THE TRANSITION IN THE INDIVIDUAL.
We are now, I think, in possession of sufficient material to begin our
answer to the question with which we set out—namely, Is it conceivable
that the human mind can have arisen by way of a natural genesis from
the minds of the higher quadrumana? I maintain that the material now
before us is sufficient to show, not only that this is conceivable, but
inevitable.
First of all we must remember that we share in common with the lower
animals not only perceptual, but also what I have termed receptual
life. Thus far, no difference of kind can be even so much as suggested.
The difference then, be it one of kind or of degree, concerns only
those superadded elements of psychology which are peculiar to man,
and which, following other psychologists, I have termed conceptual.
I say advisedly the _elements_, because it is by no one disputed
that all differences of conceptual life are differences of degree,
or that from the ideation of a savage to that of a Shakespeare there
is unquestionably a continuous ascent. The only question, then, that
obtains is as to the relation between the highest recept of a brute and
the lowest concept of a man.
Now, in considering this question we must first remember to what an
extraordinarily high level of adaptive ideation the purely receptual
life of brutes is able to carry them. If we contrast the ideation of
my cebus, which honestly investigated the mechanical principle of a
screw, and then applied his specially acquired knowledge to screws in
general—if we contrast this ideation with that of palæolithic man,
who for untold thousands of years made no advance upon the chipping
of flints, we cannot say that, when gauged by the practical test of
efficiency or adaptation, the one appears to be very much in advance
of the other. Or, if we remember that these same men never hit upon
the simple expedient of attaching a chipped flint to a handle, so as
to make a hatchet out of a chisel,[129] it cannot be said that in the
matter of mechanical discovery early conceptual life displayed any
great advance upon the high receptual life of my cebus. Nevertheless, I
have allowed—nay insisted—that no matter how elaborate the structure
of receptual knowledge may be, or how wonderful the adaptive action it
may prompt, a “practical inference” or “receptual judgment” is always
separated from a conceptual inference or true judgment by the immense
distinction that it is not itself an object of knowledge. No doubt
it is a marvellous fact that by means of receptual knowledge alone a
monkey should be able to divine the mechanical principle of _a screw_,
and afterwards apply his discovery to all cases of _screws_. But even
here there is nothing to show that the monkey ever _thought_ about
the principle _as_ a principle; indeed, we may rest well assured that
he cannot possibly have done so, seeing that he was not in possession
of the intellectual instruments—and, therefore, of the _antecedent
conditions_—requisite for the purpose. All that the monkey did was
to perceive receptually certain analogies: but he did not _conceive_
them, or constitute them objects of thought _as_ analogies. He was,
therefore, unable to _predicate_ the discovery he had made, or to set
before his own mind as knowledge the knowledge which he had gained.
Or, to take another illustration, the bird which saw three men go
into a building, and inferred that one must still have remained when
only two came out, conducted the inference receptually: the only data
she had were those supplied by differential sense-perceptions. But
although these data were sufficient for the purpose of conducting
what Mr. Mivart calls a “practical inference,” and so of enabling her
to know that a man still remained behind, they were clearly not enough
to enable her to know the numerical relations _as_ relations, or in
any way to predicate to herself, 3-2=1. In order to do this, the bird
would have required to quit the region of receptual knowledge, and
rise to that of conceptual: she would have required in some form or
another to have substituted symbols for ideas. It makes no difference,
so far as this distinction is concerned, when we learn that in dealing
with certain savages “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 Dammara to take two sheep and give him four
sticks.”[130] All that such facts show is that in some respects the
higher receptual life of brutes attains almost as high a level of
ideation as the lower conceptual life of man; and although this fact
no doubt greatly lessens the difficulty which my opponents allege as
attaching to the supposition that the two were genetically continuous,
it does not in itself dispose of the psychological distinction between
a recept and a concept.
This distinction, as we have now so often seen, consists in a recept
being an idea which is not itself an object of knowledge, whereas a
concept, in virtue of having been named by a self-conscious agent, is
an idea which stands before the mind of that agent _as_ an idea, or
as a state of mind which admits of being introspectively contemplated
as such. But although we have in this distinction what I agree with
my opponents in regarding as the greatest single distinction that is
to be met with in psychology, I altogether object to their mode of
analyzing it. For what they do is to take the concept in its most
highly developed form, and then contrast this with the recept of an
animal. Nay, as we have seen, they even go beyond a concept, and allege
that “the simplest element of thought” is a judgment as bodied forth
in a proposition—_i.e._ _two_ concepts _plus_ the predication of a
relationship between them! Truly, we might as well allege that the
simplest element of matter is H_{2}SO_{4}, or the simplest element
of sound a bar of the C Minor Symphony. Obviously, therefore, or as a
mere matter of the most rudimentary psychological analysis, if we say
that the simplest element of thought is a judgment, we must extend the
meaning of this word from the mental act concerned in full predication,
to the mental act concerned in the simplest conception.
