Chapter XVII: General Summary and Concluding Remarks (4)

“_Watch_ is a collie dog belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury; but lives with me a good deal, as Lambeth does not suit him. He is a very remarkable dog in many ways, which I will not inflict on you. He is very intelligent, understands many words, and can perform tricks. What I mention him for, however, is that he is the only dog I ever met with a dramatic faculty. His favourite drama is chasing imaginary pigs. He used now and then to be sent to chase real pigs out of the field, and after a time it became a custom for Miss Benson to open the door for him after dinner in the evening, and say, ‘Pigs!’ when he always ran about, wildly chasing imaginary pigs. If no one opened the door, he went to it himself wagging his tail, asking for his customary drama. He now reaches a further stage, for as soon as we get up after our last meal he begins to bark violently, and if the door is open he rushes out to chase imaginary pigs with no one saying the word ‘pigs’ at all. He usually used to be sent out to chase pigs after prayers in the evening, and when he came to my small house it was amusing to see that he recognized the function of prayers, performed with totally different accompaniments, to be the same as prayers performed in an episcopal chapel, so far as he expected ‘Pigs’ to be the end of both. The word ‘Pigs,’ uttered in any tone, will always set him off playing the same drama.”

[47] _Ibid._, pp. 125, 126.

[48] Professor Preyer has ascertained experimentally the number of objects (such as shot-corns, pins, or dots on a piece of paper), which admit of being simultaneously estimated with accuracy. (_Sitzungs berichten der Gesellschaft für Medicin und Naturwissenshaft_, 29 Juli, 1881.) The number admits of being largely increased by practice, until, with an exposure to view of one second’s duration, the estimate admits of being correctly made up to between twenty and thirty objects. (See also _Mental Evolution in Animals_, p. 138.)

[49] _Lessons from Nature_, pp. 219, 220.

[50] See _Animal Intelligence_, pp. 422-424.

[51] I may here observe that the earliest age in the infant at which I have observed such appreciation of causality to occur is during the sixth month. With my own children at that age I noticed that if I made a knocking sound with my concealed foot, they would look round and round the room with an obvious desire to ascertain the cause that was producing the sound. Compare, also, _Mental Evolution in Animals_, pp. 156-158, on emotions aroused in brutes by sense of the _mysterious_—_i.e._ the _unexplained_.

[52] The reader is referred to the whole biography of this monkey (_Animal Intelligence_, pp. 484-498) for a number of other facts serving to show to how high a level of intelligent grouping—or of “logic”—recepts may attain without the aid of concepts. In the same connection I may refer to the chapter on “Imagination” in _Mental Evolution in Animals_, and also to the following pages in _Animal Intelligence_:—128-40; 181-97, 219-222, 233, 311-335, 337, 338, 340, 348-352, 377-385, 397-410, 413-425, 426-436, 445-470, 478-498.

[53] Taine, _On Intelligence_, pp. 16, 17.

[54] _Lectures_, vol. ii., p. 290.

[55] _Science of Thought_, p. 35. For his whole argument, see pp. 30-64.

[56] _Ursprung der Sprache_, s. 91.

[57] _Grundriss der Sprachwissenshaft_, i., s. 16. It will be observed that there is an obvious analogy between the process above described, whereby conceptual ideation becomes degraded into receptual, and that whereby, on a lower plane of mental evolution, intelligence becomes degraded into instinct. In my former work I devoted many pages to a consideration of this subject, and showed that the condition to intelligent adjustments thus becoming instinctive is invariably to be found in frequency of repetition. Instincts of this kind (“secondary instincts”) may be termed degraded recepts, just as the recepts spoken of in the text are degraded concepts; neither could be what it now is, but for its higher parentage. Any one who is specially interested in the question whether there can be thought without words, may consult the correspondence between Prof. Max Müller, Mr. Francis Galton, myself, and others, in _Nature_, May and June, 1887 (since published in a separate form); between the former and Mr. Mivart, in _Nature_, March, 1888. Also an article by Mr. Justice Stephen in the _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1888. Prof. Whitney has some excellent remarks on this subject in his _Language and the Study of Language_, pp. 405-411.

[58] From this it will be seen that by using such terms as “inference,” “reason,” “rational,” &c., in alluding to mental processes of the lower animals, I am in no way prejudicing the question as to the distinction between man and brute. In the higher region of recepts both the man and the brute attain in no small degree to a perception of analogies or relations: this is inference or ratiocination in its most direct form, and differs from the process as it takes place in the sphere of conceptual thought only in that it is not itself an object of knowledge. But, considered as a process of inference or ratiocination, I do not see that it should make any difference in our terminology whether or not it happens to be itself an object of knowledge. Therefore I do not follow those numerous writers who restrict such terms to the higher exhibitions of the process, or to the ratiocination which is concerned only with introspective thought. It may be a matter of straw-splitting, but I think it is best to draw our distinctions where the distinctions occur; and I cannot see that it modifies the process of inference, as inference, whether or not the mind, in virtue of a superadded faculty, is able to think about the process as a process—not any more, for instance, than the process of association is altered by its becoming itself an object of knowledge. Therefore, I hope I have made it clear that in maintaining the rationality of brutes I am not arguing for anything more than that they have the power, as Mr. Mivart himself allows, of drawing “practical inferences.” Hitherto, then, my difference with Mr. Mivart—and, so far as I know, with all other modern writers who maintain the irrationality of brutes—is only one of terminology.

