LOGIC OF CONCEPTS.
The device of applying symbols to stand for ideas, and then using the
symbols as ideas, operates to the formation of more highly abstract
ideas in a manner that is easily seen. For instance, because we observe
that a great many objects present a certain quality in common, such as
redness, we find it convenient to give this quality a name; and, having
done so, we speak of redness in the abstract, or as standing apart
from any particular object. Our word “redness” then serves as a sign
or symbol of a quality, apart from any particular object of which it
may happen to be a quality; and having made this symbolic abstraction
in the case of a simple quality, such as redness, we can afterwards
compound it with other symbolic abstractions, and so on till we arrive
at verbal symbols of more and more abstract or general qualities,
as well as qualities further and further removed from immediate
perception. Thus, seeing that many other objects agree in being yellow,
others blue, and so on, we combine all these abstractions into a still
more general concept of Colour, which, _quâ_ more abstract, is further
removed from immediate perception—it being impossible that we can
ever have a percept answering to the amalgamated concept of _colour_,
although we have many percepts answering to the constituent concepts of
_colours_.
So in the analogous case of objects. The proper names Peter, Paul,
John, &c., stand in my mind as marks of my individual concepts:
the term Man serves to sum up all the points of agreement between
them—and also between all other individuals of their kind—without
regard to their points of disagreement: the word Animal takes a still
wider range, and so with nearly all words denoting objects. Like words
connoting qualities, they may be arranged in rank above rank according
to the range of their generality: and it is obvious that the wider this
range the further is their meaning withdrawn from anything that can
ever have been an object of immediate perception.
We shall afterwards find it is of the highest importance to note that
these remarks apply quite as much to actions and states as they do
to objects and qualities. Verbs, like nouns and adjectives, may be
merely the names of simple recepts, or they may be compounds of other
concepts—in either case differing from nouns and adjectives only in
that they have to do with actions and states. To sow, to dig, to spin,
&c., are names of particular actions; to labour is the name of a more
general action; to live is the symbol of a concept yet more general.
And it is obvious that here, as previously, the more general concepts
are built out of the more special.
Later on I will adduce evidence to show that, whether we look to
the growing infant or to the history of mankind as newly unearthed
by the researches of the philologist, we alike find that no one of
these divisions of simple concepts—namely, nouns, adjectives, and
verbs—appears to present priority over the others. Or, if there is any
evidence of such priority, it appears to incline in favour of nouns
and verbs. But the point on which I desire to fasten attention at
present is the enormous leverage which is furnished to the faculty of
ideation by thus using words as the mental equivalents of ideas. For by
the help of these symbols we climb into higher and higher regions of
abstraction: by thinking in verbal signs we think, as it were, with the
semblance of ideas: we dispense altogether with the necessity of actual
images, whether of precepts or of recepts: we quit the sphere of sense,
and rise to that of thought.
Take, for example, another type of abstract ideation, and one which
not only serves better than most to show the importance of signs as
substitutes for ideas, but also best illustrates the extraordinary
results to which such symbolism may lead when carried out persistently.
I refer to mathematics. Of course, before the idea of number or of
relation can arise at all, the faculty of conception must have made
great advances; but let us take this faculty at the point where the
artifice of substituting signs for ideas has gone as far as to enable
a mind to count by means of simple notation. It would clearly be
impossible to conduct the least intricate trains of reasoning which
invoke any ideas of number or proportion, were we deprived of the power
of attaching particular signs to particular ideas of number. We could
not even tell whether a clock had struck eleven or twelve, unless we
were able to mark off each successive stroke with some distinctive
sign; so that when it is said, as it often is, that an animal cannot
count, we must remember that neither could a senior wrangler count
if deprived of his symbols. “Man begins by counting things, grouping
them visibly [_i.e._ by the Logic of Recepts]. He then learns to count
simply the numbers, in the absence of things, using his fingers and
toes for symbols. He then substitutes abstract signs, and Arithmetic
begins. From this he passes to Algebra, the signs of which are not
merely abstract but general; and now he calculates numerical relations,
not numbers. From this he passes to the higher calculus of relations.”