And not only so. Not only have my opponents committed the slovenly
error of regarding a predicative judgment as “the simplest element
of thought;” they have also omitted to consider that even a concept
requires to be analyzed with respect to its antecedents, before this
the really simplest element of thought can be pointed to as proving
a psychological distinction of kind in the only known intelligence
which presents it. Now, the result of my analysis of the concept has
been to show that it is preceded by what I have termed pre-concepts,
which admit of being combined into what I have termed nascent,
rudimentary, or pre-conceptual judgments. In other words, we have seen
that the receptual life of man reaches a higher level of development
than the receptual life of brutes, even before it passes into that
truly conceptual phase which is distinguished by the presence of
self-conscious reflection. In order, therefore, to mark off this higher
receptual life of a human being from the lower receptual life of a
brute, I have used the terms just mentioned.
So much, then, for these several stages of ideation, which I have now
reiterated _ad nauseam_. Turning next to my analysis of their several
modes of expression, or of their translation into their severally
equivalent systems of signs, we have seen that many of the lower
animals are able to communicate their recepts by means of gestures
significant of objects, qualities, actions, desires, &c.; and that in
the only case where they are able to articulate, they so communicate
their recepts by means of words. Therefore, in a sense, these animals
may be said to be using names; but, in order not to confuse this
kind of naming with that which is distinctive of conceptual thought,
I have adopted the scholastic terminology, and called the former
kind of naming an act of denotating, as distinguished from an act of
denominating. Furthermore, seeing that denotative language is able, as
above observed, to signify qualities and actions as well as objects,
it follows that in the higher receptual (_i.e._ pre-conceptual)
stages of ideation, denotative language is able to construct what I
have termed pre-conceptual propositions. These differ from true or
conceptual propositions in the absence of true self-consciousness on
the part of the speaker, who therefore, while communicating receptual
knowledge, or stating truths, cannot yet know his own knowledge, or
state the truths as true. But it does not appear that a pre-conceptual
proposition differs from a conceptual one in any other respect, while
it does appear that the one passes gradually into the other with the
rise of self-consciousness in every growing child. Now, if all these
things are so, we are entitled to affirm that analysis has displayed
an uninterrupted transition between the denotation of a brute and the
predication of a man. For the mere fact that it is the former phase
alone which occurs in the brute, while in the man, _after having
run a parallel course of development_, this phase passes into the
other—the mere fact that this is so cannot be quoted as evidence that
a similar transition never took place in the psychological history of
our species, unless it could be shown that when the transition takes
place in the psychological history of the individual, it does so in
such a sudden and remarkable manner as of itself to indicate that the
intellect of the individual has there and then undergone a change of
kind.
* * * * *
Such being an outline sketch of my argument, I will now proceed to
fill in the details, taking in historical order the various stages of
ideation which I have named—_i.e._ the receptual, the pre-conceptual,
and the conceptual.
Seeing that this is, as I apprehend, the central core of the question,
I will here furnish some additional instances of receptual and
pre-conceptual ideation as expressed by denotative and connotative
signs on the part of a child which I carefully observed for the purpose.
At eighteen months old my daughter, who was late in beginning to
speak, was fond of looking at picture-books, and as already stated in
a previous chapter, derived much pleasure from naming animals therein
represented,—saying _Ba_ for a sheep, _Moo_ for a cow, uttering a
grunt for a pig, and throwing her head up and down with a bray for
a horse or an ass. These several sounds and gestures she had been
taught by the nurse as noun-substantives, and she correctly applied
them in every case, whether the picture-book happened to be one with
which she was familiar or one which she had never seen before; and she
would similarly name all kinds of animals depicted on the wall-paper,
chair-covers, &c., in strange houses, or, in short, whenever she met
with representations of objects the nursery names of which she knew.
Thus there is no doubt that, long before she could form a sentence, or
in any proper sense be said to speak, this child was able to denote
objects by voice and gesture. At this time, also, she correctly used
a limited number of denotative words significant of actions—_i.e._
active verbs.
Somewhat later by a few weeks she showed spontaneously the faculty of
expressing an adjective. Her younger brother she had called “Ilda,” and
soon afterwards she extended the name to all young children.[131] Later
still, while looking over her picture-books, whenever she came upon a
representation of a sheep with lambs, she would point to the sheep and
say _Mama-Ba_, while to the lambs she would say _Ilda-Ba_. Similarly
with ducks and ducklings, hens and chickens, and indeed with all the
animals to which she had given names. Here it is evident that _Ilda_
served to convey the generic idea of _Young_, and so, from having been
originally used as a proper or denotative name, was now employed as an
adjective or connotative name. But although it expressed a quality,
the quality was one of so sensible a kind that the adjective amounted
to virtually the same thing as substantive, so far as any faculty of
abstraction was concerned: it was equivalent to the word _Baby_, when
by connotative extension this comes to be used as an adjective in the
apposition _Baby-Ba_ for a lamb, &c.
