GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS.

In the present treatise I take as granted the general theory of evolution, so far as it is now accepted by the vast majority of naturalists. That is to say, I assume the doctrine of descent as regards the whole of organic nature, morphological and psychological, with the one exception of man. Moreover, I assume this doctrine even in the case of man, so far as his bodily organization is concerned; it being thus only with reference to the human mind that the exception to which I have alluded is made. And I make this exception in deference to the opinion of that small minority of evolutionists who still maintain that, notwithstanding their acceptance of the theory of descent as regards the corporeal constitution of man, they are able to adduce cogent evidence to prove that the theory fails to account for his mental constitution.

Such being my basis of assumption, we began by considering the state of the question a priori. If, in accordance with our assumption, the process of organic and of mental evolution has been continuous throughout the whole region of life and of mind, with the one exception of the mind of man, on grounds of an immensely large analogy we must deem it antecedently improbable that the process of evolution, elsewhere so uniform and ubiquitous, should have been interrupted at its terminal phase. And this antecedent presumption is still further strengthened by the undeniable fact that, in the case of every individual human being, the human mind presents to actual observation a process of gradual development, extending from infancy to manhood. For it is thus shown to be a matter of observable fact that, whatever may have been the origin or the history of human intelligence in the past, as it now exists—or, rather, as in every individual case it now comes into existence—it proves itself to be no exception to the general law of evolution: it unquestionably does admit of gradual growth from a zero level, and without such a gradual growth we have no evidence of its becoming. Furthermore, so long as it is passing through the lower stages of this growth, the human mind ascends through a scale of faculties which are parallel with those that are permanently presented by what I have termed the psychological species of the animal kingdom—a general fact which tends most strongly to prove that, at all events up to the time when the distinctively human qualities of ideation are attained, no difference of kind is apparent between human and brute psychology. Lastly, not only in the individual, but also in the race, the phenomena of mental evolution are conspicuous—so far, at least, as the records of the human race extend. Whether we have regard to actual history, to tradition, to antiquarian remains, or flint implements, we obtain uniform evidence of a continuous process of upward development, which is thus seen to be as characteristic of those additional attributes wherein the human mind now surpasses that of any other species as it is of those attributes which it shares with other species. Therefore, if the process of mental evolution was interrupted between the anthropoid apes and primitive man during the pre-historic period of which we have no record, it must again have been resumed with primitive man, after which it must have continued as uninterruptedly in the human species as it previously did in the animal species. This, to say the least, is a most improbable supposition. The law of continuity is proved to apply on both sides of a psychological interval, where there happens to be a necessary absence of historical information. Yet we are asked to believe that, in curious coincidence with this interval, the law of continuity was violated—notwithstanding that in the case of every individual human mind such is known never to be the case.

In order to overturn so immense a presumption as is thus raised against the contention of my opponents on merely a priori grounds, it appears to me that they must be fairly called upon to supply some very powerful considerations of an a posteriori kind, tending to show that there is something in the constitution of the human mind which renders it virtually impossible to suppose that such an order of mental existence can have proceeded by way of genetic descent from mind of lower orders. I therefore next proceeded to consider the arguments which have been adduced in support of this thesis.

In order that the points of difference on which these arguments are founded might be brought out into clear relief, I began by briefly considering the points of resemblance between the human mind and mind of lower orders. Here we saw that so far as the Emotions are concerned no difference of kind has been, or can be, alleged. The whole series of human emotions have been proved to obtain among the lower animals, except those which depend on the higher intellectual powers of man—i.e. those appertaining to religion and perception of the sublime. But all the others—which in my list amount to over twenty—occur in the brute creation; and although many of them do not occur in so highly developed a degree, this is immaterial where the question is one of kind. Indeed, so remarkable is the general similarity of emotional life in both cases—especially when we have regard to the young child and savage man—that it ought fairly to be taken as direct evidence of a genetic continuity between them.

And so, likewise, it is with Instinct. For although this occurs in a greater proportion among the lower animals than it does in ourselves, no one can venture to question the identity of all the instincts which are common to both. And this is the only point that here requires to be established.

Again, with respect to the Will, no argument can arise touching the identity of animal and human volition up to the point where the latter is alleged to take on the attribute of freedom—which, as we saw, under any view depends on the intellectual powers of introspective thought.

There remain, then, only these intellectual powers of introspective Thought, plus the faculties of Morality and Religion. Now, it is evident that, whatever we may severally conclude as touching the distinctive value of the two latter, we must all agree that a prime condition to the possibility of either resides in the former: without the powers of intellect which are competent to frame the abstract ideation that is concerned both in morals and religion, it is manifest that neither could exist. Therefore, in logical order, it is these powers of intellect that first fall to be considered. In subsequent parts of this work I shall fully deal both with morals and religion: in the present part I am concerned only with the intellect.

And here it is, as I have acknowledged, that the great psychological distinction is to be found. Nevertheless, even here it must be conceded that up to a certain point, as between the brute and the man, there is not merely a similarity of kind, but an identity of correspondence. The distinction only arises with reference to those superadded faculties of ideation which occur above the level marked 28 in my diagram—i.e. where the upward growth of animal intelligence ends, and the development of distinctively human faculty begins. So that in the case of intellect, no less than in that of emotion, instinct, and volition, there can be no doubt that the human mind runs exactly parallel with the animal, up to the place where these superadded powers of intellect begin to supervene. Therefore, upon the face of them, the facts of comparative psychology thus far, to say the least, are strongly suggestive of these superadded powers having been due to a process of continued evolution.