And just as in mathematics the symbols that are employed contain in
an easily manipulated form enormous bodies of meaning—possibly,
indeed, the entire meaning of a long calculation,—so in all other
kinds of abstract ideation, the symbols which we employ—whether in
gesture, speech, or writing—contain more or less condensed masses of
signification. Or, to take another illustration, which, like the last
example, I quote from Lewes, “It is the same with the development of
commerce. Men begin by exchanging things. They pass to the exchange
of values. First money, then notes or bills, is the symbol of value.
Finally men simply debit and credit one another, so that immense
transactions are effected by means of this equation of equations. The
complicated processes of sowing, reaping, collecting, shipping, and
delivering a quantity of wheat, are condensed into the entry of a few
words in a ledger.”
Thus, without further treatment, it must be obvious that it is
impossible for us to over-estimate the importance of Language as the
handmaid of Thought. “A sign,” as Sir William Hamilton says, “is
necessary to give stability to our intellectual progress—to establish
each step in our advance as a new starting-point for our advance to
another beyond.... Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us
to make every intellectual conquest the basis of operations for others
still beyond.” Moreover, thought and language act and react upon one
another; so that, to adopt a happy metaphor from Professor Max Müller,
the growth of thought and language is coral-like. Each shell is the
product of life, but becomes in turn the support of new life. In the
same manner each word is the product of thought, but becomes in turn a
new support for the growth of thought.
It seems needless to say more in order to show the immense importance
of sign-making to the development of ideation—the fact being one of
universal recognition by writers of every school. I will, therefore,
now pass on to the theme of the present chapter, which is that of
tracing in further detail the _logic_ of this faculty, or the _method_
of its development.
* * * * *
From what I have already said, it may have been gathered that the
simplest concepts are merely the names of recepts; while concepts of a
higher order are the names of other concepts. Just as recepts may be
either memories of particular percepts, or the results of many percepts
(_i.e._ sundry other recepts) grouped as a class; so concepts may be
either names of particular recepts, or the results of many named
recepts (_i.e._ sundry other concepts) grouped as a class. The word
“red,” for example, is my name for a particular recept; but the word
“colour” is my name for a whole group of named recepts. And similarly
with words signifying objects, states, and actions. Hence, we may
broadly distinguish between concepts as of two orders—namely, those
which have to do with recepts, and those which have to do with other
concepts. For a concept is a concept even though it be nothing more
than a named recept; and it is still a concept, even though it stands
for the highest generalization of thought. I will make this distinction
yet more clear by means of better illustrations.
Water-fowl adopt a somewhat different mode of alighting upon land, or
even upon ice, from that which they adopt when alighting upon water;
and those kinds which dive from a height (such as terns and gannets)
never do so upon land or upon ice. These facts prove that the animals
have one recept answering to a solid substance, and another answering
to a fluid. Similarly, a man will not dive from a height over hard
ground or over ice, nor will he jump into water in the same way as
he jumps upon dry land. In other words, like the water-fowl, he has
two distinct recepts, one of which answers to solid ground, and the
other to an unresisting fluid. But, unlike the water-fowl, he is able
to bestow upon each of these recepts a name, and thus to raise them
both to the level of concepts. So far as the practical purposes of
locomotion are concerned, it is of course immaterial whether or not he
thus raises his recepts into concepts; but, as we have seen, for many
other purposes it is of the highest importance that he is able to do
this. Now, in order to do it, he must be able to set his recept before
his own mind as an object of his own thought: before he can bestow upon
these generic ideas the names of “solid” and “fluid,” he must have
_cognized_ them _as_ ideas. Prior to this act of cognition, these ideas
differed in no respect from the recepts of a water-fowl; neither for
the ordinary requirements of his locomotion is it needful that they
should: therefore, in so far as these requirements are concerned,
the man makes no call upon his higher faculties of ideation. But, in
virtue of this act of cognition, whereby he assigns a name to an idea
known as such, he has created for himself—and for purposes other than
locomotion—a priceless possession: he has formed a concept.