[59] See _Animal Intelligence_, p. 158.

[60] _Animal Intelligence_, pp. 114-116.

[61] Kreplin, quoted by Büchner.

[62] The best instances of sign-making among Invertebrata other than the Hymenoptera which I have met with is one that I have myself observed and already recorded in _Mental Evolution in Animals_ (p. 343, note). The animal is the processional caterpillar. These larvæ migrate in the form of a long line, crawling Indian file, with the head of the one touching the tail of the next in the series. If one member of the series be removed, the next member in advance immediately stops and begins to wag its head in a peculiar manner from side to side. This serves as a signal for the next member also to stop and wag his head, and so on till all the members in front of the interruption are at a standstill, all wagging their heads. But as soon as the interval is closed up by the advance of the rear of the column, the front again begins to move forward, when the head-wagging ceases.

[63] _Fac. Ment. des Animaux_, tom. ii., p. 348.

[64] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, pp. 84, 85.

[65] _Nature_, April 10, 1884, pp. 547, 548.

[66] For information on all these points, see Darwin, _Expression of the Emotions_.

[67] Quoted by Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, p. 80.

[68] Burton, _City of the Saints_, p. 151.

[69] _Loc. cit._, p. 78.

[70] _Sign-language among the North American Indians, &c._, by Lieut.-Col. Garrick Mallery (_First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington_, 1881).

[71] Mallery, _loc. cit._, p. 320. The author gives several very interesting records of such conversations, and adds that the mutes show more aptitude in understanding the Indians than _vice versâ_, because to them “the ‘action, action, action,’ of Demosthenes is their only oratory, and not a heightening of it, however valuable.”

[72] _Loc. cit._, p. 39.

[73] See especially Tylor, _loc. cit._, pp. 28-30, where an interesting account is given of the elaborate and yet self-speaking signs whereby an adult deaf-mute gave directions for the drawing up of his will.

[74] _Early History of Mankind_, pp. 24-32.

[75] _Loc. cit._, p. 54.

[76] Further information of a kind corroborating what has been given in the foregoing chapter concerning gesture-language may be found in Long’s _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, and Kleinpaul’s paper in _Völkerpsychologie_, _&c._, vi. 352-375. The subject was first dealt with in a philosophical manner by Leibnitz, in 1717, _Collectanea Etymologia_, ch. ix.

[77] For meaningless articulation by idiots, see Scott’s _Remarks on Education of Idiots_. The fact is alluded to by most writers on idiot psychology, and I have frequently observed it myself. But the case of uneducated deaf-mutes is here more to the purpose. I will, therefore, furnish one quotation in evidence of the above statement. “It is a very notable fact bearing upon the problem of the Origin of Language, that even born-mutes, who never heard a word spoken, do of their own accord and without any teaching make vocal sounds more or less articulate, to which they attach a definite meaning, and which, when once made, they go on using afterwards in the same unvarying sense. Though these sounds are often capable of being written down more or less accurately with our ordinary alphabets, this effect on those who make them can, of course, have nothing to do with the sense of hearing, but must consist only in particular ways of breathing, combined with particular positions of the vocal organs” (Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, p. 72, where see for evidence). The instinctive articulations of Laura Bridgman (who was blind as well as deaf) are in this connection even still more conclusive (see _ibid._, pp. 74, 75).

[78] Writers on infant psychology differ as to the time when words are first understood by infants. Doubtless it varies in individual cases, and is always more or less difficult to determine with accuracy. But all observers agree—and every mother or nurse could corroborate—that the understanding of many words and sentences is unmistakable long before the child itself begins to speak. Mr. Darwin’s observations showed that in the case of his children the understanding of words and sentences was unmistakable between the tenth and twelfth months.

[79] See _Animal Intelligence_: for Fish, p. 250; for Frogs and Toads, p. 225; for Snakes, p. 261; for Birds and Mammals in various parts of the chapters devoted to these animals. The case quoted on the authority of Bingley regarding the tame bees of Mr. Wildman, which he had taught to obey words of command (p. 189), would, if corroborated, carry the faculty in question into the invertebrated series.

[80] Although the ages at which talking proper begins varies much in different children, it may be taken as a universal rule—as stated in the last foot-note—that words, and even sentences, are understood long before they are intelligently articulated; although, as previously remarked, even before any words are _understood_ meaningless syllables may be spontaneously or instinctively articulated.

[81] See, for instance, Watson’s _Reasoning Power in Animals_, pp. 137-149, and Meunier’s _Les Animaux Perfectibles_, ch. xii.

[82] _Ursprung der Sprache_, p. 122.

[83] Some cases are on record of dogs having been taught to articulate. Thus the thoughtful Leibnitz vouches for the fact (which he communicated to the _Académie Royale_ at Paris, and which that body said they would have doubted had it not been observed by so eminent a man), that he had heard a peasant’s dog distinctly articulate thirty words, which it had been taught to say by the peasant’s son. The _Dumfries Journal_, January, 1829, mentions a dog as then living in that town, who uttered distinctly the word “William,” which was the name of a person to whom he was attached. Again, Colonel Mallery writes:—“Some recent experiments of Prof. A. Graham Bell, no less eminent from his work in artificial speech than in telephones, shows that animals are more physically capable of pronouncing articulate sounds than has been supposed. He informed the writer that he recently succeeded by manipulation in causing an English terrier to form a number of the sounds of our letters, and particularly brought out from it the words ‘How are you, grandmama,’ with distinctness.” As I believe that the barrier to articulation in dogs is anatomical and not psychological, I regard it as merely a question of observation whether this barrier may not in some cases be partly overcome; but, as far as the evidence goes, I think it is safer to conclude that the instances mentioned consisted in the animals so modulating the tones of their voices as to resemble the sounds of certain words.