Almost contemporaneously with the acquisition of adjectives, this child
began to learn the use of a few passive verbs, and words significant
of certain states of feeling; she also added to her vocabulary a few
prepositions indicating space relations, such as _Up_, _Down_, &c.[132]
While these advances were being made, a general progress of the
sign-making faculty was also, and even more conspicuously, shown in
another direction. For speech, in the sense of formal predication, not
having yet begun, the development in question took place in the region
of gesture. She was then (two years) able to express a great many
simple ideas by the combined use of gesture-signs, vocal-tones, and a
large connotative extension of her words. The gesture-signs, however,
were still of the simplest or most receptual order, such as pulling
one by the dress to open a door, pointing to a tumbler to signify
her desire for a drink, &c. That is to say, the indicative stage of
language largely coincided with, or overlapped, the earliest phases of
the denotative and receptually connotative. I have already said that
this indicative stage of language constituted the earliest appearance
of the sign-making faculty which I observed in my own children, at a
time when the only desire expressed seemed to be that of being taken
to the object indicated; and, so far as I can ascertain, this is
universally true of all children. But the point now is, that when the
logic recepts had become more full, the desires expressed by pointing
became of a more and more varied kind, until, at the age of two and a
half (_i.e._ after significant articulation or true word-making had
well set in), the indicative phase of language developed into regular
pantomime, as the following instance will show. Coming into the house
after having bathed in the sea for the first time, she ran to me to
narrate her novel experience. This she did by first pointing to the
shore, then pretending to take off her clothes, to walk into the sea,
and to dip: next, passing her hands up the body to her head, she
signified that the water had reached as high as her hair, which she
showed me was still wet. The whole story was told without the use of a
single articulate sound.
Now, in the case of these illustrations (and many more of the same
kind might be added if needful), we find the same general fact
exemplified—namely, that the earliest phase of language in the young
child is that which I have called the indicative,—_i.e._ tones and
gestures significant of feelings, objects, qualities, and actions.
This indicative phase of language, or sign-making, lasts much longer
in some children than in others (particularly in those who are late in
beginning to speak); and the longer it lasts the more expressive does
it become of advancing ideation. But in all cases two things have to
be observed in connection with it. The first is that, in its earliest
stages, and onwards through a considerable part of its history, it
is precisely identical with the corresponding phases of indicative
sign-making in the lower animals. Thus, for instance, Professor Preyer
observed that at sixteen months his own child—who at that age could
not speak a word—used to make a gesture significant of petitioning
with its hands (“Bittbewegung”), as indicative of desire for something
to be done. This, of course, I choose as an instance of indicative
sign-making at a comparatively high level of development; but it
is precisely paralleled by an intelligent dog which “begs” before
a water-jug to signify his desire for a drink, or before any other
object in connection with which he desires something to be done.[133]
And so it is with children who pull one’s dress towards a closed door
through which they wish to pass, significantly cry for what they want
to possess, or to have done for them, &c.: children are here doing
exactly what cats and dogs will do under similar circumstances.[134]
And although many of the gesture-signs of children at this age (_i.e._
up to about eighteen months) are not precisely paralleled by those
of the lower animals, it is easy to see that where there is any
difference it is due to different circumstances of bodily shape, social
conditions, &c.: it is not due to any difference of ideation. That
the kind of ideation which is expressed by the indicative gestures
of young children is the same as that which prompts the analogous
gestures of brutes, is further shown by the fact that, even before
any articulate words are uttered, the infant (like the animal) will
display an understanding of many articulate words when uttered in its
presence, and (also like the animal) will respond to such words by
appropriate gestures. For instance, again to quote Preyer, he found
that his hitherto speechless infant was able correctly to point to
certain colours which he named; and although, as far as I am aware, no
one has ever tried to teach an animal to do this, we know that trained
dogs will display an even better understanding of words by means of
appropriate gestures.[135]
The other point which has to be noticed in connection with these early
stages of indicative sign-making in the young child is that, sooner
or later, they begin to overlap the earliest stage of articulate
sign-making, or verbal denotation. In other words, denotative
sign-making never begins to occur until indicative sign-making has
advanced considerably; and when denotative sign-making does begin,
it advances parallel with indicative: that is to say, both kinds of
sign-making then proceed to develop simultaneously. But when the
vocabulary of denotation has been sufficiently enriched to enable
the child to dispense with the less efficient material furnished
by indication, indicative signs gradually become starved out by
denotative, and words replace gestures.
