Chapter XXIII: Part 23

It may be added that the greater comprehensiveness of the so-called internal relations is seen in the circumstance that the relations of time and place, just like the separate qualities or attributes of objects, are themselves modes of similarity and dissimilarity. Thus the relation of local contiguity between two elements is something _common_ to these and other contiguous pairs. Moreover, it is evident that in such a case each element is recognised as having a different position from the other. Similarity with the temporal relations of events.

_Comparison._—We may now glance at the operations here brought under the head of comparison, the bringing of different presentative or representative materials before the mind simultaneously and keeping them in consciousness in order to note their relations of similarity or dissimilarity. Here as in the case of Analysis or Abstraction we shall illustrate the process by selecting relatively simple modes of the operation carried out on immediately presented sense-material.

_Likeness and Difference._—We may here assume that likeness and unlikeness are two perfectly distinct relations. To apprehend a similarity between two sensations, say tones, is an intellectual process which we all recognise as radically unlike that of apprehending a difference.

Yet while the consciousness of likeness and that of difference are thus radically distinct, as psychical processes, it is evident that the relations of likeness and difference are presented together in close connection. As we all know similarity discloses itself in the midst of difference. This is obvious in the case of all complex presentations, as when we assimilate two objects on the ground of a color resemblance. Not only so, since even in the case of sensation-elements (e. g. color-sensations) likeness is a thing of degree shading off from perfect likeness or indistinguishableness to just recognisable affinity, it follows that here, too, likeness and difference are given together in mutual implication.

Since resemblance and difference are thus uniformly presented together, it is to be expected that comparison will commonly include the two processes, assimilation and discrimination. And this is so. We see likeness amid difference, e. g. a common trait in two faces along with striking dissimilarities. On the other hand we contrast two objects in respect of some _common_ quality as color, form, beauty and so forth, which common element constitutes the ground or _fundamentum_ of the comparison.

At the same time it is evident that the one process usually, if not in all cases, preponderates over the other. We are now specially interested in the likeness of two objects, say two faces, or two literary styles, the moment after, perhaps, in their differences. Accordingly we may say that comparison is the noting of likeness against a dimly apprehended background of difference, or a difference against a dimly apprehended background of similarity.

_Conditions of Comparison._—Comparison whether specially directed to likeness or unlikeness has certain common conditions. As in the case of Abstraction these conditions may be divided into objective, or those involved in the nature or concomitants of the presentations considered as external objects, or objects of common perception; and subjective or those connected with the nature of the individual mind. As I have given a full account[98] of these elsewhere, I must content myself here with a general remark or two on the subject.

[98] In _Mind_, x. p. 489 et seqq.

Of the objective conditions the most important are the following: (_a_) There must be a moderate and favorable degree of strength or intensity in the presentations to be compared. We compare fairly bright colors better than very dull ones. (_b_) The common factor or _ground_ of comparison must be sufficiently distinct. We cannot compare two tones in respect of pitch if this is unsteady. (_c_) Comparison is greatly aided by juxtaposition in space or time. Thus local proximity is a condition of a nice comparison of colors. With respect to temporal conditions it was found by Fechner and has been confirmed by others that immediate succession is more helpful to comparison than simultaneity. We compare sensations of weight, tone, etc., best of all when they are made to succeed one another.

With respect to subjective conditions, comparison will, it is obvious, be assisted by a good power of concentration. It will also be aided by a special sensibility for, and interest in, the particular sensuous material: witness the musician's comparison of tones as to pitch, purity, etc. Lastly reference may be made to special preparation or mental preadjustment. It is manifest that if we are expecting to see two things like one another we shall in general be more disposed to do so; similarly if we are on the lookout for difference.

It may be added that there is a special interest in likeness _as such_, and also in difference. Such interest predisposes a person to detect the one relation rather than the other. Hence the familiar observation that some people are particularly acute in seeing likenesses, e. g. in faces, whereas others are habitually more observant of differences.

_Connection between Analysis and Comparison._—There is a close connection between the two directions of thought-activity just dealt with. To begin with, it has become evident that in the processes of comparison, analysis is always involved. Sometimes the analysis seems to precede the comparison, as when we are asked to compare two flowers in respect of their color. In other cases it appears rather as the result of comparison. Thus it is by successive comparisons of different members of a class of things, as flowers, that we gradually come to analyse out the common features of the group.

While comparison thus involves abstraction, abstraction even in the case of a single object may be said to involve the rudiments of comparison. Thus in analytically singling out for consideration the spherical form of a rain drop, we implicitly and subconsciously assimilate it to other previously known spherical objects. But for this vague imperfect accompaniment of assimilation, the analytic separation of the constituent would be difficult if not impossible. Such a subconscious reference to one or more similar things helps to direct the operation of analysis by intensifying and rendering prominent for the moment the particular constituent assimilated through the addition of an ideational element to the sensation.[99]

[99] This is well brought out by W. James, _Principles of
Psychology_, i. p. 434 et seqq.