So much, then, for the points of agreement between animal and human psychology. Turning next to the points of difference, we had first to dispose of certain allegations which were either erroneous in fact or plainly unsound in theory. This involved a rejection in toto of the following distinctions—namely, that brutes are non-sentient machines; that they present no rudiments of reason in the sense of perceiving analogies and drawing inferences therefrom; that they are destitute of any immortal principle; that they show no signs of progress from generation to generation; that they never employ barter, make fire, wear clothes, use tools, and so forth. Among these sundry alleged distinctions, those which are not demonstrably false in fact are demonstrably false in logic. Whether or not brutes are destitute of any immortal principle, and whether or not human beings present such a principle, the science of comparative psychology has no means of ascertaining; and, therefore, any arguments touching these questions are irrelevant to the subject-matter on which we are engaged. Again, the fact that brutes do not resemble ourselves in wearing clothes, making fire, &c., clearly depends on an absence in them of those powers of higher ideation which alone are adequate to yield such products in the way of intelligent action. All such differences in matters of detail, therefore, really belong to, or are absorbed by, the more general question as to the nature of the distinction between the two orders of ideation. To this, therefore, as to the real question before us, we next addressed ourselves. And here it was pointed out, in limine, that the three living naturalists of highest authority who still argue for a difference of kind between the brute and the man, although they agree in holding that only on grounds of psychology can any such difference be maintained, nevertheless upon these grounds all mutually contradict one another. For while Mr. Mivart argues that there must be a distinction of kind, because the psychological interval between the highest ape and the lowest man is so great; Mr. Wallace argues for the same conclusion on the ground that this interval is not so great as the theory of a natural evolution would lead us to expect: the brain of a savage, he says, is so much more efficient an instrument than the mind to which it ministers, that its presence can only be explained as a preparation for the higher efficiency of mental life as afterwards exhibited by civilized man. Lastly, Professor De Quatrefages contradicts both the English naturalists by vehemently insisting that, so far as the powers of intellect are concerned, there is a demonstrable identity of kind between animal intelligence and human, whether in the savage or civilized condition: he argues that the distinction only arises in the domain of morals and religion. So that, if our opinion on the issue before us were to be in any way influenced by the voice of authority, I might represent the judgments of these my most representative opponents as mutually cancelling one another—thus yielding a zero quantity as against the enormous and self-consistent weight of authority on the other side.

But, quitting all considerations of authority, I proceeded to investigate the question de novo, or exclusively on its own merits. To do this it was necessary to begin with a somewhat tedious analysis of ideation. The general result was to yield the following as my classification of ideas.

1. Mere memories of perceptions, or the abiding mental images of past sensuous impressions. These are the ideas which, in the terminology of Locke, we may designate Simple, Particular, or Concrete. Nowadays no one questions that such ideas are common to animals and men.

2. A higher class of ideas, which by universal consent are also common to animals and men; namely, those which Locke called Complex, Compound, or Mixed. These are something more than the simple memories of particular perceptions; they are generated by the mixture of such memories, and therefore represent a compound, of which “particular ideas” are the elements or ingredients. By the laws of association, particular ideas which either resemble one another in themselves, or frequently occur together in experience, tend to coalesce and blend into one: as in a “composite photograph” the sensitive plate is able to unite many more or less similar images into a single picture, so the sensitive tablet of the mind is able to make of many simple or particular ideas, a complex, a compound, or, as I have called it, a generic idea. Now, a generic idea of this kind differs from what is ordinarily called a general idea (which we will consider in the next paragraph), in that, although both are generated out of simpler elementary constituents, the former are thus generated as it were spontaneously or anatomically by the principles of merely perceptual association, while the latter can only be produced by a consciously intentional operation of the mind upon the materials of its own ideation, known as such. This operation is what psychologists term conception, and the product of it they term a concept. Hence we see that between the region of percepts and those of concepts there lies a large intermediate territory, which is occupied by what I have called generic ideas, or recepts. A recept, then, differs from a percept in that it is a compound of mental representations, involving an orderly grouping of simpler images in accordance with past experience; while it differs from a concept in that this orderly grouping is due to an unintentional or automatic activity on the part of the percipient mind. A recept, or generic idea, is imparted to the mind by the external “logic of events;” while a general idea, or concept, is framed by the mind consciously working to a higher elaboration of its own ideas. In short, a recept is received, while a concept is conceived.

3. The highest class of ideas, which psychologists are unanimous in denying to brutes, and which, therefore, we are justified in regarding as the unique prerogative of man. These are the General, Abstract, and Notional ideas of Locke, or the Concepts just mentioned in the last paragraph. As we have there seen, they differ from recepts—and, a fortiori, from percepts, in that they are themselves the objects of thought. In other words, it is a peculiarity of the human mind that it is able to think about its own ideas as such, consciously to combine and elaborate them, intentionally to develop higher products out of less highly developed constituents. This remarkable power we found—also by common consent—to depend on the faculty of self-consciousness, whereby the mind is able, as it were, to stand apart from itself, to render one of its states objective to others, and thus to contemplate its own ideas as such. Now, we are not concerned with the philosophy of this fact, but only with its history. How it is that such a faculty as self-consciousness is possible; what it is that can thus be simultaneously the subject and the object of thought; whether or not it is conceivable that the great abyss of personality can ever be fathomed; these and all such questions are quite alien to the scope of the present work. All that we have here to do is to analyze the psychological conditions out of which, as a matter of observable fact, this unique peculiarity emerges—to trace the history of the process, and tabulate the results. Well, we have seen that here, again, every one agrees in regarding the possibility of self-consciousness to be given in the faculty of language. Whether or not we suppose that these two faculties are one—that neither could exist without the other, and, therefore, that we may follow the Greeks in assigning to them the single name of Logos,—at least it is as certain as the science of psychology can make it, that within the four corners of human experience a self-conscious personality cannot be led up to in any other way than through the medium of language. For it is by language alone that, so far as we have any means of knowing, a mind is rendered capable of so far fixing—or rendering definite to itself—its own ideas, as to admit of any subsequent contemplation of them as ideas. It is only by means of marking ideas by names that the faculty of conceptual thought is rendered possible, as we saw at considerable length in Chapter IV.