Nevertheless, the concept which he has formed is an extremely simple
one—amounting, in fact, to nothing more than the naming of one among
the most habitual of his recepts. But it is of the nature of concepts
that, when once formed, they admit of being intentionally compared;
and thus there arises a new possibility in the way of grouping
ideas—namely, no longer by means of sensuous associations, but by
means of symbolic representations. The names of recepts now serve
as symbols of the recepts themselves, and so admit of being grouped
without reference to the sensuous perceptions out of which they
originally sprang. No longer restricted to time, place, circumstance,
or occasion, ideas may now be called up and manipulated at pleasure;
for in this new method of ideation the mind has, as it were, acquired
an _algebra of recepts_: it is no longer necessary that the actual
recepts themselves should be present to sensuous perception, or even
to representative imagination. And as concepts are thus symbols of
recepts, they admit, as I have said, of being compared and combined
without reference to the recepts which they serve to symbolize. Thus we
become able, as it were, to calculate in concepts in a way and to an
extent that would be quite impossible in the merely perceptual medium
of recepts. Now, it is in this algebra of the imagination that all the
higher work of ideation is accomplished; and as the result of long and
elaborate syntheses of concepts we turn out mental products of enormous
intricacy—which, nevertheless, may be embodied in single words. Such
words, for example, as Virtue, Government, Mechanical Equivalent,
stand for immensely more elaborated concepts than the words Solid or
Fluid—seeing that to the former there are no possible equivalents in
the way of recepts.
Hence I say we must begin by recognizing the great reach of
intellectual territory which is covered by what are called concepts.
At the lowest level they are nothing more than named recepts; beyond
that level they become the names of other concepts; and eventually
they become the named products of the highest and most complex
co-ordinations of concepts which have been achieved by the human mind.
By the term _Lower Concepts_, then, I will understand those which are
nothing more than named recepts, while by the term _Higher Concepts_ I
will understand those which are compounded of other concepts.
* * * * *
The next thing I wish to make clear is that concepts of the lower
order of which I speak, notwithstanding that they are the simplest
kind of concepts possible, are already something more than the names
of _particular_ ideas: they are the names of what I have called
_generic_ ideas, or recepts. We may search through the whole dictionary
of any language and not find a single word which stands as a name
for a truly particular idea—_i.e._ for the memory of a particular
percept. Proper names are those which most nearly approach this
character; but even proper names are really names of recepts (as
distinguished from particular percepts), seeing that every object to
which they are applied is a highly complex object, presenting many and
diverse qualities, all of which require to be registered in memory as
appertaining to that object if it is again to be recognized as the same.
Names, then, are not concerned with particular ideas, strictly so
called: concepts, even of the lowest order, have to do with generic
ideas. Furthermore, the generic ideas with which they have to do are
for the most part highly generic: even before a recept is old enough to
be baptized—or sufficiently far developed to be admitted as a member
of the body conceptual,—it is already a highly organized product
of ideation. We have seen in the last chapter how wonderfully far
the combining power of imagination is able to go without the aid of
language; and the consequence of this is, that before the advent of
language mind is already stored with a rich accumulation of orderly
ideas, grouped together in many systems of logical coherency. When,
therefore, the advent of language does take place, it is needless that
this work of logical grouping should be recommenced _ab initio_. What
language does is to take up the work of grouping where it has been left
by generic ideation; and if it is found expedient to name any generic
ideas, it is the more generic as well as the less generic that are
selected for the purpose. In short, immense as is the organizing power
of the Logos, it does not come upon the scene of its creative power to
find only that which is without form and void: rather does it find a
fair structure of no mean order of system, shaped by prior influences,
and, so far as thus shaped, a veritable cosmos.