[84] Mr. Darwin writes:—“It is certain that some parrots, which have been taught to speak, connect unerringly words with things, and persons with events. I have received several detailed accounts to this effect. Admiral Sir J. Sullivan, whom I know to be a careful observer, assures me that an African parrot, long kept in his father’s house, invariably called certain persons of the household, as well as visitors, by their names. He said ‘Good morning’ to every one at breakfast, and ‘Good night’ to each as they left the room at night, and never reversed these salutations. To Sir J. Sullivan’s father he used to add to the ‘good morning’ a short sentence, which was never repeated after his father’s death. He scolded violently a strange dog which came into the room through an open window, and he scolded another parrot (saying, ‘You naughty polly!’), which had got out of its cage, and was eating apples on the kitchen table. Dr. A. Moschkan informs me that he knew a starling which never made a mistake in saying in German ‘good morning’ to persons arriving, and ‘good-bye, old fellow’ to those departing. I could add several other cases” (_Descent of Man_, p. 85). Similarly Houzeau gives some instances of nearly the same kind (_Fac. Ment. des Anim._, tom, ii., p. 309, _et seq._); and Mrs. Lee, in her _Anecdotes_ records several still more remarkable cases (which are quoted by Houzeau), as does also M. Meunier in his recently published work on _Les Animaux Perfectibles_. In my own correspondence I have received numerous letters detailing similar facts, and from these I gather that parrots often use comical phrases when they desire to excite laughter, pitiable phrases when they desire to excite compassion, and so on; although it does not follow from this that the birds understand the meanings of these phrases, further than that they are as a whole appropriate to excite the feelings which it is desired to excite. I have myself kept selected parrots, and can fully corroborate all the above statements from my own observations.

[85] _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1879.

[86] This term has been previously used by some philologists to signify ejaculation by man. It will be observed that I use it in a more extended sense.

[87] _Man’s Place in Nature_, p. 52. I may here appropriately allude to a paper which elicited a good deal of discussion some years ago. It was read before the Victoria Institute in March, 1872, by Dr. Frederick Bateman, under the title “Darwinism tested by Recent Researches in Language;” and its object was to argue that the faculty of articulate speech constitutes a difference of kind between the psychology of man and that of the lower animals. This argument Dr. Bateman sought to establish, first on the usual grounds that no animals are capable of using words with any degree of understanding, and, second, on grounds of a purely anatomical kind. In the text I fully deal with the first allegation: as a matter of fact, many of the lower animals understand the meanings of many words, while those of them which are alone capable of imitating our articulate sounds not unfrequently display a correct appreciation of their use as signs. But what I have here especially to consider is the anatomical branch of Dr. Bateman’s argument. He says:—“As the remarkable similarity between the brain of man and that of the ape cannot be disputed, if the seat of human speech could be positively traced to any particular part of the brain, the Darwinian could say that, although the ape could not speak, he possessed the germ of that faculty, and that in subsequent generations, by the process of evolution, the ‘speech centre’ would become more developed, and the ape would then speak.... If the scalpel of the anatomist has failed to discover a _material locus habitandi_ for man’s proud prerogative—the faculty of Articulate Language; if science has failed to trace speech to a ‘material centre,’ has failed thus to connect matter with mind, I submit that speech is the barrier between men and animals, establishing between them a difference not only of degree but of kind; the Darwinian analogy between the brain of man and that of his reputed ancestor, the ape, loses all its force, whilst the common belief in the Mosaic account of the origin of man is strengthened.” Now, I will not wait to present the evidence which has fully satisfied all living physiologists that “the faculty of Articulate Language” has “a _material locus habitandi_;” for the point on which I desire to insist is that it cannot make one iota of difference to “the Darwinian analogy” whether this faculty is restricted to a particular “speech-centre,” or has its anatomical “seat” distributed over any wider area of the cerebral cortex. Such a “seat” there must be in either case, if it be allowed (as Dr. Bateman allows) that the cerebral cortex “is undoubtedly the instrument by which this attribute becomes externally manifested.” The question whether “the material organ of speech” is large or small cannot possibly affect the question on which we are engaged. Since Dr. Bateman wrote, a new era has arisen in the localization of cerebral functions; so that, if there were any soundness in his argument, one would now be in a position immensely to strengthen “the Darwinian analogy;” seeing that physiologists now habitually utilize the brains of monkeys for the purpose of analogically localizing the “motor centres” in the brain of man. In other words, “the Darwinian analogy” has been found to extend in physiological, as well as in anatomical detail, throughout the entire area of the cortex. But, as I have shown, there is no soundness in his argument; and therefore I do not avail myself of these recent and most wonderfully suggestive results of physiological research.

[88] I may, however, add the following corroborative observations, as they have not been previously published. I owe them to the kindness of my friend Mr. A. E. Street, who kept a diary of his children’s psychogenesis. When about two years of age one of these children possessed the following vocabulary:—

Af-ta (in imitation of the sound which the nurse used to make when pretending to drink) = _drinking_ or a _drink_, _drinking-vessel_, and hence a _glass_ of any kind.

Vy = a _fly_.