Such, then, was my classification of ideas. And it is a classification over which no dispute is likely to arise, seeing that it merely sets in some kind of systematic order a body of observable facts with regard to which writers of every school are nowadays in substantial agreement. Now, if this classification be accepted, it follows that the question before us is thrown back upon the faculty of language. This faculty, therefore, I considered in a series of chapters. First it was pointed out that, in its widest signification, “language” means the faculty of making signs. Next, I adopted Mr. Mivart’s “Categories of Language,” which, when slightly added to, serve to give at once an accurate and exhaustive classification of every bodily or mental act with reference to which the term can possibly be applied. In all there were found to be seven of these categories, of which the first six are admittedly common to animals and mankind. The seventh, however, is alleged by my opponents to be wholly peculiar to the human species. In other words, it is conceded that animals do present what may be termed the germ of the sign-making faculty; but it is denied that they be able, even in the lowest degree, to make signs of an intellectual kind—i.e. of a kind which consists in the bestowing of names as marks of ideas. Brutes are admittedly able to make signs to one another—and also to man—with the intentional purpose of conveying such ideas as they possess; but, it is alleged, no brute is able to name these ideas, either by gestures, tones, or words. Now, in order to test this allegation, I began by giving a number of illustrations which were intended to show the level that is reached by the sign-making faculty in brutes; next I considered the language of tone and gesture as this is exhibited by man; then I proceeded to investigate the phenomena of articulation, the relation of tone and gesture to words; and, lastly, the psychology of speech. Not to overburden the present summary, I will neglect all the subordinate results of this analysis. The main results, however, were that the natural language of tone and gesture is identical wherever it occurs; but that even when it becomes conventional (as it may up to a certain point in brutes), it is much less efficient than articulate language as an agency in the construction of ideas; and, therefore, that the psychological line between brute and man must be drawn, not at language, or sign-making in general, but at that particular kind of sign-making which we understand by “speech.” Nevertheless, the real distinction resides in the intellectual powers; not in the symbols thereof. So that a man means, it matters not by what system of signs he expresses his meaning. In other words, although I endeavoured to prove that articulation must have been of unique service in developing these intellectual powers, I was emphatic in representing that, when once these powers are present, it is psychologically immaterial whether they find expression in gesture or in speech. In any case the psychological distinction between a brute and a man consists in the latter being able to mean a proposition; and the kind of mental act which this involves is technically termed a “judgment.” Predication, or the making of a proposition—whether by gesture, tone, speech, or writing,—is nothing more nor less than the expression of a judgment; and a judgment is nothing more nor less than the apprehension of whatever meaning it may be that a proposition serves to set forth.

Now, this is admitted by all my opponents who understand the psychology of the subject. Moreover, they allow that if once this chasm of predication were bridged, there would be no further chasm to cross. For it is universally acknowledged that, from the simplest judgment which it is possible to make—and, therefore, from the simplest proposition which it is possible to construct—human intelligence displays an otherwise uninterrupted ascent through all the grades of excellence which it afterwards presents. Here, therefore, we had carefully to consider the psychology of predication. And the result of our analysis was to show that the distinctively human faculty in question really occurs further back than at the place where a mind is first able to construct the formal proposition “A is B.” It occurs at the place where a mind is first able to bestow a name, known as such,—to call A A, and B B, with a cognizance that in so doing it is performing an act of conceptual classification. Therefore, unless we extend the term “judgment” so as to embrace such an act of conceptual naming (as well as the act of expressing a relation between things conceptually named), we must conclude that “the simplest element of thought” is not a judgment, but a concept. It is needless again to go over the ground of this proof; for, although in the course of it I had to point out certain inexcusable errors in psychological analysis on the part of some of my opponents, the proof itself is too complete to admit of any question.

Thus, then, we were brought back to our original distinction between a concept and a recept. But now we were in a position to show that, just as in the matter of conducting “inferences,” so in the matter of making signs, there is an order of ideation that is receptual as well as one that is conceptual. And, more particularly, even in that kind of sign-making which consists in the bestowing of names, ideation of the receptual order may be concerned without any assistance at all from ideation of the conceptual order. In other words, there are names and names. Not every name that is bestowed need necessarily be expressive of a concept, any more than every “inference” that is conducted need necessarily be the result of self-conscious thought. Not only young children before they attain to self-conscious thought, but even talking birds habitually name objects, qualities, actions, and states. Nevertheless, while giving abundant evidence of this fact, I was careful to point out that thus far no argumentative implications of any importance were involved. That a young child and a talking bird should be able thus to learn the names of objects, qualities, &c., by imitation—or even to invent arbitrary names of their own—is psychologically of no more significance than the fact that both the child and the bird will similarly employ gesture-signs or vocal tones whereby to express the simple logic of their recepts. Nevertheless, it is needful in some way to distinguish this non-conceptual kind of naming from that kind which is peculiar to man after he has attained self-consciousness, and thus is able, not only to name, but to know that he names—not only to call A A, but to think A as his symbol of A. Now, in order to mark this distinction, I have assigned the term denotation to naming of the receptual kind, and applied the term denomination to naming of the conceptual kind. When a parrot calls a dog “Bow-wow” (as a parrot, like a child, can easily be taught to do), it may be said in a sense to be naming the dog; but obviously it is not predicating any characters as belonging to a dog, or performing any act of judgment with regard to a dog—as is the case, for example, with a naturalist who, by means of his name Canis, conceptually assigns that animal to a particular zoological genus. Although the parrot may never utter the name “Bow-wow” save when it sees a dog, this fact is attributable to the laws of association acting only in the receptual sphere: it furnishes no shadow of a reason for supposing that the bird ever thinks about the dog as a dog, or sets the concept Dog before its mind as a separate object of thought. Therefore, none of my opponents can afford to deny that in one sense of the word there may be names without concepts: whether as gestures or as words (“vocal gestures”), there may be signs of things without these signs presenting any vestige of predicative value. Now, it is in order not to prejudice the case of my opponents, and thus clearly to mark out the field of discussion, that I have instituted the distinction between names as receptual and conceptual, or denotative and denominative.