It follows that the thought-process is one process having two aspects or distinguishable factors. Either of these may become predominant according to special circumstances. In this way we obtain two varieties of operation, viz. Analysis or Abstraction, in which the recognition of likeness is subconscious, and Assimilative Comparison where the process of analysis is preliminary and subordinate to a conscious apprehension of likeness.

A somewhat like relation holds between analysis as a subconscious process of differentiation and a conscious act of discrimination. Thus in analysing a clang we must, agreeably to what was said above, have a vague impression of the difference between one tone and another. And such subconscious differentiation readily becomes the starting-point in a full conscious apprehension by an act of comparing attention of the differences between the several ingredients.[100]

[100] Stumpf uses the term Analysis for the mere vague
detection of plurality of elements in a sensation-complex
which he considers to be distinct from, and preliminary to
a discrimination of them as different one from the other.
_Tonpsychologie_ ii. p. 104 et seqq.

Thus far we have been occupied with the two fundamental processes in thought and we have illustrated these in their simplest form as employed about presentations or their equivalents, concrete representations. But as already pointed out what we mean by thought is the representation of things as classes or generalities. All the more interesting and momentous problems relating to thought, such as the question whether the lower animals think or reason as we do, have reference to such _general_ thinking. We have now to examine the processes involved in this thinking.

These fully developed thought-processes are marked off by the use of what is known as the general idea or notion such as _man_ or _virtue_. Such general ideas when reduced to a precise form as by the logician are spoken of as concepts. And since the science of logic assumes thinking to take place by help of such conceptual products we may also speak of these full or explicit thought-processes as Conceptual Thought.[101]

[101] The use of such expressions must not, however, blind
us to the fact that a concept strictly speaking is something
logical, an _ideal_ form of the general idea rarely if ever
realised in our actual thinking processes. Of this more
presently.

_General Ideas and their Formation._—In seeking to trace the development of this general thinking we have first of all to consider the nature and origin of general ideas. It is evident that we only think about things generally in a distinct manner when we are able to form such ideas. Thus I cannot think out the proposition 'The mushroom is a fungus' until I am able to form the general ideas mushroom and fungus. The difficult problems respecting the nature of thought, its relation to language, and its extension beyond man to the lower animals, have been discussed in close connection with the nature and origin of general ideas.

A general idea may for our present purpose be defined as an idea having a general import or reference. Thus a child's idea of dog, home, or father, becomes general when he consciously employs the term as the sign of this, that, and any other particular object which may answer to a certain description or be found to present certain characteristic attributes or traits; or, as the logicians express it, a general idea is a representation of a general class of things.[102]

[102] The reader must be careful to distinguish the meaning of
the term class as here used from its meaning when applied to a
definite number of objects viewed as a collection, as a class
of children in a school. In thinking of man as a (logical)
class I do not represent a definite number at all; nor do I
represent men as a collection. It would be more correct to say
that I am representing in a more or less distinct way the fact
that this, that, and an indefinite list of other things are
related as like or answering to one description. How this mode
of representation is effected will appear presently.

Now it is evident that general ideas as thus defined are reached slowly and by degrees. It is exceedingly doubtful whether any of the lower animals possess them. The baby does not possess them and even after attaining to speech remains for a long time with only the rudiments of them. In their perfected articulate form as required for exact scientific thought they are confined to a few highly trained minds.

_Generic Images._—The first stage in the formation of such general ideas is the welding together of a number of concrete images into what has been called a generic image. The idea tree or house may be taken as an example. Such generic images appear to be formed by a process of assimilative cumulation. Let us suppose that a child after observing one dog, sees a second. In this case the strong resemblance in the second to the first effects a process of assimilation analogous to automatic or "unconscious" assimilation. That is to say, the percept corresponding to the second animal is instantly fused with the surviving image of the first by reason of easily apprehended points of likeness. By such successive assimilations a cumulative effect is produced which has been likened to that of the superposition of a number of photographic impressions received from different members of a class, (e. g. criminal,) whereby common features get accentuated and so a typical form is produced.[103]

[103] For an account of such composite photographic pictures,
and their analogy to generic (mental) images, see Mr. F.
Galton's _Inquiries into Human Faculty_. Appendix, "Generic
Images."

Such a process of deepening and accentuating common traits and effacing individual or variable ones can only be looked on as a tendency never perfectly fulfilled. Interesting differences would in all cases tend to reinstate themselves. Thus my own generic image of a church happens to be a building with a tall spire, because the finest church in my native town was of this form. Recent examples would also tend to contribute variable peculiarities. Thus the baby's generic image of a dog might have the distinguishing characters of the dog last seen.

This process of cumulative assimilation would be largely passive and independent of those active processes of comparison, just described. It would further be capable of being carried forward (to some extent at least) independently of language. Hence we may, with some degree of confidence, attribute generic images to the child before he comes to the use of words and to many of the lower animals. Thus it is highly probable that a baby of six months forms a generic image of the human face out of the percepts answering to its mother's face, nurse's face, etc., and that when suffering from loneliness it has this image in its mind. Similarly a predatory animal may be supposed to compound a generic image out of the percepts gained from this, that, and the other specimen of his prey, so that when seized with hunger, this typical image is recalled.