Vy-’ta = _window_, _i.e._ the ‘ta or af-ta (_glass_) on which a fly walks.

Blow = _candle_.

Blow-hattie = a _lamp_, _i.e._ candle with a hat or shade.

’Nell = a _flower_, _i.e._ smell.

These words are clearly all of imitative origin. The following, however, seem to have been purely arbitrary:—

Numby = _food_ of any kind (onomatopoetic).

Nunny = _dress_ of any kind.

Milly = _dressing_, and any article used in dressing, _e.g._ a pin.

Lee = _the name for her nurse_, though no one else called the woman by any other name than nurse.

Diddle-iddle = _a hole_; hence _a thimble_; hence _a finger_.

Wasky = _the sea_.

Bilu-bilu = _the printed character_ “&,” invented on learning the first letters of her alphabet, and always afterwards used.

[89] Touching the comparative rapidity with which signs admit of being made to the eye and ear respectively, it may be pointed out that there is a physiological reason why the latter should have the advantage; for while the ear can distinguish successive sensations separated only by an interval of .016 sec., the eye cannot do so unless the interval is more than .047 sec. (Wundt).

[90] _Encyclop. Brit._, 9th ed., art. _Philology_.

[91] It will be remembered that in a previous chapter I argued the impossibility of estimating the reflex influence of speech upon gesture, in the case of the high development attained by the latter in man. In the text I am now considering the converse influence of gesture upon speech, and find that it is no more easy precisely to estimate. There can be no doubt, however, that the reciprocal influence must have been great in both directions, and that it must have proceeded from gesture to speech in the first instance, and afterwards, when the latter had become well developed as a system of auditory signs, from speech to gesture. More will require to be said upon this point in a future chapter.

[92] “The remark made by Tiedemann on the imperative intention of tears, is confirmed by similar observations of Charles Darwin’s. At the age of eleven weeks, in the case of one of his children, a little sooner in another, the nature of their crying changed according to whether it was produced by hunger or suffering. And this means of communication appeared to be very early placed at the service of the will. The child seemed to have learnt to cry when he wished, and to contract his features according to the occasion, so as to make known that he wanted something. This development of the will takes place towards the end of the third month.” (Perez, _First Three Years of Childhood_, English trans., p. 101.)

[93] Several writers of repute have habitually used the word “Judgment” in a most unwarrantable manner—Lewes, for instance, making it stand indifferently for an act of sensuous determination and an act of conceptual thought. I may, therefore, here remark that in the following analysis I shall not be concerned with any such gratuitous abuses of the term, but will understand it in the technical sense which it bears in logic and psychology. The extraordinary views which Mr. Huxley has published upon this subject I can only take to be ironical. For instance, he says:—“Ratiocination is resolvable into predication, and predication consists in marking in some way the existence, the co-existence, the succession, the likeness and unlikeness, of things or their ideas. Whatever does this, reasons; and I see no more ground for denying to it reasoning power, because it is unconscious, than I see for refusing Mr. Babbage’s engine the title of a calculating machine on the same grounds” (_Critiques and Addresses_, p. 281). If this statement were taken seriously, of course the answer would be that Mr. Babbage’s engine is called a calculating machine only in a metaphorical sense, seeing that it does not evolve its results by any process at all resembling, or in any way analogous to, those of a human mind. It would be an absurd misstatement to say that a machine either reasons or predicates, _only_ because it “marks in some way the existence, the co-existence, the succession, and the likeness and unlikeness of things.” A rising barometer or a striking clock do not predicate, any more than a piece of wood, shrieking beneath a circular saw, feels. To denominate purely mechanical or unconscious action—even though it should take place in a living agent and be perfectly adjustive—reason or predication, would be to confuse physical phenomena with psychical; and, as I have shown in my previous work, even if it be supposed that the latter are mere “indices” or “shadows” of the former, _still the fact of their existence must be recognized_; and the processes in question have reference to them, not to their physical counterparts. It is, therefore, just as incorrect to say that a calculating machine really calculates, or predicates the result of its calculations, as it would be to say that a musical-box composes a tune because it plays a tune, or that the love of Romeo and Juliet was an isosceles triangle, because their feelings of affection, each to each, were, like the angles at the base of that figure, equal. But, as I have said, I take it that Professor Huxley must here have been writing in some ironical sense, and therefore purposely threw his criticisms into a preposterous form.

[94] The “images answering respectively to ‘a thing being,’ and ‘a thing not being,’ and to ‘at the same time’ and ‘in the same sense,’” must indeed be “vague.” How is it conceivable that “the imagination” can entertain any such “images” at all, apart from the “abstract ideas” of the “mind”? Such ideas as “a thing not being,” or “being in the same sense,” &c., belong to the sphere of conceptual thought, and cannot have any existence at all except as “abstract ideas of the mind.”

[95] _Nature_, August 21, 1879.

[96] The statement conveyed in this sentence I am not able to understand, and therefore will not hereafter endeavour to criticize. If it be taken literally—and I know not in what other sense to take it—we must suppose the writer to mean that “greenness” only occurs in “grass,” or, which is the same thing, that only grass is green.

[97] _Lessons from Nature_, pp. 226, 227.

[98] For instance, Professor Francis Bowen, of Harvard College, in an essay on _The Human and Brute Mind_, _Princeton Review_, 1880.

[99] Mill, following the schoolmen, uses the terms connotation and denomination as synonymous. For the distinction which I have drawn between them see above, p. 162.