This distinction having been clearly understood, the next point was that both kinds of names admit of connotative extension—denotative names within the receptual sphere, and denominative within the conceptual. That is to say, when a name has been applied to one thing, its use may be extended to another thing, which is seen to belong to the same class or kind. The degree to which such connotative extension of a name may take place depends, of course, on the degree in which the mind is able to take cognizance of resemblances or analogies. Hence the process can go much further in the conceptual sphere than it does in the receptual. But the important point is that it unquestionably takes place in the latter within certain limits. Nor is this anything more than we should antecedently expect. For in the lengthy account and from the numerous facts which I gave of the receptual intelligence of brutes, it was abundantly proved that long before the differential engine of conception has come to the assistance of mind, mind is able to reach a high level in the distinguishing of resemblances or analogies by means of receptual discrimination alone. Consequently, it is inevitable that non-conceptual or denotative names should undergo a connotative extension, within whatever limits these powers of merely receptual discrimination impose. And, as a matter of fact, we found that such is the case. A talking bird will extend its denotative name from one dog in particular to any other dog which it may happen to see; and a young child, after having done this, will extend the denotative name still further, so as to include images, and eventually pictures, of dogs. Hence, if the receptual intelligence of a parrot were somewhat more advanced than it happens to be, we can have no doubt that it would do the same: the only reason why in this matter it parts company with a child so soon as it does, is because its receptual intelligence is not sufficiently developed to perceive the resemblance of images and pictures to the objects which they are intended to represent. But the receptual intelligence of a dog is higher than that of a parrot, and some dogs are able to perceive resemblances of this kind. Therefore if dogs, like parrots, had happened to be able to articulate, and so to learn the use of denotative names, there can be no doubt that they would have accompanied the growing child through a somewhat further reach of connotative utterance than is the case with the only animals which present the anatomical conditions required for the imitation of articulate sounds. Both dogs and monkeys are able, in an extraordinary degree, to understand these sounds: that is to say, they can learn the meanings of an astonishing number of denotative names, and also be taught to apprehend a surprisingly large extension of connotative significance. Consequently, if they could but imitate these sounds, after the manner of a parrot, it is certain that they would greatly distance the parrot in this matter of receptual connotation.

But, lastly, we are not shut up to any such hypothetical case. For the growing child itself furnishes us with evidence upon the point, which is no less cogent than would be the case if dogs and monkeys were able to talk. For, without argumentative suicide, none of my opponents can afford to suggest that, up to the age when self-consciousness dawns, the young child is capable of conceptual connotation; yet it is unquestionable that up to that age a continuous growth of connotation has been taking place, which, beginning with the level that it shares with a parrot, is eventually able to construct what I have called “receptual propositions,” the precise nature of which I will summarise in a subsequent paragraph. The evidence which I have given of this connotative extension of denotative names by children before the age at which self-consciousness supervenes—and, therefore, prior to the very condition which is required for conceptual ideation—is, I think, overwhelming. And I do not see how its place in my argument can be gainsaid by any opponent, except at the cost of ignoring my distinction between connotation as receptual and conceptual. Yet to do this would be to surrender his whole case. Either there is a distinction, or else there is not a distinction, between connotation that is receptual, and connotation that is conceptual. If there is no distinction, all argument is at an end: the brute and the man are one in kind. But I allow that there is a distinction, and I acknowledge that the distinction resides where it is alleged to reside by my opponents—namely, in the presence or absence of self-consciousness on the part of a mind which bestows a name. Or, to revert to my own terminology, it is the distinction between denotation and denomination.

Now, in order to analyze this distinction, it became needful further to distinguish between the highest level of receptual ideation that is attained by any existing brute, and those further developments of receptual ideation which are presented by the growing child, after it parts company with all existing brutes, but before it assumes even the lowest stage of conceptual ideation—i.e. prior to the dawn of self-consciousness. This subordinate distinction I characterized by the terms “lower recepts” and “higher recepts.” Already I had instituted a distinction between “lower concepts” and “higher concepts,” meaning by the former the conceptual naming of recepts, and by the latter a similar naming of other concepts. So that altogether four large and consecutive territories were thus marked out: (1) Lower Recepts, which are co-extensive with the psychology of existing animals, including a very young child; (2) Higher Recepts, which occupy a psychological area between the recepts of animals and the first appearance of self-consciousness in man; (3) Lower Concepts, which are concerned only with the self-conscious naming of recepts; (4) Higher Concepts, which have to do with the self-conscious classification of other concepts known as such, and the self-conscious naming of such ideal integrations as may result therefrom.

Now, if all this is true of naming, clearly it must also be true of judging. If there is a stage of pre-conceptual naming (denotation), there must also be a stage of pre-conceptual judgment, of which such naming is the expression. No doubt, in strictness, the term judgment should be reserved for conceptual thought (denomination); but, in order to avoid an undue multiplication of terms, I prefer thus to qualify the existing word “judgment.” Such, indeed, has already been the practice among psychologists, who speak of “intuitive judgments” as occurring even in acts of perception. All, therefore, that I propose to do is to institute two additional classes of non-conceptual judgment—namely, lower receptual and higher receptual, or, more briefly, receptual and pre-conceptual. If one may speak of an “intuitive,” “unconscious,” or “perceptual” judgment (as when we mistake a hollow bowl for a sphere), much more may we speak of a receptual judgment (as when a sea-bird dives from a height into water, but will not do so upon land), or a pre-conceptual judgment (as when a young child will extend the use of a denotative name without any denominative conception). In all, then, we have four phases of ideation to which the term judgment may be thus either literally or metaphorically applied—namely, the perceptual, receptual, pre-conceptual, and conceptual. Of these the last only is judgment, properly so called. Therefore I do not say that a brute really judges when, without any self-conscious thought, it brings together certain reminiscences of its past experience in the form of recepts, and translates for us the result of its ideation by the performance of what Mr. Mivart calls “practical inferences.” Neither do I say that a brute really judges when, still without self-conscious thought, it learns correctly to employ denotative names. Nay, I should deny that a brute really judges even if, after it is able to denotate separately two different recepts (as is done by a talking bird), it were to name these two recepts simultaneously when thus combined in an act of “practical inference.” Although there would then be the outward semblance of a proposition, we should not be strictly right in calling it a proposition. It would, indeed, be the statement of a truth perceived; but not the statement of a truth perceived as true.