* * * * *
So far, then, as the earliest or indicative phase of language is
concerned, no difference even of degree can be alleged between the
infant and the animal. Neither can any such difference be alleged with
respect to the earliest exhibitions of the next phases of language,
namely, the denotative and receptually connotative. For we have
seen that the only animals which happen to be capable of imitating
articulate sounds will use these sounds with a truly denotative
significance. Moreover, as we have also seen, within moderate limits
they will even extend such denotative significance to other objects
seen to belong to the same class or kind—thus raising the originally
denotative sign to an incipiently connotative value. And although these
receptually connotative powers of a parrot are soon surpassed by those
of a young child, we have further seen that this is merely owing to
the rapid advance in the _degree_ of receptual life which takes place
in the latter—or, in other words, that if a parrot resembled a dog in
being able to see the resemblance between objects and their pictures,
and also in being so much more able to understand the meanings of
words, then, without doubt, their connotative extension of names would
proceed further than it does; and hence in this matter the parallel
between a parrot and child would proceed further than it does. The
only reason, therefore, why a child thus gradually surpasses a parrot
in the matter of connotation, is because the receptual life of a child
gradually rises to that of a dog—as I have already proved by showing
that the indicative or gesture-signs used by a child after it has thus
surpassed the parrot, are psychologically identical with those which
are used by a dog. Moreover, where denotation is late in beginning and
slow in developing—as in the case of my own daughter—these indicative
signs admit, as we have seen, of becoming much more highly perfected,
so that under these circumstances a child of two years will perform
a little pantomime for the purpose of relating its experiences. Now,
this fact enables me to dispense with the imaginary comparison of a
dog that is able to talk, or of a parrot as intelligent as a dog; for
the fact furnishes me with the converse case of a child _not_ able to
talk at the usual age. No one can suggest that the intelligence of such
a child at two years old differs in kind from that of another child
of the same age, who, on account of having been earlier in acquiring
the use of words, can afford to become less proficient in the use of
gestures.[136] The case of a child late in talking may therefore be
taken as a psychological index of the development of human ideation of
the receptual order, which by accident admits of closer comparison with
that of the higher mammalia than is possible in the case of a child who
begins to talk at the usual age. But, as regards the former case, we
have already seen that the gestures begin by being much less expressive
than those of a dog, then gradually improve until they become
psychologically identical, and, lastly, continue in the same gradual
manner along the same line of advance. Therefore, if in this case no
difference of kind can be alleged _until_ the speaking age is reached,
neither can it be alleged _after_ the speaking age is reached in the
case where this happens to be earlier. Or, in the words previously
used, if a dog like a parrot were able to use verbal signs, or if a
parrot were equal in intelligence to a dog, the connotative powers of a
child would continue parallel with those of a brute through a somewhat
longer reach of psychological development than we now find to be the
case.
Remembering, then, that brutes so low in the psychological scale as
talking birds reach the level of denotating objects, qualities, &c.;
remembering that some of these birds will extend their denotative names
to objects and qualities conspicuously belonging to the same class;
remembering, further, that all children before they begin to speak have
greatly distanced the talking birds in respect of indicative language
or gesture-signs, while some children (or those late in beginning to
speak) will raise this form of language to the level of pantomime,
thus proving that the receptual ideation of infants just before they
begin to speak is invariably above that of talking birds, and often
far above that of any other animal;—remembering all these things, I
say it would indeed be a most unaccountable fact if children, soon
after they do begin to speak, did _not_ display a great advance upon
the talking birds in their use of denotative signs, and also in their
extension of such signs into connotative words. As we have seen, it
must be conceded by all prudent adversaries that, before he is able to
use any of these signs, an infant is moving in the receptual sphere of
ideation, and that this sphere is already (between one and two years)
far above that of the parrot. Yet, like the parrot, one of the first
uses that he makes of these signs is in the denotation of individual
objects, &c. Next, like the more intelligent parrots, he extends the
meaning of his denotative names to objects most obviously resembling
those which were first designated. And from that point onwards he
rapidly advances in his powers of connotative classification. But can
it be seriously maintained, in view of all the above considerations,
that this rapid advance in the powers of connotative classification
betokens any difference of kind between the ideation of the child and
that of the bird? If it is conceded (as it must be unless my opponents
commit argumentative suicide), that before he could speak at all the
infant was confined to the receptual sphere of ideation, and that
within this sphere his ideation was already superior to the ideation
of a bird,—this is merely to concede that analogies _must_ strike the
child which are somewhat too remote to strike the bird. Therefore,
while the bird will only extend its denotative name from one kind of
dog to another, the child, after having done this, will go on to apply
the name to an image, and, lastly, to the picture of a dog. Surely no
one will be fatuous enough to maintain that here, at the commencement
of articulate sign-making, there is any evidence of generic distinction
between the human mind and the mind of even so poor a representative
of animal psychology as we meet with in a parrot. But, if no such
distinction is to be asserted here, neither can it be asserted anywhere
else, until we arrive at the stage of human ideation where the mind
is able to contemplate that ideation as such. So far, therefore, as
the stages which we are now considering are concerned (_i.e._ the
denotative and receptually connotative), I submit that my case is made
out. And yet these are really the most important stages to be clear
about; for, on account of their having been ignored by nearly all
writers who argue that there is a difference of kind between man and
brute, the most important—because the initial—stages of transition
have been lost sight of, and the fully developed powers of human
thought contrasted with their low beginnings in the brute creation,
without any attention having been paid to the probable history of
their development. Hitherto, so far as I can find, no psychologist has
presented clearly the simple question whether the faculty of naming is
always and necessarily co-extensive with that of _thinking the names_;
and, therefore, the two faculties have been assumed to be one and the
same. Yet, as I have shown in an earlier chapter, even in the highest
forms of human ideation we habitually use names without waiting to
think of them as names—which proves that even in the highest regions
of ideation the two faculties are not _necessarily_ coincident.[137]
And here I have further shown that, whether we look to the brute or to
the human being, we alike find that the one faculty is in its inception
_wholly independent_ of the other—that there are connotative names
before there are any denominative thoughts, and that these connotative
names, when they first occur in brute or child, betoken no further
aptitude of ideation than is betokened by those stages in the language
of gesture which they everywhere overlap. The named recepts of a parrot
cannot be held by my opponents to be true concepts, any more than the
indicative gestures of an infant can be held by them to differ in kind
from those of a dog.