[100] Sayce, _Introduction to the Science of Language_, i., 115.

[101] This view of a concept as already embodying the idea of existence is not really opposed to that of Mill, where he points out that if we pronounce the word “Sun” alone we are not necessarily affirming so much as existence of the sun (_Logic_, i., p. 20); for, although we are not affirming existence of that particular body, we must at least have the idea of its existence _as a possibility_: the use of the term carries with it the implied idea of such a possibility, and therefore the idea of existence—whether actual or potential—as already present to the mind of the speaker.

[102] In order to avoid misapprehension, I may observe that the criticism which Mill passes upon this analysis of the proposition by Hobbes (_Logic_, i., p. 100) has no reference to the only matter with which I am at present concerned—namely, the function of the copula. Indeed, with regard to this matter I am in full agreement with both the Mills. For James Mill, see _Analysis of the Human Mind_, i. 126, _et seq._; Mr. John Stuart Mill writes as follows:—“It is important that there should be no indistinctness in our conception of the nature and office of the copula; for confused notions respecting it are among the causes which have spread mysticism over the field of logic, and perverted its speculations into logomachies. It is apt to be supposed that the copula is something more than a mere sign of predication; that it also signifies existence. In the proposition, Socrates is just, it may seem to be implied not only that the quality _just_ can be affirmed of Socrates, but moreover that Socrates _is_, that is to say exists. This, however, only shows that there is an ambiguity in the word _is_; a word which not only performs the function of a copula in affirmations, but has also a meaning of its own, in virtue of which it may itself be made the predicate of a proposition” (_Logic_, i., p. 86). In my chapters on Philology I shall have to recur to the analysis of predication, and then it will be seen how completely the above view has been corroborated by the progress of linguistic research.

[103] Of course concepts may be something more than mere recepts known as such: they may be the knowledge of other concepts. But with this higher stage of conceptual ideation I am not here concerned.

[104] _Nature_, August 21, 1879.

[105] Taine, _Intelligence_, pp. 399, 400.

[106] Or, as we may now more closely define it, a denominated recept. A merely denotated recept (such as a parrot’s name for its recept of dog) is not conceptual, even in the lowest degree. In other words, named recepts, merely as such, are not necessarily concepts. Whether or not they are concepts depends on whether the naming has been an act of denotation or of denomination—conscious only, or likewise _self_-conscious.

[107] I coin this word on the pattern already furnished by “pre-perception,” which was first introduced by Lewes, and is now in general use among psychologists.

[108] Touching the power of recognizing pictorial representations among animals, this unquestionably occurs in dogs (see _Animal Intelligence_, pp. 455, 456), and there is some evidence to show that it is likewise displayed by monkeys. For Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire relates of a species of Midas (_Corinus_) that it distinguished between different objects depicted on an engraving; and Audouin “showed it the portraits of a cat and a wasp, at which it became much terrified: whereas, at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or a beetle, it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the objects there represented” (Bates, _Nat. on Amaz._, p. 60). The age at which a young child first learns to recognize pictorial resemblances no doubt varies in individual cases. I have not met with any evidence on this subject in the writings of other observers of infant psychology. The earliest age at which I observed any display of this faculty in my own children was at eight months, when my son stared long and fixedly at my own portrait in a manner which left no doubt on my mind that he recognized it as resembling the face of a man. Moreover, always after that day when asked in that room, “Where’s papa?” he used at once to look up and point at the portrait. Another child of my own, which had not seen this portrait till she was sixteen months old, immediately recognized it at first sight, as was proved by her pointing to it and calling it “Papa.” Two months later I observed that she also recognized pictorial resemblances of animals, and for many months afterwards her chief amusement consisted in looking through picture-books for the purpose of pointing out the animals or persons depicted—calling “Ba-a-a” to the sheep, “Moo” to the cows, grunting for the pigs, &c., these sundry sounds having been taught her as names by the nurse. She never made a mistake in this kind of nomenclature, and spontaneously called all pictorial representations of men “Papa,” of women “Mama,” and of children “Ilda”—the latter being the name which she had given to her younger brother. Moreover, if a picture-book were given into her hands upside-down, she would immediately perceive and rectify the mistake; and whenever she happened to see a pictorial representation of an animal—as, for instance, on a screen or wall-paper—she would touch it and utter the sound that was her name for that animal. With a third child, who was still wholly speechless at eighteen months, I tried the experiment of spreading out a number of photographic portraits, and asking him “Which is mamma? Which is papa?” &c. Without any hesitation he indicated them all correctly.

[109] By using the word “judgment” in all these cases I am in no way prejudicing the argument of my opponents. The explanation which immediately follows in the text is sufficient to show that the qualifying terms “receptual” and “pre-conceptual” effectually guard against any abuse of the term—quite as much, for instance, as when psychologists speak of “perceptual judgments,” or “unconscious judgments,” or “intuitive judgments,” in connection with still lower levels of mental operation. And it seems to me better thus to qualify an existing term than to add to the already large number of words I have found it necessary to coin.