Again, all concepts in their last resort depend on recepts, just as
in their turn recepts depend on percepts. This fact admits of being
abundantly proved, not only by general considerations, but also by the
etymological derivation of abstract terms. The most highly abstract
terms are derived from terms less abstract, and these from others
still less abstract, until, by two or three such steps at the most,
we are in all cases led directly back to their origin in a “lower
concept”—_i.e._ in the name of a recept. As I will prove later on,
there is no abstract word or general term in any language which, if its
origin admits of being traced at all, is not found to have its root
in the name of a recept. Concepts, therefore, are originally nothing
more than named recepts; and hence it is _a priori_ impossible that any
concept can be formed unless it does eventually rest upon the basis
of recepts. Owing to the elaboration which it subsequently undergoes
in the region of symbolism, it may, indeed, so far cease to bear any
likeness to its parentage that it is only the philologist who can
trace its lineage. When we speak of Virtue, we need no longer think
about a man, nor need we make any conscious reference to the steering
of a ship when we use the word Government. But it is none the less
obvious that both these highly abstract words have originated in the
naming of recepts (the one of an object, the other of an action); and
that their subsequent elevation in the scale of generality has been
due to a progressive widening of conceptual significance at the hands
of symbolical thought. In other words, and to revert to my previous
terminology, “higher concepts” can in no case originate _de novo_: they
can only be born of “lower concepts,” which, in turn, are the progeny
of recepts.
* * * * *
I must now recur to a point with which we were concerned at the close
of the last chapter. I there showed that the kind of classification,
or mental grouping of ideas, which goes to constitute the logic of
recepts, differs from the mental grouping of ideas which constitutes
the logic of concepts, in that while the former has to do with
similarities which are most obvious to perception, and therefore with
analogies which most obtrude themselves upon attention, the latter
have to do with similarities which are least obvious to perception,
and therefore with analogies which are least readily apparent to the
senses. Classification there is in both cases; but while in the one it
depends on the closeness of the resemblances in an act of perception,
in the other it is expressive of their remoteness. Now, from this it
follows that the more conceptual the classification, the less obvious
to immediate perception are the similarities between the things
classified; and, consequently, the higher a generalization the greater
must be the distance by which it is removed from the merely automatic
groupings of receptual ideation.
For example, the earliest classification of the animal kingdom with
which we are acquainted, grouped together, under the common designation
of “creeping things,” articulata, mollusca, reptiles, amphibia, and
even certain mammals, such as weasels, &c. Here, it is evident, the
classification reposed only on the very superficial resemblances
which are exhibited by these various creatures in their modes of
locomotion. As yet conceptual thought had not been directed to the
anatomy of animals; and, therefore, when it undertook a classification
of animals, in the first instance it went no further than to note the
most obvious differences as to external form and movement. In other
words, this earliest conceptual classification was little more than the
verbal statement of a receptual classification. But when the science
of comparative anatomy was inaugurated by the Greeks, a much more
conceptual classification of animals emerged—although the importance
of anything like a systematic arrangement of the animal kingdom as
a whole was so little appreciated that it does not appear to have
been attempted, even by Aristotle. For, marvellous as is the advance
of conceptual grouping here displayed by him, he confined himself
to drawing anatomical comparisons between one group of animals and
another; he neither had any idea of group subordinate to group which
afterwards constituted the leading principle of taxonomic research, nor
does he anywhere give a tabular statement of his own results, such as
he could scarcely have failed to give had he appreciated the importance
of classifying the animal kingdom as a systematic whole. Lastly, since
the time of Ray the best thought of the best naturalists has been
bestowed upon this work, with the result that conceptual ideation has
continuously ascended through wider and wider generalizations, or
generalizations more and more chastened by the intentional and combined
accumulations of knowledge. How enormous, then, is the contrast between
the first simple attempt at classification as made by the early Jews,
and the elaborate body of abstract thought which is presented by the
taxonomic science of to-day.