In order to illustrate what is meant by a generic image, it is important to take the case of a pure representation detached from a presentation. Thus we cannot say that because a diving bird recognises a new sheet of water, it must have at the moment, a generic image answering to water. The recognition of a thing does not imply a distinct representation of the thing as previously seen. The presentative and representative ingredients are fused in this case, or to express it otherwise, the image is latent and undeveloped. Similarly with respect to such rudimentary processes of conception or general ideation as those here considered. We can only attribute a developed and detached generic image to baby or animal when we have reason to think that these occur in the absence of percepts, e. g. in states of desire, in dreams, and so forth.[104]

[104] The argument in support of the proposition that generic
images, or (as the writer calls them) "recepts" are actually
reached by the lower animals is ably set forth by Dr. Romanes,
_Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 51 et seqq.

_Relation of Generic Image to General Idea._—The question still remains how far such generic images are, properly speaking, _general_ ideas in the sense defined above. Is, for example, the typical face that is pictured by the lonely infant thought of as something common to this, that, and the other concrete object? Does it carry with it any clear consciousness of a general class of things? There is no certain proof that this is so. It must be remembered here that the mental image corresponding to one and the same individual object, as the infant's mother, is composite also and in the same way as the generic image. Thus the baby forms the image of its mother out of a number of practically unlike percepts, corresponding to varying appearances of the object in different positions, different light, different dress, and so forth.[105] Generic images accordingly differ not in kind, but only in degree (viz. proportion of common to variable feature taken up and accentuated) from particular or concrete images. And so long as they remain merely pictorial _images_, there seems no reason to attribute to them any general function or import.

[105] Cf. Taine, _On Intelligence_, Part i, Book ii, Ch. 2.

The true process of conception, as generalisation or general ideation, that is a conscious representation of something as common to many as distinguished from one, involves the active processes of thought, analysis and synthesis, abstraction and comparison. It is only when the child begins consciously to break up its images to mark off this element or feature from that, and by help of such analysis discerns and demarcates common features that general thought properly so called, appears. In this way it reaches a distinct idea at once of an individual thing and of general or common aspects among individuals. We have now to examine into this true thought-process.

_Transition to Conception Proper._—The transition from merely imagining to thinking proper is effected by processes of reflective attention in which abstraction and comparison play a chief part. In order to understand how this occurs we may suppose the process of automatic assimilation checked by the introduction of some impressive difference. Thus a child proceeds to play with a visitor's dog and finds it wanting in the friendly sentiments of his own pet. Here difference which, in the earlier stage of automatic assimilation, remained indistinct in the background of consciousness, is brought forward. The unlikeness of _morale_ in spite of the likeness of _physique_ is forced on his attention, the present percept is separated from and opposed to the image, and a step is taken in marking off likeness from surrounding difference.

As differences thus come into distinct view and impress themselves on the mind as the constant accompaniment of likenesses, a new and explicit grasp of likeness-in-difference ensues. This starts from a mental separation of the several perceptual constituents of the generic image, and a reflective comparison of these one with another, so as to demarcate common features or likenesses from peculiar features or unlikeness. Such comparison, or series of comparisons, begins with incomplete analysis and vague apprehension of likeness and ends in a more complete analysis and more definite apprehension of likeness. In this way, for example, the child waking up to differences among apples, goes back on his various experiences, and by noticing and setting aside variability of taste, size, etc., gets a clear grasp of the common essential features. Such a conscious active separation of definite points of resemblance from among a confusing mass of difference is what psychologists and logicians more especially mean by Abstraction.

_Differentiation of Notions of Individual and Class._—As was pointed out just now the coexistence of likeness with unlikeness in the child's experience, may mean one of two things, viz. persistence or identity of one individual object, in spite of certain changes, or a general similarity among a number of different individuals. The process of conception is sometimes described as if the child started with a definite knowledge of individuals and then proceeded to generalise or form a class-idea. There is, however, every reason for saying that the two modes of interpreting likeness-in-difference are reached concurrently and by processes largely similar. Thus it seems most reasonable to suppose that the baby which 'da-das' every bearded person it sees is as yet clearly conscious neither of individuality nor of generality. In other words we must not assume that it is stupidly confounding its sire with a stranger, or, on the other hand, forming an idea of a general class. At this stage the child merely recognises certain interesting similarities and proceeds to express the fact. We have to suppose that the clear apprehension of individual sameness is reached but slowly and in close connection with the first clear consciousness of different things attached by a bond of likeness.

To say that the child's knowledge begins with the concrete individual is not to say that it attains a clear consciousness of what we mean by an individual thing persisting and the same (in spite of change) before it begins to generalise. We must remember that the cognition of a thing as persistent and continuous is the result of lengthy and complex processes of comparative reflection. To individualise is thus to think just as to generalise is to think.[106] In truth, the psychological development of the idea of individuality proceeds along with that of generality, each being grasped as a different way of interpreting partial similarity among our percepts.[107]

[106] Hence the logician can speak of the idea answering to a
proper name as a singular _concept_. See Lotze, _Logic_, p. 34.