[110] I may here remark that this possibility of receptual predication on the part of talking birds is not entirely hypothetical: I have some evidence that it may be actually realized. For instance, a correspondent writes of a cockatoo which had been ill:—“A friend came the same afternoon, and asked him how he was. With his head on one side and one of his cunning looks, he told her that he was ‘a little better;’ and when she asked him if he had not been very ill, he said, ‘Cockie better; Cockie ever so much better.’ ... ‘When I came back (after a prolonged absence) he said, ‘Mother come back to little Cockie: Mother come back to little Cockie. Come and love me and give me pretty kiss. Nobody pity poor Cockie. The boy beat poor Cockie.’ He always told me if Jes scolded or beat him. He always told me as soon as he saw me, and in such a pitiful tone.... The remarkable thing about this bird is that he does not merely ‘talk’ like parrots in general, but so habitually _talks to the purpose_.”

[111] Lest there should still be any ambiguity about the numerous terms which I have found it necessary to coin, I will here supply a table of definitions.

Lower recept = an automatic grouping of percepts.

Higher recept = pre-concept; or a degree of receptual ideation which does not occur in any brute.

Lower concept = named recept, provided that the naming be due to reflective thought.

Higher concept = a named compound of concepts.

The analogues of these terms are, in the matter of naming:—

Receptual naming = denotation, which includes pre-conceptual naming.

Conceptual naming = denomination.

And, in the matter of judging, the analogues are:—

Receptual judgment = automatic, “practical,” or unthinking inference.

Pre-conceptual judgment = the higher, though still unthinking, inferences of a child prior to the rise of self-consciousness.

Conceptual judgment = true judgment, whether exhibited in denomination, predication, or any act of inference for which self-conscious thought may be required.

[112] See above, Chapters II. and IV.

[113] See _Mental Evolution in Animals_, chapter on “Imagination.”

[114] In the opinion of Wundt, the most important of all conditions to the genesis of self-consciousness is given by the muscular sense in acts of voluntary movement (_Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Thierseele_, 18 vol.). While agreeing with him that this is a highly important condition, I think the others above mentioned are quite as much, or even more so.

[115] See for cases of this, _Animal Intelligence_, pp. 410, 443, 444, 450-452, 458, 494.

[116] The following is a good example of ejective ideation in a brute—all the better, perhaps, on account of being so familiar. I quote it from Quatrefage’s _Human Species_, pp. 20, 21:—“I must here beg permission to relate the remembrance of my struggles with a mastiff of pure breed and which had attained its full size, remaining, however, very young in character. We were very good friends and often played together. As soon as ever I assumed an attitude of defence before him, he would leap upon me with every appearance of fury, seizing in his mouth the arm which I had used as a shield. He might have marked my arm deeply at the first onset, but he never pressed it in a manner that could inflict the slightest pain. I often seized his lower jaw with my hand, but he never used his teeth so as to bite me. And yet the next moment the same teeth would indent a piece of wood I tried to tear away from them. This animal evidently knew what it was doing when it feigned the passion precisely opposite to that which it really felt; when, even in the excitement of play, it retained sufficient mastery over its movements to avoid hurting me. In reality it played a part in a comedy, and we cannot act without being conscious of it.”

[117] Not, however, wholly so. Mr. Chauncey Wright has clearly recognized the existence of what I term receptual self-consciousness, and assigned to it the name above adopted—_i.e._ “outward self-consciousness.” See his _Evolution of Self-consciousness_. Mr. Darwin, also, appears to have recognized this distinction, in the following passage:—“It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this term is implied that he reflects on such points as whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth. But how can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures or pains in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness” (_Descent of Man_, p. 83). Of course a psychologist may take technical exception to the word “reflects” in this passage; but that this kind of receptual reflection does take place in dogs appears to me to be definitely proved by the facts of home-sickness and pining for absent friends, above alluded to.

[118] In the present connection the following very pregnant sentence may be appropriately quoted from Wundt:—“Wenn wir überall auf die Empfindung als Ausgangspunkt der ganzen Entwicklungsreihe hingewiesen werden, so _müssen_ auch die Anfänge jener Unterscheidung des Ichs von den Gegenständen schon in den Empfindungen gelegen sein” (_Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Thierseele_, i. 287). And to the objection that there can be no thought without knowledge of thought, he replies that before there is any knowledge of thought there must be the same order of thinking as there is of perceiving prior to the advent of self-consciousness—_e.g._ receptual ideas about space before there is any conceptual knowledge of these ideas as such.

[119] Sully, _loc. cit._, p. 376. See also Wundt, _loc. cit._, i. 289. He shows that this speaking of self in the third person is not due to “imitation,” but, on the contrary, opposed to it. For “a thousand times the child hears that its elders do not thus speak of themselves.” The child hears that its elders call it in the third person, and in this it follows them. But such imitation as we here find is expressive only of the fact that hitherto the child has not distinguished between self as an object and self as a subject. Only later on, when this distinction has begun to dawn, does imitation proceed to apply to the self the first person, after the manner in which other selves (now recognized by the child as such) are heard to do.

[120] _Loc. cit._, p. 377.

[121] _Loc. cit._, pp. 435, 436.

[122] _Philosophical Discussions_, p. 256. See also _Animal Intelligence_, pp. 269, 270, for the case of a parrot apparently endeavouring to recover the memory of a particular word in a phrase. In the course of an interesting research on the intelligence of spiders (_Journ. Morphol._, i., p. 383-419), Mr. and Mrs. Peckham have recently found that the memory of eggs which have been withdrawn from the mother is retained by her for a period varying in different species from less than one to more than two days.

[123] Sully, _loc. cit._, p. 377.