Similar illustrations might be drawn from any of the other departments
of conceptual evolution, because everywhere such evolution essentially
consists in the achievement of ideal integrations further and further
removed from simple perceptions. Or, as Sir W. Hamilton puts it, “by a
first generalization we have obtained a number of classes of resembling
individuals. But these classes we can compare together, observe their
similarities, abstract from their differences, and bestow on their
common circumstance a common name. On the second classes we can again
perform the same operation, and thus, ascending through the scale of
general notions, throwing out of view always a greater number of
differences, and seizing always on fewer similarities in the formation
of our classes, we arrive at length at the limit of our ascent in the
notion of being or existence.”[54]
Now, the point on which I wish to be perfectly clear about is, that
this process of conceptual ideation, whereby ideas become general, must
be carefully distinguished from the processes of receptual ideation,
whereby ideas become generic. For these latter processes consist in
particular ideas, which are given immediately in sense perception,
becoming by association of similarity or contiguity automatically fused
together; so that out of a number of such associated percepts there is
formed a recept, without the need of any intentional co-operation of
the mind in the matter. On the other hand, a general idea, or concept,
can only be formed by the mind itself intentionally classifying its
recepts known as such—or, in the case of creating “higher concepts,”
performing the same process with its already acquired general ideas,
for the purpose of constructing ideas still more general. A generic
idea, then, is generalized in the sense that a naturalist speaks of a
lowly organism as generalized—_i.e._ as not yet differentiated into
the groups of higher and more specialized structures that subsequently
emanate therefrom. But a general idea is generalized in the sense of
comprising a group of such higher and more specialized structures,
already formed and named under a common designation with reference to
their points of resemblance. Classification there is in all cases; but
in the receptual order it is automatic, while in the conceptual order
it is introspective.
* * * * *
So far as my analysis has hitherto gone, I do not anticipate criticism
or dissent from any psychologist, to whatever school he may belong. But
there is one matter of subordinate importance which I may here most
conveniently dispose of, although my views with regard to it may not
meet with universal assent.
It appears to me an obvious feature of our introspective life that we
are able to carry on elaborate processes of ideation without the aid
of words—or, to put it paradoxically, that we are able to conceive
without concepts. I am, of course, aware that this apparently obvious
power of being able to think without any mental rehearsal of verbal
signs (the _verbum mentale_ of scholasticism) is denied by several
writers of good standing—notably, for instance, by Professor Max
Müller, who seeks with much elaboration to prove that “not only to a
considerable extent, but always and altogether, we think by means of
names.”[55] Now this statement appears to me either a truism or untrue:
it is either tautological in expression, or erroneous in fact. If we
restrict the term “thought” to the operation of naming, it is merely a
truism to say that there can be no thought without language; for this
is merely to say that there can be no naming without names. But if
the term “thought” is taken to cover all processes of ideation which
we do not share with brutes, I hold that the statement is opposed to
obvious fact; and, therefore, I agree with the long array of logicians
and philosophers whom Professor Max Müller quotes as showing what he
calls “hesitation” in accepting a doctrine which in his opinion is
the inevitable conclusion of Nominalism. For to me it appears evident
that within the region of concepts, the frequent handling of those
with which the mind is familiar enables the mind to deal with them in
somewhat the same automatic manner as, on a lower plane of coordinated
action, the pianist deals with his chords and phrases. Whereas at first
it required intentional and laborious effort to perform these many
varied and complex adjustments, by practice their performance passes
more and more out of the range of conscious effort, until they come
to be executed in a manner well-nigh mechanical. So in the case of
purely mental operations, even of the highest order. At first every
link in the chain of ideation requires to be separately fastened to
attention by means of a word: every step in a process of reasoning
requires to be taken on the solid basis of a proposition. But by
frequent habit the thinking faculty ceases to be thus restricted: it
passes, so to speak, from one end of the chain to the other without
requiring to pause at every link: for its original stepping-stones it
has substituted a bridge, over which it can pass almost at a bound.