[107] The question of the priority in the individual of
the knowledge of the individual or of the general class,
the question known as the _primum cognitum_ has been much
discussed in connection with the linguistic problem whether
names are first used as proper names or as general names.

_The Process of Generalisation._—When once this differentiation of the individual idea from the class idea has advanced far enough the process of generalisation proper, or the grasp of common or general qualities, is able to be carried out in the way usually described by psychologists. That is to say, a number of individual things, represented as such, are now compared, the attention withdrawn by a volitional effort, from points of difference and concentrated on points of likeness (abstraction) and so a true process of generalisation carried out.

The common account of the process of conception here followed, as a sequence of three stages, Comparison, Abstraction, and Generalisation, rather describes the ideal form of the process as required by logic than the mental process actually carried out. As we saw above a vague analysis or abstraction precedes that methodical comparison of things by which the abstraction becomes precise and perfect, that is to say, definite points of likeness (or unlikeness) are detected. With regard to generalisation it has been pointed out that a rudimentary form of this process is involved in abstraction. To see the roundness of the ball is vaguely and implicitly to assimilate the ball to other round objects. It is to be added that an imperfect grasp of general features as such (commonly) precedes the methodical process here described. The child realises in a measure, the general function of the name 'horse' before he carries out a careful comparative analysis of the horse-characters. At the same time the use of the word generalisation is important, as marking off the clear mental grasp of the class-idea as such, that is the idea of an indeterminate number, of objects, known and unknown, answering to a certain description.[108]

[108] On the relation of Abstraction to Generalisation see
Hamilton's _Lectures_, Vol. ii, Lec. xxxv.

_Conception and Naming._—We have so far supposed that the processes of conception are carried out without any help from language. But it is exceedingly doubtful whether any such orderly process as that just described, the comparison of a number of percepts and the marking off of common attributes could be carried out without the aid of words or some equivalent. It is probable that even the clear grasp of individual things as unities and as permanent identical things, depends on the use of a name (proper name) which as one and the same sound seems to mark in an emphatic way the continued oneness of the object.[109] And the same applies still more manifestly to the apprehension of a general class of things. It is certain that in later life at least all clear general thinking takes place by help of language. The general idea is held together, and retained by means of a name; and, as already pointed out, it is very uncertain whether in the absence of such general signs, the infant or the lower animal ever attains to a clear consciousness of the 'one in the many,' the common aspect of a number of different objects.

[109] It seems to follow that animals cannot attain the clear
consciousness of individual things as permanent unities, as we
attain it.

_Is Generalisation Possible Without Language?_—The question how far we can generalise or form a general idea apart from the use of names or other signs is one of the standing _cruces_ in psychology. If we judge by introspective examination of our own minds we do no doubt now and again carry on processes of thought of a quasi-general character with little if any help from words. Yet it is doubtful whether we attain a clear consciousness of the _generality_ of our thinking in this case. It must be remembered too that even if we can, as is alleged, employ a particular image or succession of images as representative of generalities without any aid from language (as when we intuitively follow the proof of a particular case in geometry and at the same time recognise its general validity) we are employing powers of thought that have been developed by help of language.[110]

[110] On the nature of such speechless thought see Venn,
_Empirical Logic_, p. 147.

If now we turn from the developed to the undeveloped mind, and ask whether children think apart from the use of language, we find the question exceedingly difficult. It has been alleged that a born mute reached prior to his mastery of a deaf-mute language the highly abstract idea of maker or creator and applied this to the world or sum of objects about him.[111] It must be borne in mind however, that born mutes make a certain spontaneous use of articulate sounds or signs, and such articulations, though unintelligible to others, and not even heard by themselves, may be of great assistance in carrying out the process of Abstraction. It must be further remembered that a child understands others' words and may probably make some internal use of them as signs before he proceeds to imitatively articulate them.

[111] See a very interesting account of the experience of
a born mute by Prof. S. Porter, in an article "Is Thought
Possible without Language?" in the _Princeton Review_,
January, 1881.

Lastly with respect to the lower animals, while it must be admitted that they display something closely resembling the germ of general thinking, it is manifest that we cannot in their case, be certain of the degree of clear consciousness of generality attained. The actions of a fox caught in a difficulty and inventing a way of escape seem indistinguishable from those of a man thinking by help of general ideas and general rules: yet the mental process may after all be non-ceptual, and pictorial. It seems safe therefore to conclude that apart from verbal or other general signs the full consciousness of generality does not arise.[112]

[112] It must be remembered that some of the most intelligent
of the lower animals, e. g. ants, have a system of tactual
signs analogous to our language. On the whole subject of the
germ of linguistic and conceptional power in animals, see
Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, Chap. v and following.

_Psychological Function of General Names._—A name is commonly defined as a mark or sign by the help of which the idea of a thing may be called up in our own mind or in the mind of another. Signs are either self-explaining, as in the case of a drawing, or an imitative gesture, or conventionally attached to objects as the larger number of linguistic signs or names, the symbols used in music, etc.[113] Language signs consist either of articulated sounds or other percept-producing movements, as the finger movements[114] used by the deaf and dumb.