Now, if all this be admitted in the case of a brute—as it must be by any one who takes his stand on the faculty of true or conceptual judgment,—obviously it must also be admitted in the case of the growing child. In other words, if it can be proved that a child is able to state a truth before it is able to state a truth as true, it is thereby proved that in the psychological history of every human being there is first the kind of predication which is required for dealing with receptual knowledge, or for the stating of truths perceived; and next the completed judgment which is required for dealing with conceptual knowledge, or of stating truths perceived as true. Of course the condition required for the raising of this lower kind of judgment and this lower kind of predication (if, for the sake of convenience, we agree to use these terms) into the higher or only true kind of judgment and predication, is the advent of self-consciousness. Or, in other words, the place where a mere statement of truth first passes into a real predication of truth, is determined by the place at which there first supervenes the faculty of introspective reflection. The whole issue is thus reduced to an analysis of self-consciousness. To this analysis, therefore, we next addressed ourselves.

Seeing that the faculty in question only occurs in man, obviously it is only in the case of man that any material is supplied for the analysis of it. Moreover, as previously remarked, so far as this our analysis is concerned, we have only to deal with the psychology of self-consciousness: we are not concerned with its philosophy. Now, as a matter of psychology, no one can possibly dispute that the faculty in question is one of gradual development; that during the first two or three years of the growing intelligence of man there is no vestige of any such faculty at all; that when it does begin to dawn, the human mind is already much in advance of the mind of any brute; but that, even so, it is much less highly developed than it is afterwards destined to become; and that the same remark applies to the faculty of self-consciousness itself. Furthermore, it will be granted that self-consciousness consists in paying the same kind of attention to internal, or psychical processes, as is habitually paid to external, or physical processes—although, of course, the degrees in which such attention may be yielded are as various in the one case as in the other. Lastly, it will be further granted that in the minds of brutes, as in the minds of men, there is a world of images, or recepts; and that the only reason why in the former case these images are not attended to unless called up by the sensuous association of their corresponding objects, is because the mind of a brute is not able to leave the ground of such merely sensuous association, so as to move through the higher and more tenuous region of introspective thought. Nevertheless, I have proved that this image-world, even in brutes, displays a certain amount of internal activity, which is not wholly dependent on sensuous associations supplied from without. For the phenomena of “home-sickness,” pining for absent friends, dreaming, hallucination, &c., amply demonstrate the fact that in our more intelligent domesticated animals there may be an internal (though unintentional) play of ideation, wherein one image suggests another, this another, and so on, without the need of any immediate associations supplied from present objects of sense. Furthermore, I have pointed out that receptual ideation of this kind is not restricted to the images of sense-perception; but is largely concerned with the mental states of other animals. That is to say, the logic of recepts, even in brutes, is sufficient to enable the mind to establish true analogies between subjective states and the corresponding states of other intelligences: animals habitually and accurately interpret the mental states of other animals, while also well knowing that other animals are able similarly to interpret theirs. Hence, it must be further conceded that intelligent animals recognize a world of ejects, as well as a world of objects: mental existence is known to them ejectively, though, as I allow, never thought upon subjectively. At this stage of mental evolution the individual—whether an animal or an infant—so far realizes its own individuality as to be informed by the logic of recepts that it is one of a kind, although of course it does not recognize either its own or any other individuality as such.

Nevertheless, there is thus given a rudimentary or nascent form of self-consciousness, which up to the stage of development that it attains in a brute or an infant may be termed receptual self-consciousness; while in the more advanced stages which it presents in young children it may be termed pre-conceptual self-consciousness. Pre-conceptual self-consciousness is exhibited by all children after they have begun to talk, but before they begin to speak of themselves in the first person, or otherwise to give any evidence of realizing their own existence as such. Later on, when true self-consciousness does arise, the child, of course, is able to do this; and then only is supplied the condition sine qu non to a reflection upon its own ideas—hence to a knowledge of names as names, and so to a statement of truths as true. But long before this stage of true or conceptual self-consciousness is reached—whereby alone is rendered possible true or conceptual predication—the child, in virtue of its pre-conceptual self-consciousness, is able to make known its wants, and otherwise to communicate its ideas, by way of pre-conceptual predication. I gave many instances of this pre-conceptual predication, which abundantly proved that the pre-conceptual self-consciousness of which it is the expression amounts to nothing more than a practical recognition of self as an active and feeling agent, without any introspective recognition of that self as an object of knowledge.