Or, again, to change the metaphor, there arises a method of short-hand
thinking, wherein even the symbols of ideas (concepts) need no longer
appear in consciousness: judgment follows judgment in logical sequence,
yet without any articulate expression by the _verbum mentale_. This, I
say, is a matter of fact which it appears to me a very small amount of
introspection is enough to verify. On reading a letter, for instance,
we may instantaneously decide upon our answer, and yet have to pause
before we are able to frame the propositions needed to express that
answer. Or, while writing an essay, how often does one feel, so to
speak, that a certain truth stands to be stated, although it is a truth
which we cannot immediately put into words. We know, in a general way,
that a truth is _there_, but we cannot supply the vehicle which is to
bring it _here_; and it is not until we have tried many devices, each
of which involve long trains of sequent propositions, that we begin
to find the satisfaction of rendering explicit in language what was
previously implicit in thought. Again, in playing a game of chess we
require to take cognizance of many and complex relations, actual and
contingent; so that to play the game as it deserves to be played, we
must make a heavy demand on our powers of abstract thinking. Yet in
doing this we do not require to preach a silent monologue as to all
that we might do, and all that may be done by our opponent. Lastly, to
give only one other illustration, in some forms of aphasia the patient
has lost every trace of verbal memory, and yet his faculties of thought
for all the practical purposes of life are not materially impaired.
On the whole, therefore, I conclude that, although language is a
needful condition to the _original construction_ of conceptional
thought, when once the building has been completed, the scaffolding
may be withdrawn, and yet leave the edifice as stable as before. In
this way familiar concepts become, as it were, degraded into recepts,
but recepts of a degree of complexity and organization which would not
have been possible but for their conceptional parentage. With Geiger we
may say, “So ist denn überall die Sprache primar, der Begriff entsteht
durch das Wort.”[56] Yet this does not hinder that with Friedrich
Müller we should add, “Sprechen ist nicht Denken, sondern es ist nur
Ausdruck des Denkens.”[57]
* * * * *
With the exception of the last paragraph, my analysis, as already
observed, will probably not be impugned by any living psychologist,
either of the evolutionary or non-evolutionary schools; for, with the
exception of this paragraph, I have purposely arranged my argument so
as thus far to avoid debatable questions. And it will be observed that
even this paragraph has really nothing to do with the issue which lies
before us; seeing that the question with which it deals is concerned
only with intellectual processes exclusively human. But now, after
having thus fully prepared the way by a somewhat lengthy clearing of
preliminary ground, we have to proceed to the question whether it
is conceivable that the faculty of speech, with all the elaborate
structure of ideation to which it has led, can have arisen by way of a
natural genesis from the lower faculties of mind. As we have now seen,
it is on all hands agreed that the one and only distinction between
human and animal psychology consists in the former presenting this
faculty which, otherwise stated, means, as we have likewise seen, the
power of translating ideas into symbols, and using these symbols in the
stead of ideas.
This, I say, is the one distinction upon which all are agreed; the only
question is as to whether it is a distinction of kind or of degree.
Since the time when the ancient Greeks applied the same word to denote
the faculty of language and the faculty of thought, the philosophical
propriety of the identification has become more and more apparent.
Obscured as the truth may have become for a time through the fogs of
Realism, discussion of centuries has fully cleared the philosophical
atmosphere so far as this matter is concerned. Hence, in these latter
days, the only question here presented to the evolutionist is—Why has
no mere brute ever learnt to communicate with its fellows? Why has man
alone of animals been gifted with the Logos? To answer this question we
must undertake a somewhat laborious investigation of the philosophy of
Language.