[113] Articulate sounds so far as imitative (onomatopoetic)
words, are of course to be classed with self-explaining signs.

[114] On the general function and the possible varieties of
language-signs, tone-language, gesture-language, etc., see
Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, Chap. v and following. Cf.
Venn, _Empirical Logic_, Chap. vi.

A name may be given to one thing (proper name) or to a general class (common or general name). In either case, as explained above, the name psychologically considered is the expression or indication of a similarity among our percepts. To name a thing is thus the outward manifestation of a process of assimilation.

The name (articulation-sound complex) becomes attached to the idea it stands for by a process of contiguous integration. Looking at it as accompanying and perfecting the process of assimilation, we may say that a name, whether as employed by ourselves or as heard used by others, becomes specially associated with, and so expressive of, some similar feature or features of our perceptual experience. Thus the name 'home' specially emphasises the recurring or constant features of the child's surroundings, the name 'horse' the common features of structure in the objects so named. The name thus becomes specially attached to, and so a mark of the effects of superposition of common presentative elements in our experience.

This is well brought out in Herbart's view that the general idea is the result of "apperception," or the coalescence of a new presentation with previous like representations (apperceptive masses). Such apperceptive fusion or assimilation would according to Herbart help to explain the prominence or distinct emergence of the common element in a new presentation, and the falling back of the particular or variable features into indistinct consciousness.[115]

[115] See Mr. Stout's account of Herbart's view. _Mind_, Vol.
xiv. p. 15.

_Use of Names in Early Life._—In the beginning of life linguistic signs are used in close connection with the process of automatic assimilation. Thus the recurrence of the presentative complex answering to a particular animal as the dog, calls forth, by a process analogous to a reflex movement, the articulation, let us say, of the sound 'bow-wow.' This use of words by the child to mark likeness is partly spontaneous, partly imitative. As is well known, children often invent names of their own, as their pet names for nurse, doll, and so forth, and their names for classes of objects, as when one child used the sound 'mum' as a name of eatables, generally, and another, the sound 'appa' as a name for this, that, and the other animal (kitten, chick, etc.). They also spontaneously extend the use of names supplied by others as when the sound "ba" (ball) was extended to a bubble and other round objects. This spontaneous use of names gives place in time to an imitative use of names as heard by others.[116]

[116] For interesting illustrations of children's spontaneous
invention, as also of their extension of names, see Preyer,
_Die Seele des Kindes_, 3er Theil; Pérez, _The First Three
Years of Childhood_, Chap. xii; Taine, _On Intelligence_, Book
iv, Chap. i, § 1; and Darwin's _Notes_ on his child, _Mind_,
Vol. ii. p. 285, et seqq.

From what we said above we have to suppose that names are used at the beginning neither as proper or Singular, nor as General names. They merely serve to mark off and register common features of the child's experience. As the processes of comparison gain in strength and the difference between the individual and the general class becomes distinct, the two uses of names as singular and general grow clearly differentiated. Thus the names Charles, Papa, Rose, and so forth, come to be marks of particular things, those organised experience-unities which are thought of as having continued existence independently of our intermittent percepts. Similarly, the general name, dog, man, and so forth, come to be consciously applied to a number of such object-unities on the ground of common attributes.

_How Names Further Conception._—At first we find this use of general names confined to classes of objects having numerous points of similarity and so easily representable in the pictorial form of Generic Image, as "dog," "house," etc. Here, as pointed out above, the name is not used with a clear consciousness of its general character or function. Yet the very application of one and the same name to a number of percepts is an important aid to those processes of reflective comparison and selection of common features by which the apprehension of generality arises. To begin with, any use of a name to mark the result of an assimilative process, serves to call attention to and to emphasise the existence of like features. Not only so, the name being applied to each of a number of percepts is a valuable means of recalling these together, and so furthering that extended process of comparing a number of things which underlies generalisation. More than this, since the name from the beginning serves to emphasise and register the fact of likeness, it greatly facilitates the subsequent careful analysis and definition of the points of likeness. Of special service here is the hearing of names applied by others to a variety of things, as when a multitude of unlike things are called 'plants' and so on. Such announcement of likeness as yet undiscovered by the child serves as we know as a powerful stimulus to a comparative examination of the things and this urges the child on along the conceptual path.

The greatest use of general names, however, in connection with general ideation or conception is in definitely marking off and rendering permanent each new result of analysis and comparison. Thus on reflecting upon dogs with a view to see in what exactly they do agree in spite of their differences, and on gradually gaining clear consciousness of this, that, and the other characteristic features of form, action, etc., a child demarcates and definitely registers these results of abstraction by help of the name. That is to say, the name is used as a defining mark as one might mark off an ill-defined local feature in a piece of board by drawing a chalk circle about the spot. When the name is thus definitely and exclusively applied to such products of comparison and abstraction it henceforth serves as a means of recalling these and keeping them distinctly before the mind.