* * * * *
I submit, then, that neither as regards the indicative, the denotative,
nor the connotative stages of sign-making is it argumentatively
possible to allege any difference of kind between animal and human
intelligence—apart, I mean, from any evidence of self-consciousness in
the latter, or so long as the intelligence of either is moving in what
I have called the receptual sphere. Let us, then, next consider what
I have called the pre-conceptual stage of ideation, or that higher
receptual life of a child which, while surpassing the receptual life of
any brute, has not yet attained to the conceptual life of a man.
From what I have already said it must, I should suppose, be now
conceded that, at the place where the receptual life of a child
first begins to surpass the receptual life of any other mammal, no
psychological difference of kind can be affirmed. Let us, therefore,
consent to tap this pre-conceptual life at a considerably higher
level, and analyze the quality of ideation which flows therefrom: let
us consider the case of a child about two years old, who is able to
frame such a rudimentary, communicative, or pre-conceptual proposition
as _Dit ki_ (Sister is crying). At this age, as already shown, there
is no consciousness of self as a thinking agent, and, therefore, no
power of stating a truth as true. _Dit_ is the denotative name of
one recept, _ki_ the denotative name of another: the object and the
action which these two recepts severally represent happen to occur
together before the child’s observation: the child therefore denotes
them both simultaneously—i.e. _brings than into apposition_. This
it does by merely following the associations previously established
between the recept of a familiar object with its denotative name
_dit_, and the recept of a frequent action with its denotative name
_ki_. The apposition in consciousness of these two recepts, with their
corresponding denotations, is thus effected _for_ the child by what
may be termed _the logic of events_: it is not effected _by_ the child
in the way of any intentional or self-conscious grouping of its ideas,
such as we have seen to constitute the distinguishing feature of the
logic of concepts.
Such being the state of the facts, I put to my opponents the following
dilemma. Either you here have judgment, or else you have not. If you
hold that this is judgment, you must also hold that animals judge,
because I have proved a ready that (according to your own doctrine
as well as mine) the only point wherein it can be alleged that the
faculty of judgment differs in animals and in man consists in the
presence or absence of self-consciousness. If, on the other hand,
you answer that here you have not judgment, inasmuch as you have not
self-consciousness, I will ask you at what stage in the subsequent
development of the child’s intelligence you would consider judgment
to arise? If to this you answer that judgment first arises when
self-consciousness arises, I will ask you to note that, as already
proved, the growth of self-consciousness is itself a gradual process;
so that, according to your present limitation of the term judgment,
it becomes impossible to say when this faculty does arise. In
point of fact, it grows by stages, _pari passu_ with the growth of
self-consciousness. But, if so, where the faculty of stating a truth
perceived passes into the higher faculty of perceiving the truth as
true, there must be a continuous series of gradations connecting the
one faculty with the other. Up to the point where this series of
gradations begins, we have seen that the mind of an animal and the
mind of a man are parallel, or not distinguishable from each other by
any one principle of psychology. Will you, then, maintain that up to
this time the two orders of psychical existence are identical in kind,
but that during its ascent through this final series of gradations the
human mind in some way becomes distinct in kind, not merely from the
mind of animals, _but also from its own previous self_? If so, I must
at this point part company with you in argument, because at this point
your argument ends in a contradiction. If A and B are affirmed to be
similar in origin or kind, and if B is affirmed to grow into C—or to
differ from both A and B only in degree,—it becomes a contradiction
further to affirm that C differs from A in kind. Therefore I submit
that, so far as the pre-conceptual stage of ideation is concerned, it
is still argumentatively impossible for my opponents to show that there
is any psychological difference of kind between man and brute.