[124] Wundt, _loc. cit._, ii. 289, 290. He gives cases where such a definite memory of the moment has persisted, and elsewhere states that such is the case in his own experience. The circumstance which here was connected with the sudden birth of self-consciousness consisted in rolling down stairs into a cellar—an event which no doubt was well calculated forcibly to impress upon infant consciousness that it was itself, and nobody else.

[125] See _Mental Evolution in Animals_, pp. 161-165. Perez records analogous facts with regard to the infant as unmistakably displayed in the fourteenth week (_First Three Years of Childhood_, English trans., p. 29).

[126] _Outlines of Psychology_, p. 378.

[127] _Vorlesungen_, _&c._, i. 289.

[128] In the above sketch of the principles which are concerned in the development of self-consciousness, I have only been concerned with the matter on the side of its psychology, and even on this side only so far as my own purposes are in view. Those who wish for further information on the psychology of the subject may consult Wundt, _loc. cit._; Sully, _loc. cit._, and _Illusions_, ch. x.; Taine, _On Intelligence_, pt. ii., bk. iii.; Chauncey Wright, _Evolution of Self-consciousness_; and Waitz, _Lehrbuch der Psychologie_, 58. On the side of its physiology and pathology Taine, Maudsley, and Ribot may be referred to (_On Intelligence_, _Pathology of Mind_, _Diseases of Memory_), as also a paper by Herzen, entitled, _Les Modifications de la Conscience du moi_ (_Bull. Soc. Hand. Sc. Nat._, xx. 90). _An Essay on the Philosophy of Self-consciousness_, by P. F. Fitzgerald, is written from the side of metaphysics. On this side, also, we are met by the school of Hegel and the Neo-Kantians with a virtual denial of the origin and development of self-consciousness in time. Thus, for instance, Green expressly says:—“Should the question be asked, If this self-consciousness is not derived from nature, what then is its origin? the answer is, that it has no origin. It never began because it never was not. It is the condition of there being such a thing as beginning or end. Whatever begins or ends does so for it, or in relation to it” (_Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 119). To this I can only answer that for my own part I feel as convinced as I am of the fact of my self-consciousness itself that it had a beginning in time, and was afterwards the subject of a gradual development. “Das Ich ist ein Entwicklungsprodukt, wie der ganze Mensch ein Entwicklungsprodukt ist” (Wundt).

[129] “Of all the neolithic implements the axe was by far the most important. It was by the axe that man achieved his greatest victory over nature” (Boyd Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_, p. 274).

[130] Galton, _Tropical South Africa_, p. 213. The author adds, “Once, while I watched a Dammara floundering hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them, backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Dammara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the man.” As previously stated, I taught the chimpanzee “Sally” to give one, two, three, four, or five straws at word of command.

[131] The boy’s name was Ernest, and was thus called by all other members of the household. As I could not find any imitative source of the dissimilar name used by his sister, this is probably an instance of the spontaneous invention of names by young children, which has already been considered at the close of my chapter on “Articulation.” Touching the use of adjectives by young children, I may quote the following remark from Professor Preyer:—“A very general error must be removed, which consists in the supposition that all children on first beginning to speak use substantives only, and later pass on to the use of adjectives. This is certainly not the case.” And he proceeds to give instances drawn from the daily observations of his own child, such as the use of the word “heiss” in the twenty-third month.

[132] We shall subsequently see that at this stage of mental evolution there is no well-defined distinction between the different parts of speech. Therefore here, and elsewhere throughout this chapter, I use the terms “noun,” “adjective,” “verb,” &c., in a loose and general sense.

[133] I have seen a terrier of my own (who habitually employed this gesture-sign in the same way as Preyer’s child, namely, as expressive of desire), assiduously though fruitlessly “beg” before a refractory bitch.

[134] Many dogs will significantly bark, and cats significantly mew, for things which they desire to possess or to be done. For significant crying by children, see above, p. 158.

[135] For the case of the ape in this connection see above, p. 126. I took my daughter when she was seven years of age to witness the understanding of the ape “Sally.” On coming away, I remarked to her that the animal seemed to be “quite as sensible as Jack”—_i.e._ her infant brother of eighteen months. She considered for a while, and then replied, “Well, I think she is sensibler.” And I believe the child was right.

[136] Or, if any opponent were to suggest this, he would be committing argumentative surrender. For the citadel of his argument is, as we know, the faculty of conception, or the distinctively human power of objectifying ideas. Now, it is on all hands admitted that this power is impossible in the absence of self-consciousness. Will it, then, be suggested that my daughter had attained to self-consciousness and the introspective contemplation of her own ideas before she had attained to the faculty of speech, and therefore to the very _condition_ to the naming of her ideas? If so, it would follow that there may be concepts without names, and thus the whole fortress of my opponents would crumble away.

[137] See pp. 81-83, where it is shown that even in cases where conceptual thought is necessary for the original formation of a name, the name may afterwards be used without the agency of such thought—just in the same way as actions originally due to intelligence may, by frequent repetition, become automatic. At the close of the present chapter it will be shown that the same is true even of full or formal predication.

[138] In this connection it is interesting to observe the absence of the copula. Notwithstanding the strongly imitative tendencies of a child’s mind, and notwithstanding that our English children hear the copula expressed in almost every statement that is made to them, their own propositions, while still in the preconceptual phase, dispense with it (see above, p. 204). In thus trusting to apposition alone, without expressing any sign of relation, the young child is conveying in spoken language an immediate translation of the mental acts concerned in predication. As previously noticed, we meet with precisely the same fact in the natural language of gesture, even after this has been wrought up into the elaborate conceptual systems of the Indians and deaf-mutes. Lastly, in a subsequent chapter we shall see that the same has to be said of all the more primitive forms of spoken language which are still extant among savages. So that here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.