When thus definitely attached by association to the points of similarity singled out by abstraction from a number of particular objects, the name is used as a true general sign. The image now takes on a much more definite function as a typical or representative image, through the circumstance that by help of the demarcating sign certain of its features stand out distinctly, and are at the same time realised as belonging not merely to one particular thing, but to what we call a general class. Thus the name dog, though probably still calling up an image of a more or less concrete character, that is, including traits of some individual dog or variety of dogs, becomes a general sign inasmuch as it throws prominently forward, and so secures special attention to certain definitely apprehended common class-features (the common canine form, action of barking, etc.).[117]

[117] Since the result of abstraction though representing
concrete things does not represent them fully and explicitly
we may, with Mr. Spencer, call the general or abstract idea a
re-representation. See his _Principles of Psychology_, ii, p.
513.

Used now in this way as a general sign of certain definitely apprehended points of likeness or common qualities, the name acquires the double function attributed to it by logicians. That is to say, it _denotes_ any one of a certain order or class of things: the class or group being determined in respect not of the number of things included, but only of the common qualification or description of its number, that is to say of the qualities which the name is said to _connote_.[118]

[118] According to logicians a general name denotes certain
things (members of a class) and connotes certain qualities in
these things. For the terms denotation and connotation those
of extension and intension are often substituted. See Jevons,
_Elementary Lessons on Logic_, Lesson v.

_Formation of more Abstract Notions._—A similar process of comparison and abstraction clinched by a linguistic sign takes place in the formation of those general ideas which answer to few common qualities, and are altogether removed from the plane of the generic image, as for example 'animal.' It is obvious that we cannot compound a quasi-concrete image of animal as we can, roughly at least, compound an image of dog. There is no common form running through the vast variety of animals that renders this possible.[119] There is indeed an image-element here, for in thinking of animals most people probably image imperfectly one of the more familiar quadrupeds. Here the _general_ representative function of the image is still more evident. A child cannot form the idea animal till he has attained a considerable skill in the use of verbal signs as general. For to represent animal (in general) is to repress the tendency to image particular concrete examples, and to give peculiar and exclusive prominence to a few properties, such as spontaneous movement, sensation, which can only be grasped by a special effort of abstraction; and can only be brought before the mind by the medium of a verbal sign.

[119] Cf. Lotze, _Logic_, p. 38.

These higher steps in the thought-process become possible by means of the verbally embodied results of the lower steps. It is after the child has formed the general ideas, dog, horse, and so forth, that he climbs to the more difficult, more comprehensive, and more abstract idea, animal. In this way, we may say with Hamilton, that language is to the mind what the arch is to the tunnel, the necessary precondition of all advanced thought-work.

It is not meant by this that the child progresses regularly from notions of a comparatively small range to more comprehensive ones. It must be remembered that it is often easier for a child to form an idea of a larger class or genus than of one of its constituent sub-classes or species, viz. when the form presents prominent easily discernible points of likeness, and when the distinctive features of the latter are obscure. Thus the child uses the name tree before he uses the name oak-tree, and so forth. This is what is meant by saying that the child sees likenesses before he sees differences.

In this brief account of the name-embodied concept reference has been made only to those names which grammarians call nouns, and of these only to such as are names of things. By the same mental process by which the child reaches the idea orange, it reaches the idea yellow, round, and so forth. The clear use of adjectives as qualifying epithets marks a higher stage of analysis than the first use of names, viz. the separating out for special consideration of _single_ qualities in things. Hence in the imitative speech of the child, the first use of adjectives follows by an appreciable interval that of names.[120] This separate apprehension of single qualities becomes still more distinct when abstract nouns such as whiteness, height, come to be used. As the etymology of such names shows they come after concrete names in the development of the thought of the race and community, and are invented by help of such concrete names. The individual only acquires the use of these abstract names when intelligence has developed under the stimulating and controlling influence of education.

[120] One or two adjectives as ni-ni (nice) are used along
with nouns from the first, but these probably so far as names
are on the level of nouns, i. e. names of things as concrete
wholes. It must not be supposed however, that the child or
the race begins with a clear apprehension of any one class
of words. The several classes of words distinguished by the
grammarian are confused at first and are only differentiated
as intelligence advances. All that is meant here is, that the
child knows and names things as concrete wholes before it
begins to qualify them, or discern particular qualities in
them. On the differentiation of nouns etc., in the early use
of language, see Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 219 et
seqq. and p. 295 et seqq.

It is only when analysis is thus carried up to the point of a separate consideration of single qualities that the class-notion, the representative of a _group_ of qualities, becomes definite and concise. A perfectly clear general idea of a class means one of the constituent elements of which we can separately attend to and name.

_Conception as Dependent on Social Environment._—It is evident from this brief sketch of the development of the general idea that it is a process that is largely dependent on the action of the social environment. Language is pre-eminently the invention and instrument of social life. It is the medium by which we communicate one to another our ideas, wishes, and so forth. In the early years of life the undeveloped intelligence of the child is continually roused to activity through his desire to enter into the system of language which he finds others using. In this way the results of ages of thought-processes embodied in the language of educated men and women are brought to bear on the growing mind, and these constitute a main ingredient in the educational influence of the community upon the individual. The profound and far reaching influence of this medium of common word-embodied ideas is clearly seen in the arrest of intellectual development when contact with the general mind through language is excluded, as in the case of neglected deaf-mutes. As Professor Huxley says, "A race of dumb men deprived of all communication with those who could speak would be little indeed removed from the brutes."[121]

[121] Quoted by Professor Horatio Hale, in _The Origin of
Language_, p. 42.