As regards this stage of ideation, then, I claim to have shown that,
just as there is a pre-conceptual kind of naming, wherein originally
denotative words are progressively extended through considerable
degrees of connotative meaning; so there is a pre-conceptual kind
of predication, wherein denotative and connotative terms are brought
together without any conceptual cognizance of the relation thus
virtually alleged between them. For I have proved in the last chapter
that it is not until its third year that a child acquires true or
conceptual self-consciousness, and therefore attains the condition
to true or conceptual predication. Yet long before that time, as I
have also proved, the child forms what I have called rudimentary,
or pre-conceptual, and, therefore, _unthinking_ propositions. Such
propositions, then, are statements of truth made for the practical
purposes of communication; but they are not statements of truth as
true, and therefore not, strictly speaking, propositions at all.
They are translations of the logic of recepts; but not of the logic
of concepts. For neither the truth so stated, nor the idea thus
translated, can ever have been placed before the mind as itself an
object of thought. In order to have been thus placed, the mind must
have been able to dissociate this its product from the rest of its
structure—or, as Mr. Mivart says, to make the things affirmed “exist
_beside_ the judgment, not _in_ it.” And, in order to do this, the
mind must have attained to self-consciousness. But, as just remarked,
such is not yet the case with a child of the age in question; and
hence we are bound to conclude that before there is judgment or
predication in the sense understood by psychologists (conceptual),
there is judgment and predication of a lower order (pre-conceptual),
wherein truths are stated for the sake of communicating simple ideas,
while the propositions which convey them are not themselves objects of
thought. And, be it carefully observed, predication of this rudimentary
or pre-conceptual kind is accomplished by the mere apposition of
denotative signs, in accordance with the general principles of
association. _A_ being the denotative name of an object _a_, and _B_
the denotative name of a quality or action _b_, when _a b_ occur
together in nature, the relation between them is pre-conceptually
affirmed by the mere act of bringing into apposition the corresponding
denotations _A B_—an act which is rendered inevitable by the
elementary laws of psychological association.[138]
* * * * *
The matter, then, has been reduced to the last of the three stages
of ideation which have been marked out for discussion—namely, the
conceptual. Now, whether or not there is any difference of kind
between the ideation which is capable and the ideation which is not
capable of itself becoming an object of thought, is a question which
can only be answered by studying the relations that obtain between
the two in the case of the growing child. But, as we have seen, when
we do study these relations, we find that they are clearly those of a
gradual or continuous passage of the one ideation into the other—a
passage, indeed, so gradual and continuous that it is impossible, even
by means of the closest scrutiny, to decide within wide limits where
the one begins and the other ends. Therefore I need not here recur
to this point. Having already shown that the very condition to the
occurrence of conceptual ideation (namely, self-consciousness) is of
gradual development in the growing child, it is needless to show at any
greater length that the development of conceptual out of pre-conceptual
ideation is of a similarly gradual occurrence. This fact, indeed, is in
itself sufficient to dispose of the allegation of my opponents—namely,
that there is evidence of receptual ideation differing from conceptual
in origin or kind. Only if it could be shown—either that the
receptual ideation of an infant differs in kind from that of an animal,
or that the pre-conceptual ideation of a child so differs from the
preceding receptual ideation of the same child, or lastly, that this
pre-conceptual ideation so differs from the succeeding conceptual
ideation—only if one or other of the alternatives could be proved
would my opponents be able to justify their allegation. And, as a
mere matter of logic, to prove either of the last two alternatives
would involve a complete reconstruction of their argument. For at
present their argument goes upon the assumption that throughout all
the phases of its development a human mind is one in kind—that it is
nowhere fundamentally changed from one order of existence to another.
But in case any subtle opponent should suggest that, although I have
proved the first of the above three alternatives untenable—and,
therefore, that there is no difference even of degree between the
mind of an infant and that of an animal,—I have nevertheless ignored
the possibility that in the subsequent development of every human
being a special miracle may be wrought, which regenerates that mind,
gives it a new origin, and so changes it as to kind—in case any
one should suggest this, I here entertain the two last alternatives
as logically possible. But, even so, as we have now so fully seen,
study of the child’s intelligence while passing through its several
phases of development yields no shadow of evidence in favour of
any of these alternatives; while, on the contrary, it most clearly
reveals the fact that transition from each of the levels of ideation
to the next above it is of so gradual and continuous a character that
it is practically impossible to draw any real lines of demarcation
between them. This, then, I say is in itself enough to dispose of the
allegation of my opponents, seeing that it shows the allegation to be,
not only gratuitous, but opposed to the whole body of evidence which
is furnished by a study of the facts. Nevertheless, still restricting
ourselves to grounds of psychology alone, there remains two general
and important considerations of an independent or supplementary kind,
which tend strongly to support my side of the argument. These two
considerations, therefore, I will next adduce.