Given, then, this stage of mental evolution, and what follows? The child, like the animal, is supplied by its logic of recepts with a world of images, standing as signs of outward objects; with an ejective knowledge of other minds, and with that kind of recognition of self as an active, suffering, and accountable agent to which allusion has just been made. But, over and above the animal, the child has now at its command a much more improved machinery of sign-making, which, as we have before seen, is due to the higher evolution of its receptual ideation. Now among the contents of this ideation is a better apprehension of the mental states of other human beings, together with a greatly increased power of denotative utterance, whereby the child is able to name receptually such ejective states as it thus receptually apprehends. These, therefore, severally receive their appropriate denotations, and so gain clearness and precision as ejective images of the corresponding states experienced by the child itself. “Mamma pleased to Dodo” would have no meaning as spoken by a child, unless the child knew from his own feelings what is the state of mind which he thus ejectively attributes to his mother. Hence, we find that at the same age the child will also say “Dodo pleased to mamma.” Now it is evident that we are here approaching the very borders of true or conceptual self-consciousness. The child, no doubt, is still speaking of himself in objective phraseology; but he has advanced so far in the interpretation of his own states of mind as clearly to name them, in the same way as he would name any external objects of sense-perception. Thus is he enabled to fix these states before his mental vision as things which admit of being denoted by verbal signs, although as yet he has never thought about either the states of mind or his names for them as such, and, therefore, has not yet attained to the faculty of denomination. But the interval between denotation and denomination has now become so narrow that the step from recognizing “Dodo” as not only the object, but also the subject of mental changes, is rendered at once easy and inevitable. The mere fact of attaching verbal signs to mental states has the effect of focussing attention upon those states; and when attention is thus focussed habitually, there is supplied the only further condition which is required to enable a mind, through its memory of previous states, to compare its past with its present, and so to reach that apprehension of continuity among its own states wherein the full introspective, or conceptual consciousness of self consists.

Several subordinate features in the evolution of this conceptual from pre-conceptual self-consciousness were described; but it is needless again to mention them. Enough has been here said to show ample grounds for the conclusions which my chapter on “Self-consciousness” was mainly concerned in establishing—namely, that language is quite as much the antecedent as it is the consequent of self-consciousness; that pre-conceptual predication is indicative of a pre-conceptual self-consciousness; and that from these there naturally and inevitably arise those higher powers of conceptual predication and conceptual self-consciousness on which my opponents (disregarding the phases that lead up to them) have sought to rear their alleged distinction of kind between the brute and the man.

Thus, as a general result of the whole inquiry so far, we may say that throughout the entire range of mental phenomena we have found one and the same distinction to obtain between the faculties of mind as perceptual, receptual, and conceptual. Percept, Recept, and Concept; Perceptual Judgment, Receptual Judgment, and Conceptual Judgment; Indication, Denotation, and Denomination;—these are all manifestations, in different regions of psychological inquiry, of the same psychological distinctions. And we have seen that the distinction between a Recept and a Concept, which is thus carried through all the fabric of mind, is really the only distinction about which there can be any dispute. Moreover, we have seen that the distinction is on all hands allowed to depend on the presence or absence of self-consciousness. Lastly, we have seen that even in the province of self-consciousness itself the same distinction admits of being traced: there is a form of self-consciousness which may be termed receptual, as well as that which may be termed conceptual. The whole question before us thus resolves itself into an inquiry touching the relation between these two forms of self-consciousness: is it or is it not observable that the one is developmentally continuous with the other? Can we or can we not perceive that in the growing child the powers of receptual self-consciousness, which it shares with a brute, pass by slow and natural stages into those powers of conceptual self-consciousness which are distinctive of a man?

This question was fully considered in Chapter XI. I had previously shown that so far as the earliest, or indicative phase of language is concerned, no difference even of degree can be alleged between the infant and the animal. I had also shown that neither could any such difference be alleged with regard to the earlier stages of the next two phases—namely, the denotative and the receptually connotative. Moreover, I had shown that no difference of kind could be alleged between this lower receptual utterance which a child shares with a brute, and that higher receptual utterance which it proceeds to develop prior to the advent of self-consciousness. Lastly, I had shown that this higher receptual utterance gives to the child a psychological instrument whereby to work its way from a merely receptual to an incipiently conceptual consciousness of self. Such being the state of the facts as established by my previous analysis, I put to my opponents the following dilemma. Taking the case of a child about two years old, who is able to frame such a rudimentary, communicative, or pre-conceptual proposition as “Dit ki” (Sister is crying), I proceeded thus.

“Dit” is the denotative name of one recept, “ki” the denotative name of another: the object and the action which these two recepts severally represent happen to occur together before the child’s observation: the child, therefore, denotes them simultaneously—i.e. brings them into apposition. The apposition in consciousness of these two recepts, with their corresponding denotations, is thus effected for the child by the logic of events: it is not effected by the child in the way of any intentional or self-conscious grouping of its ideas, such as we have seen to be the distinguishing feature of the logic of concepts. Here, then, comes the dilemma. For I say, either you here have conceptual judgment, or else you have not. If you say that this is conceptual judgment, you destroy the basis of your own distinction between man and brute, because then you must also say that brutes conceptually judge—the child as yet not having attained to conceptual self-consciousness. If, on the other hand, you say that here you have not conceptual judgment, inasmuch as you have not self-consciousness, I ask at what stage in the subsequent development of the child’s intelligence you would consider conceptual judgment to arise. Should you answer that it first arises when conceptual self-consciousness first supplies the condition to its arising, I must refer you to the proof already given that the advent of self-consciousness is itself a gradual process, the precedent conditions of which are supplied far down in the animal series. But if this is so, where the faculty of stating a truth perceived passes into the higher faculty of perceiving the truth as true, there is a continuous series of gradations connecting the one faculty with the other. Up to the point where this continuous series of gradations begins, the mind of the child is, as I have already proved, indistinguishable from the mind of an animal by any one principle of psychology. Will you, then, maintain that up to this time the two orders of psychical existence are identical in kind, but that during its ascent through this final series of gradations the human intelligence becomes distinct in kind from that of animals, and therefore also from its own previous self? If so, your argument here ends in a contradiction.