J. SULLY.

THE RIGHT OF EVOLUTION.

In the Royal Academy's Exhibition which opened May 2, 1890, I remarked a fine picture of the Lord Mayor's Show. That Show is the monument of a mercantile evolution by which poor men,—one, 'tis said, with only a cat for capital,—clubbed together in guilds, largely socialistic, and, so increasing means, accumulated the wealth which controlled kings, and inaugurated the epoch of peace, so necessary for commerce.

But the Academy picture was not so striking as one I had seen the day before (May-day) in Hyde Park. There, amid a motley crowd with red and black flags inscribed 'Anarchy,' stood William Morris,—artist, scholar, and poet,—announcing to the workmen that they are slaves, rich men their owners, their natural enemies, and existing society a war.

The Guild-Socialism of London is past. Its gorgeous ghost may presently masquerade for the last time through November fog and London squalor. But the Hyde Park scene has its career yet to run. What its orators demanded was a new privilege. It was not the equal rights of labor, but privilege. This new lordship is to dictate my limits of education, my mode of production, my hours of work, my wages. The poet leader told the toilers that they alone did what was useful, all others were doing what was useless; the man who wrote "The Earthly Paradise" declared himself one of the mere "parasitic class," climbing and flourishing on the manual laborers. I did not see how his remorseless logic could have spared Shakespeare himself, and it appears certain that under this levelling scheme no dreamer, no poet, could ever have the culture, or the leisure, necessary to bear his literary fruit. When the distribution of work and wages is left to a majority of the millions, will they agree that writing "The Earthly Paradise" is as productive as the mining of coal? Among these millions, how many fools, how many sots! Shakespeare drew, in Christopher Sly, a character familiar to us as to him. Christopher is taken, while in a drunken sleep, into a nobleman's mansion, and, on waking, is treated as a lord who has been wandering in his mind, fancying himself a boor. He is surrounded by liveried servants; his lady comes to welcome his recovery; he is feasted; a beautiful drama is performed before him. In the height of his glory Christopher calls for a tankard of beer; he drinks deep; and just as his players are entering on the poetic drama, Christopher rolls from his cushioned throne and lies snoring on the floor. Had it been left to Christopher Sly's vote to determine whether higher wages should be paid Shakespeare or the brewer, the bard might have come off badly. And were the wages of actors and actresses dependent on a government chosen by the masses, not only the Slys throughout England, but the millions remote from theatres, and the Methodists, Salvationists, Presbyterians, would certainly unite to close all theatres. Even Edward Bellamy "looking backward" finds no provision for a theatre. Little by little we should find ourselves in a prosaic world. Men and women would be born; they might eat, and sleep; they would die. But our little life might bid farewell to the beautiful dreams that clothe its dry bones with beauty.

Such is my impression of every constructive scheme of Socialism. I recognise the evils that give rise to such schemes; I feel their urgency. Their strong appeal to our humanity might silence criticism of their crudity, were their method evolutionary. We could then feel certain that every practical step would be traceable if not confirmed by experience. But when a theory adopts the revolutionary method, when it proposes a complete, irreversible overthrow of existing institutions; it is necessary to ask whether its own system would be any improvement on the old.

It may be said that English Socialism does not advocate violence. But violence is only an incident of revolution. There never was a revolution in which the fighting did not come as a surprise. Those who inflame the masses with aims that cannot be gained but by bloodshed, are really advocating violence. Reforms of a political or a social system are secured peacefully, but a revolutionary subversion of the foundations in a whole nation can only come by war. It is a declaration of war to deal with the whole existing order with hostility, with acrimony and hatred, as wholly bad. Such order is thereby sentenced to death; its execution is merely a question of power.

Even supposing a revolution not attended by bloodshed, assuming it extorted from authority by fear of violence, what can be gained? What new materials, with which to make the earthly paradise? None. We see what men are, what motives now rule; such and such parties, politicians, official people, "400" people; a vast population of working people who have no definite principle of social equality, much less of fraternity. The mass, in the distance, may appear in solidarity, like the distant ocean; but, seen closely, it is made up of distinct waves. The bootblack looks down on the sweep, as the millionaire looks down on the tradesman. There is as much social inequality in Washington as in London. Revolutions pass and leave you the same old human nature. Whence is socialism to get a cabinet of angels who will administer the new order,—run the farms, public works, railways, and so on,—without selfishness, jobbery, personal ends, or corruption? And shall our schools train intelligence downward, so that it shall not rise above mediocrity? "The snow may fall level one day, the next it is piled into drifts." Property might be equally distributed this year; the next it would be in the hands of the cleverest. You seize a man by the throat and say "You've got to be fraternal." He may gasp out "I will"; but when his throat is free he will love you no better.