* * * * *
The first consideration is, that although the advance to
self-consciousness from lower grades of mental development is no doubt
a very great and important matter, it is not so great and important
in comparison with what this development is afterwards destined to
become, as to make us feel that it constitutes any distinction _sui
generis_—or even, perhaps, the principal distinction—between the man
and the brute. For while, on the one hand, we have now fully seen that,
given the protoplasm of judgment and of predication as these occur in
the young child (or as they may be supposed to have occurred in our
semi-human ancestors), and self-consciousness must needs arise; on the
other hand, there is evidence to show that when self-consciousness
does arise, and even when it is fairly well developed, the powers
of the human mind are still in an almost infantile condition. Thus,
for instance, I have observed in my own children that, while before
their third birthday they employed appropriately and always correctly
the terms “I,” “my,” “self,” “myself,” at that age their powers of
reasoning were so poorly developed as scarcely to be in advance of
those which are exhibited by an intelligent animal. To give only one
instance of this. My little girl when four and a half years old—or
nearly two years after she had correctly used the terms indicative
of true self-consciousness—wished to know what room was beneath the
drawing-room of a house in which she had lived from the time of her
birth. When she asked me to inform her, I told her to try to think out
the problem for herself. She first suggested the bath-room, which was
not only above the drawing-room, but also at the opposite side of the
house; next she suggested the dining-room, which, although below the
drawing-room, was also at the other side of the house; and so on, the
child clearly having no power to think out so simple a problem as the
one which she had spontaneously desired to solve. From which (as from
many other instances on my notes in this connection) I conclude that
the genesis of self-consciousness marks a comparatively low level in
the evolution of the human mind—as we might expect that it should, if
its genesis depends on the not unintelligible conditions which I have
endeavoured to explain in the last chapters. But, if so, does it not
follow that great as the importance of self-consciousness afterwards
proves to be as a condition to the higher development of ideation,
in itself, or in its first beginning, it does not betoken any very
perceptible improvement upon those powers of pre-conceptual ideation
which it immediately follows? In other words, there is thus shown to
be even less reason to regard the advent of self-consciousness as
marking a psychological difference of kind, than there would be so
to regard the advent of those higher powers of conceptual ideation
which subsequently—though as gradually—supervene between early
childhood and youth. Yet no one has hitherto ventured to suggest that
the intelligence of a child and the intelligence of a youth display a
difference of kind.
Or, otherwise stated, the psychological interval between my cebus and
my child (when the former successfully investigated the mechanical
principle of the screw by means of his highly developed receptual
faculties, while the latter unsuccessfully attempted to solve a most
simple topographical problem by means of her lowly developed conceptual
faculties), was assuredly much less than that which afterwards
separated the intelligence of my child from this level of its own
previous self. Therefore, on merely psychological grounds, I conclude
that there would be better—or _less bad_—reasons for alleging that
there is an observable difference of kind between the lowest and the
highest levels of conceptual ideation, than there is to allege that any
such difference obtains between the lowest level of conceptual ideation
and the highest level of receptual.
“The greatest of all distinctions in biology,” when it first arises,
is thus seen to lie in its _potentiality_ rather than in its _origin_.
Self-consciousness is, indeed, the condition to an immeasurable
change in the mind which presents it; but, in order to become so, it
must be itself conditioned: it must itself undergo a long and gradual
development under the guiding principles of a natural evolution.
* * * * *
And, now, lastly, the second supplementary consideration which I have
to adduce is, that even in the case of a fully developed self-conscious
intelligence, both receptual and pre-conceptual ideation continue to
play an important part. That is to say, even in the full-summed powers
of the human intellect, the three descriptions of ideation which I have
distinguished are so constantly and so intimately blended together,
that analysis of the adult mind corroborates the fact already yielded
by analysis of the infantile mind, namely, that the distinctions (which
I have been obliged to draw in order to examine the allegations of my
opponents) are all essentially or intrinsically artificial. My position
is that Mind is everywhere continuous, and if for purposes of analysis
or classification we require to draw lines of demarcation between the
lower and the higher faculties thereof, I contend that we should only
do so as an evolutionist classifies his animal or vegetable species:
higher or lower do not betoken differences of _origin_, but differences
of _development_. And just as the naturalist finds a general
corroboration of this view in the fact that structural and functional
characters are carried upwards from lower to higher forms of life, thus
knitting them all together in the bonds of organic evolution; so may
the psychologist find that even the highest forms of human intelligence
unmistakably share the more essential characters met with in the lower,
thus bearing testimony to their own lineage in a continuous system of
mental evolution.