In confirmation of this my general argument, two subsidiary considerations were then added. The first was that although the advance to true self-consciousness from lower grades of mental development is no doubt a very great and important matter, still it is not so great and important in comparison with what this development is afterwards destined to become, as to make us feel that it constitutes any distinction sui generis—or even, perhaps, the principal distinction—between the man and the brute. For even when self-consciousness does arise, and has become fairly well developed, the powers of the human mind are still in an almost infantile condition. In other words, the first genesis of true self-consciousness marks a comparatively low level in the evolution of the human mind—as we might expect that it should, if its genesis depends upon, and therefore lies so near to, those precedent conditions in merely animal psychology to which I have assigned it. But, if so, does it not follow that, great as the importance of self-consciousness afterwards proves to be in the development of distinctively human ideation, in itself, or in its first beginning, it does not betoken any very perceptible advance upon those powers of pre-conceptual ideation which it immediately follows? There is thus shown to be even less reason for regarding the first advent of conceptual self-consciousness as marking a psychological difference of kind, than there would be so to regard the advent of those higher powers of conceptual ideation which subsequently—though as gradually—supervene between early childhood and youth. Yet no one has hitherto ventured to suggest that the intelligence of a child and the intelligence of a youth display a difference of kind.

The second subsidiary consideration which I adduced was, that even in the case of a fully developed self-conscious intelligence, both receptual and pre-conceptual ideation continue to play an important part. The vast majority of our verbal propositions are made for the practical purposes of communication, or without the mind pausing to contemplate the propositions in the light of self-consciousness. No doubt in many cases, or in those where highly abstract ideation is concerned, this independence of the two faculties is more apparent than real: it arises from each having undergone so much elaboration by the assistance which it has derived from the other, that both are now in possession of a large body of organized material on which to operate, without requiring, whenever they are exercised, to build up the structure of this material ab initio. When I say “Heat is a mode of motion,” I am using what is now to me a mere verbal sign, which expresses an external fact: I do not require to examine my own ideas upon the abstract relation which the proposition sets forth, although for the original attainment of these ideas I had to exercise many and complex efforts of conceptual thought. But although I hold this to be the true explanation of the apparent independence of predication and introspection in all cases of highly abstract thought, I am convinced, on the ground of adequate reasons given, that in all cases where those lower orders of ideation are concerned to which I have so often referred as receptual and pre-conceptual, the independence is not only apparent, but real. Now, if the reasons which I have assigned for this conclusion are adequate—and they are reasons sanctioned by Mill,—it follows that the ideation concerned in ordinary predication becomes so closely affiliated with that which is expressed in the lower levels of sign-making, that even if the connecting links were not supplied by the growing child, no one would be justified, on psychological grounds alone, in alleging any difference of kind between one level and another. The object of all sign-making is communication, and from our study of the lower animals we know that communication first has to do exclusively with recepts, while from our study of the growing child we know that it is the signs used in the communication of recepts which first lead to the formation of concepts. For concepts are first of all named recepts, known as such; and we have seen in previous chapters that this kind of knowledge (i.e. of names as names) is rendered possible by introspection, which, in turn, is reached by the naming of self as an agent. But even after the power of conceptual introspection has been fully reached, demand is not always made upon it for the communication of merely receptual knowledge; and therefore it is that not every proposition requires to be introspectively contemplated as such before it can be made. Given the power of denotative nomination on the one hand, and the power of even the lowest degree of connotative nomination on the other, and all the conditions are furnished to the formation of non-conceptual statements, which differ from true propositions only in that they do not themselves become objects of thought. And the only difference between such a statement when made by a young child, and the same statement when similarly made by a grown man, is that in the former case it is not even potentially capable of itself becoming an object of thought.

The investigation having been thus concluded so far as comparative psychology was concerned, I next turned upon the subject the independent light of comparative philology. Whereas we had hitherto been dealing with what on grounds of psychological analysis alone we might fairly infer were the leading phases in the development of distinctively human ideation, we now turned to that large mass of direct evidence which is furnished by the record of Language, and is on all hands conceded to render a kind of unintentional record of the pre-historic progress of this ideation.

The first great achievement of comparative philology has been that of demonstrating, beyond all possibility of question, that language as it now exists did not appear ready-made, or by way of any specially created intuition. Comparative philology has furnished a completed proof of the fact that language, as we now know it, has been the result of a gradual evolution. In the chapter on “Comparative Philology,” therefore, I briefly traced the principles of language growth, so far as these are now well recognized by all philologists. It was shown, as a matter of classification, that the thousand or more existing languages fall into about one hundred families, all the members of each family being more or less closely allied, while members of different families do not present evidence of genetic affinity. Nevertheless, these families admit of being comprised under larger groups or “orders,” in accordance with certain characteristics of structure, or type, which they present. Of these types all philologists are agreed in distinguishing between the Isolating, the Agglutinating, and the Inflectional. Some philologists make a similar distinction between these and the Polysynthetic, while all are agreed that from the agglutinative the Incorporating type has been derived, and from the inflectional the Analytic.

Passing on from classification to phylogeny, we had to consider the question of genetic relationship between the three main orders, inter se, and also between the Polysynthetic type and the Agglutinating. The conflict of authoritative opinion upon this question was shown to have no bearing upon the subject-matter of this treatise, further than to emphasize the doctrine of the polyphylectic origin of language—the probability appearing to be that, regarded as types, both the isolating and the polysynthetic are equally archaic, or, at all events, that they have been of equally independent growth. In this connection I adduced the hypothesis of Dr. Hale, to the effect that the many apparently independent tongues which are spoken by different native tribes of the New World, may have been in large part due to the inventions of accidentally isolated children. The curious correlation between multiplicity of independent tongues and districts favourable to the life of unprotected children—in Africa as well as in America—seemed to support this hypothesis; while good evidence was given to show that children, if left much alone, do invent for themselves languages which have little or no resemblance to that of their parents.