But we are told that the selfish forces of human nature, its tendency to social inequality, can themselves be revolutionised. It was so with the early Christians. Jesus was not a socialist, he advised tribute to Cæsar, and respect for those who sat in Moses's seat; but, some two centuries after his death, the Christians did give up their private possessions, and had all things in common. The avowed cause of this, however, was that the world was just coming to an end. Why labor and accumulate in a world about to be consumed? No sooner did that superstitious expectation fade away than socialism ceased. The forces of human nature resumed their sway. Those forces,—the love of property, of luxury, competition, enterprise,—have since been dissolved, here and there, but only by similar superstitions. A hundred communities were formed for secular interests, about Robert Owen's time. They all failed. The only ones existing are those founded in the belief that this world is a wilderness of woe, destined to destruction, and heaven the only true investment. Such are the Oneida, Shaker, and Mormon communities. The modern socialists can appeal to no such superstition. And yet, though many of them believe themselves "infidels," their movement is the afterglow of Christianity. Their method is millennial. They look for the destruction of the old political world in much the same way as the early Christians looked for the destruction of the physical world. There is to be a grand transformation scene. Some Bellamy is to sound a trumpet, a lucifer match is to be scratched, and, puff! away go the pomp and glories of this world. The high are to be laid low, the low raised high, and a new social kingdom to be established.

All this, though uttered by some atheists, is supernaturalism. It is a survival from the millennial superstition. It is secular second-adventism. It will pass away like its forerunners, though it may like them cause revolutions. The socialistic fathers and their children will fall asleep, and the old world roll on much the same as before, diurnally, but on its moral orbit somewhat slower. For revolutionary changes invariably retard human progress. Because, while they cannot alter the inherited habitudes of a people,—their motives, prejudices, superstitions,—they give these unreformed feelings a new habitation, swept and garnished, so that the last state of that nation is worse than the first. So long as outgrown notions remain only in antiquated institutions, their error is demonstrated by their folly; their tumbling walls instruct them in new needs; and when at last the old institution falls, as it must, the experience induces adaptation of the new one to the forces that laid low the old. When the outer embodies an inner reform, there is no reaction. The progress is permanent. Such is not the case when decrepit sentiments are suddenly given the sinews of youth.

This view is not speculative. It is derived from the study of revolutions. Near 250 years ago the English people began a revolution which presently beheaded the king, and disestablished the church. But monarchal superstition was not beheaded; religious superstition was not disestablished. In place of Charles I. was set up a monarch of unlimited power, whose little finger was heavier than Charles's whole body,—that same Cromwell whose massacres of people in Ireland is represented to-day in the one-sided feud that makes the curse of England. The disestablishment of a church, at least scholarly and picturesque, was followed by the inauguration of a primitive God of wrath, whose prophet was Calvin, and Cromwell his destroying angel. Bonfires were made of the most beautiful works of art in England. The finest statues and monuments were destroyed because a barbarian said, "Thou shalt not make a graven image." The revolution provided a fresh stronghold for the grossest prejudices and superstitions; and, despite the weakness of Charles I. and the faults of the clergy, the last state of England was so much worse than the first, that the revolution was reversed, the old monarchy restored, the church re-established, and the future of that country given to the forces of evolution.

The French revolution beheaded a weak king, and raised a monster in his place. Robespierre concentrated in his year or two all crimes spread through the history of tyranny. The masses threw down the Virgin Mary, and raised on her chief altar a goddess of Reason. Much pious horror has been expressed about that worship of a beautiful Woman instead of an image; but the real evil was the superstition, which, as it had beheaded a helpless king now shattered a helpless image, but without beheading itself—that is, superstition itself. The worship of the goddess Reason was entirely too reasonable; so she was set aside, and the revolution established a ceremonial worship of Nature, which consecrated all that was natural,—the passions, the revolutionary wrath, the natural desire to guillotine a Count, take possession of his house, drink his wine, and imitate his revelries. Robespierre presently turned to butchering revolutionists too, if not submissive to him, so he was put out of the way. But the whole revolution naturally led to the destructive imperialism of the first Napoleon,—the enemy of mankind. He so paralysed the forces of progress that, even in 1848, the French had not learned the lesson of their first revolution. They tried another, and history repeated itself. They formed a revolutionary democracy,—that is, a disguised imperialism,—as they were soon shown. Their president proved to be an emperor, who destroyed liberty in France and Italy for twenty years, and nearly destroyed his country.

But what of America? It was from the romantic success of the American revolution,—a handful of colonists throwing off the yoke of England,—that France caught fire; and the revolutionary spirit in Europe has been kept alive by the magnificent material development of America. All these fruits of the century of independence are ascribed to our revolution; although the more astonishing growth of Australia, which had no white settler fifty years ago, might as justly be ascribed to the English throne. It is due to a false patriotism that Americans competent to do so have not exposed the superstitions about their country. To love one's native land more than humanity, is no better than to love a king more than our country. There appears to me nothing more important than that the world should be undeceived about America, whose political history is, really, the great warning against revolution,—a handwriting on the walls of the world, the misunderstanding of which is a peril to mankind.