[139] See p. 166.

[140] Thus far, it will be observed, the case of predication is precisely analogous to that of denomination, alluded to in the foot-note on page 226. Just as instincts may arise by way of “lapsed intelligence,” so may originally conceptual names, and even originally conceptual propositions, become worn down by frequent use, until they are, as it were, degraded into the pre-conceptual order of ideation. Be it observed, however, that the paragraphs which _follow_ in the text have reference to a totally different principle—namely, that there may be propositions strictly conceptual as to form, which, nevertheless, need never at any time have been conceptual as to thought.

[141] _Logic_, vol. i., p. 108.

[142] _Encyclopædia Britannica_, eighth edition, 1857, Art. “Language.”

[143] Of course in classical times, when there was no theological presumption against the theory of development, this alternative met with a fuller recognition; as, for example, by the Latin authors, Horace, Lucretius, and Cicero. Before that time Greek philosophers had been much exercised by the question whether speech was an intuitive endowment (analogists), or a product of human invention (anomalists); and, earlier still, astonishing progress had been made by the grammarians of India in a truly scientific analysis of language-growth. But in the text I am speaking of modern times; and here I think there can be no doubt that till the middle of the present century the possibility of language having been the result of a natural growth was not sufficiently recognized. Among those who did recognize it, Herder, Monboddo, Sir W. Jones, Schlegel, Bopp, Humboldt, Grimm, and Pott, are most deserving of mention. The same year that witnessed the publication of the _Origin of Species_ (1859), gave to science the first issue of Steinthal’s _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_. From that date onwards the theory of evolution in its application to philology has held undivided sway.

[144] _Encycl. Brit._, _loc. cit._ Remembering that the above was published two years before the _Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection_, this clear enunciation of the struggle for existence in the field of philology appears to me deserving of notice.

[145] _Science of Thought_, preface, p. xi.

[146] _Darwinism tested by the Science of Language_, p. 41.

[147] There is a difference of opinion among philologists as to the extent in which modifying constants were themselves originally roots. The school of Ludwig regards demonstrative elements as never having enjoyed existence as independent words; but, even so, they must have had an independent existence of some kind, else it is impossible to explain how they ever came to be employed as constantly modifying different roots in the same way. Moreover, as Max Müller well observes, “to suppose that Khana, Khain, Khanana, Khaintra, Khatra, &c., all tumbled out ready-made, without any synthetical purpose, and that their differences were due to nothing but an uncontrolled play of the organs of speech, seems to me an unmeaning assertion.... What must be admitted, however, is that many suffixes and terminations had been wrongly analyzed by Bopp and his school, and that we must be satisfied with looking upon most of them as in the beginning simply demonstrative and modificatory” (_loc. cit._, pp. 224 and 225). See also Farrar, _Origin of Language_, pp. 100, _et seq._; Donaldson, _Greek Grammar_, pp. 67-79; and Hovelacque, _Science of Language_, p. 37. It will be remarked that this question does not affect the exposition in the text.

[148] _Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft_, I. i. 77. This estimate is accepted by Professor Sayce, _Introduction to the Science of Language_, vol. ii., p. 32.

[149] Hovelacque, _Science of Language_, English trans., p. 37.

[150] This method of representation was devised by Schleicher, who carries it further than I have occasion to do in the text. See _Memoirs of Academy of St. Petersburg_, vol. i., No. 7, 1859.

[151] Hovelacque, _loc. cit._, p. 130.

[152] Sayce, _Introduction, &c._, i. 126.

[153] _Introduction, &c._, vol. i., p. 374.

[154] _Ibid._, vol. i., pp. 375, 376.

[155] _Ibid._, p. 120. See also his _Principles of Comparative Philology_, 2nd ed., p. ix.

[156] Sayce, _Introduction, &c._, i., 125, 126.

[157] Hovelacque, _Science of Language_, p. 130.

[158] “What we most need to note is the very narrow limitation of our present knowledge. Even among the neighbouring families like the Algonquin, Troquois, and Dakota, whose agreement in style of structure (polysynthetic), taken in connection with the accordant race-type of their speakers, forbids us to regard them as ultimately different, no material correspondence, agreements in words and meanings, is to be traced; and there are in America all degrees of polysynthetism, down to the lowest, and even to its entire absence. Such being the case, it ought to be evident that all attempts to connect American languages as a body with languages of the Old World are, and must be, fruitless: in fact, all discussions of the matter are at present unscientific” (Professor Whitney in _Encycl. Brit._, art. “Philology,” 1885).

[159] _Introduction, &c._, i. 120.

[160] _Ibid._, i. 116.

[161] “The number of separate families of speech now existing in the world, which cannot be connected with one another, is at least seventy-five; and the number will doubtless be increased when we have grammars and dictionaries of the numerous languages and dialects which are still unknown, and better information as regards those with which we are partially acquainted. If we add to these the innumerable groups of speech which have passed away without leaving behind even such waifs as the Basque of the Pyrenees, or the Etruscan of ancient Italy, some idea will be formed of the infinite number of primæval centres or communities in which language took its rise” (Sayce, _Introduction, &c._, ii. 323).

[162] _Life and Growth of Language_, p. 259.

[163] _Ibid._, p. 262.