Let us, then, briefly contemplate the relations that obtain in the
adult human mind between the boasted faculties of conceptual judgment,
and the lower faculties of non-conceptual. Although I agree with my
opponents in holding that predication (in the strict sense of the
term) is dependent on introspection, I further hold that not every
statement made by adult man is a predication in this sense: the vast
majority of our verbal propositions are made for the practical purposes
of communication, or without the mind pausing to contemplate the
propositions as such in the light of self-consciousness. When I say “A
negro is black,” I do not require to think all the formidable array of
things that Mr. Mivart says I affirm[139]; and, on the other hand, when
I perform an act of conscious introspection, I do not always require
to perform an act of mental predication. No doubt in many cases, or in
those where highly abstract ideation is concerned, this independence of
the two faculties arises from each having undergone so much elaboration
by the assistance which it has derived from the other, that both are
now, so to speak, in possession of a large body of organized material
on which to operate, without requiring, whensoever they are exercised,
to build up the structure of this material _ab initio_. Thus, to take
an example, when I say “Heat is a mode of motion,” I am using what
is now to me a merely verbal sign which expresses an external fact:
I do not require to examine my own ideas upon the abstract terms in
the abstract relation which the proposition sets forth. But for the
_original attainment_ of these ideas I had to exercise many and complex
efforts of conceptual thought, without the previous occurrence of which
I should not now have been able to use, with full understanding of its
import, this verbal sign. Thus all such predications, however habitual
and mechanical they may become, must at some time have required the
mind to examine the ideas which they announce. And, similarly, all acts
of such mental examination—_i.e._ all acts of introspection,—however
superfluous they may now appear when their known product is used for
further acts of mental examination, must originally have required the
mind to pause before them and make to itself a definite statement or
predication of their meaning.[140]
But although I hold this to be the true explanation of the _apparent_
independence of predication and introspection in all cases of highly
abstract thought, I am firmly convinced that in all cases where
those lower orders of ideation to which I have so often referred as
receptual and pre-conceptual are concerned, the independence is not
only _apparent_, but _real_. This, indeed, I have already proved
_must_ be the case with the pre-conceptual propositions of a young
child, inasmuch as such propositions are then made in the absence of
self-consciousness, or of the necessary condition to their being _in
any degree_ introspective. But the point now is, that even in the
adult human mind non-conceptual predication is habitual, and that, in
cases where only receptual ideation is concerned, predication of this
kind need _never have been_ conceptual. For, as Mill very truly says,
“it will be admitted that, by asserting the proposition, we wish to
communicate information of that physical fact (namely, that the summit
of Chimborazo is white), and are not thinking of the names, except as
the necessary means of making that communication. The meaning of the
proposition, therefore, is that the individual thing denoted by the
subject has the attributes connoted by the predicate.”[141]
Now, if it is thus true that even in ordinary predication we may not
require to take conceptual cognizance of the matter predicated—having
to do only with the apposition of names immediately suggested by
association,—the ideation concerned becomes so closely affiliated
with that which is expressed in the lower levels of sign-making, that
even if the connecting links were not supplied by the growing child,
no one would be justified, on psychological grounds alone, in alleging
any difference of kind between one level and another. The object of
all sign-making is primarily that of communication, and from our
study of the lower animals we know that communication first has to do
exclusively with recepts, while from our study of the growing child we
know that it is the signs used in the communication of recepts which
first lead to the formation of concepts. For concepts are first of all
named recepts, known as such; and we have seen in previous chapters
that this kind of knowledge (_i.e._ of names as names) is rendered
possible by introspection, which, in turn is reached by the naming of
self as an agent. But even after the power of conceptual introspection
has been fully reached, demand is not always made upon it for the
communication of merely receptual knowledge; and therefore it is that
not every proposition requires to be introspectively contemplated as
such before it can be made. Given the power of denotative nomination on
the one hand, and the power of even the lowest degree of connotative
nomination on the other, and all the conditions are furnished to
the formation of non-conceptual statements, which differ from true
propositions only in that they do not themselves become objects of
thought. And the only difference between such a statement when made by
a young child, and the same statement when similarly made by a grown
man, is that in the former case it is not even _potentially_ capable of
itself becoming an object of thought.
* * * * *
Here, then, the psychological examination of my opponents’ position
comes to an end. And, in the result, I claim to have shown that in
whatever way we regard the distinctively human faculty of conceptual
predication, it is proved to be but a higher development of that
faculty of receptual communication, the ascending degrees of which
admit of being traced through the brute creation up to the level which
they attain in a child during the first part of its second year,—after
which they continue to advance uninterruptedly through the still
higher receptual life of the child, until by further though not less
imperceptible growth they pass into the incipiently conceptual life
of a human mind—which, nevertheless, is not even then nearly so far
removed from the intelligence of the lower animals, as it is from that
which in the course of its own subsequent evolution it is eventually
destined to become.