?
(10) How is it that one can carry a complicated sentence to a smooth
grammatical conclusion, without knowing beforehand what words and what
form of sentence one is going to employ?
(11) Arrange an experiment on comparison with simultaneously presented
stimuli; an experiment, for instance, on the discrimination of hues or
of lengths of lines. Outline a psychology of this mode of comparison.
Is the comparison always direct? Is there any evidence of absolute
impression?
(12) On p. 259 you were asked to distinguish various types of decision;
and some of them, as you no doubt found, were _not_ decisions in the
proper psychological sense. Can you, in the same way, distinguish
types of conclusion, and show that some of them (even after secondary
attention has been at work) are not, in the proper psychological sense,
judgements?
References
W. James, Principles of Psychology, i., 1890, chs. ix., xii., xiii.;
ii., ch. xxii.; W. Wundt, Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology,
1896, Lects. xxi., xxiv.; Outlines of Psychology, 1907, § 17; T. Ribot,
The Evolution of General Ideas, 1899; W. B. Pillsbury, The Psychology
of Reasoning, 1910; E. B. Titchener, Experimental Psychology of the
Thought-processes, 1909; Text-book of Psychology, 1910, 505 ff.; J.
Ward, art. Psychology, in Encyclopædia Britannica, xxii., 1911, 589 ff.
Special references are: G. Berkeley, A Treatise concerning the
Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710, Introd. (A. C. Fraser, Selections
from Berkeley, 1884, 16, 18, 22); T. H. Huxley, Hume, 1881, 96 f.; E.
B. Tylor, Anthropology, 1881, chs. iv., v.