Without recapitulating all that was said upon the phases and causes of linguistic evolution in its various lines of descent, it will be enough to remind the reader that in every case the result of philological inquiry is here the same—namely, to find that languages become simpler in their structure the further they are traced backwards, until we arrive at their so-called “roots.” These are sometimes represented as the mysterious first principles of language, or even as the aboriginal data whose origin is inexplicable. As a matter of fact, however, these roots are nothing more than the ultimate results of philological analysis: in no other sense than this can they be supposed “primary.” Seeing, then, that these roots represent the materials of language up to the place where the evolution of language no longer admits of being clearly traced, it is evident that their antecedents, whatever they may have been, necessarily lie beyond the reach of philological demonstration, as distinguished from philological inference. This, of course, is what an evolutionist knows antecedently must be the case somewhere in the course of any inquiry touching the process of evolution, wherever he may have occasion to trace it. For the further he is able to trace it, the nearer must he be coming to the place where the very material which he is investigating has taken its origin; and as it is this material itself which furnishes the evidences of evolution, when it has been traced back to its own origin, the inquiry reaches a vanishing point. Adopting the customary illustration of a tree, we might say that when a philologist has traced the development of the leaves from the twigs, the twigs from the branches, the branches from the stems, and the stems from the roots, he has given to the evolutionist all the evidence of evolution which in this particular line of inquiry is antecedently possible. The germ of ideation out of which the roots developed must obviously lie beyond the reach of the philologist as such; and if any light is to be thrown upon the nature of this germ, or if any evidence is to be yielded of the phases whereby the germ gave origin to the roots, this must be done by some other lines of inquiry finding similar germs giving rise to similar products elsewhere. In the present instance, the only place where we can look for such parallel processes of evolution is in the case of the growing child, which I have already considered.

Here, then, we are in the presence of exactly the same distinction with regard to the origin of Language, as we were at the beginning of this treatise with regard to the origin of Man. For we there saw that, while we have the most cogent historical proof of the principles of evolution having governed the progress of civilization, we have no such direct proof of the descent of man from a brutal ancestry. And here likewise we find that, so long as the light of philology is able to guide us, there can be no doubt that the principles of evolution have determined the gradual development of languages, in a manner strictly analogous to that in which they have determined the ever-increasing refinement and complexity of social organizations. Now, in the latter case we saw that such direct evidence of evolution from lower to higher levels of culture renders it well-nigh certain that the method must have extended backwards beyond the historical period; and hence that such direct evidence of evolution uniformly pervading the historical period in itself furnishes a strong prim facie presumption that this period was itself reached by means of a similarly gradual development of human faculty. And thus, also, it is in the case of language. If philology is able to prove the fact of evolution in all known languages as far back as the primitive roots out of which they have severally grown, the presumption becomes exceedingly strong that these earliest and simplest elements, like their later and more complex products, were the result of a natural growth. Or, in the words already quoted from Geiger, we cannot forbear concluding that language must once have had no existence at all. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish between demonstrated fact and speculative inference, however strong; and, therefore, I began by stating the stages of evolution through which languages are now known to have passed from the root-stage upwards. Having done this, I proceeded to consider the question touching the origin of these roots themselves.

First, as to their number, we found that the outside estimate, in the younger days of philological research, gave one thousand as a fair average of the roots which go to feed any living language; but that this estimate might now be safely reduced by three-fourths. Indeed, in his latest work, Professor Max MÜller professes to have reduced the roots of Sanskrit to as low a number as 121, and thinks that even this is excessive. Regarding the character of roots, we saw that some philologists look upon them as the actual words which were used by the pre-historic speakers, who, therefore, “talked with one another in single syllables, indicative of ideas of prime importance, but wanting all designation of their relations.”[335] On the other hand, it is now the generally accepted belief, that “roots are the phonetic and significant types discovered by the analysis of the comparative philologist as common to a group of allied words,”[336]—or, as it were, composite phonograms of families of words long since extinct as individuals. We saw, however, that this difference of opinion among philologists does not affect the present inquiry, seeing that even the phonetic-type theory does not question that the unknown words out of the composition of which a root is now extracted must have been genetically allied with one another, and exhibited the closeness of their kinship by a close similarity of their sounds.

A much more important question for us is the character of these roots with respect to their significance. In this connection we found that they indicate what Professor Max MÜller calls “general ideas,” or “concepts;” bear testimony to an already and, comparatively speaking, advanced stage of social culture; are all expressive either of actions or states; and betray no signs of imitative origin. Taking each of these characters separately, we found that although all the 121 roots of Sanskrit are expressive of general ideas, the order of generality is so low as for the most part to belong to that which I had previously called “lower concepts,” or “named recepts.” Next, that they all bear intrinsic testimony to their own comparatively recent origin, and, therefore, are “primitive” only in the sense of representing the last result of philological analysis: they certainly are very far from primitive in the sense of being aboriginal. Again, that they are all of the nature of verbs was shown to be easily explicable; and, lastly, the fact that none of them betray any imitative source is not to be wondered at, even on the supposition that onomatopoeia entered largely into the composition of aboriginal speech. For, on the one hand, we saw that in the struggle for existence among aboriginal and early words, those only could have stood any chance of survival—i.e. of leaving progeny—which had attained to some degree of connotative extension, or “generality;” and, on the other hand, that in order to do this an onomatopoetic word must first have lost its onomatopoetic significance. A large body of evidence was adduced in support of the onomatopoetic theory, and certain objections which have been advanced against it were, I think, thoroughly controverted. Later on, however, we saw that the question as to the degree in which onomatopoeia entered in to the construction of aboriginal speech is really a question of secondary interest to the evolutionist. Whether in the first instance words were all purely arbitrary, all imitative, or some arbitrary and some imitative,—in any case the course of their subsequent evolution would have been the same. By connotative extension in divergent lines, meanings would have been progressively multiplied in those lines through all the progeny of ever-multiplying terms—just in the same way as we find to be the case in “baby-talk,” and as philologists have amply proved to be the case with the growth of languages in general.

That speech from the first should have been concerned with the naming of generic ideas, or higher recepts, as well as with particular objects of sense, is what the evolutionist would antecedently expect. It must be remembered that the kind of classification with which recepts are concerned is that which lies nearest to the automatic groupings of sensuous perception: it depends on an absence of any power analytically to distinguish less perceptible points of difference among more conspicuous points of resemblance—or non-essential analogies among essential analogies with which they happen to be frequently associated in experience. On the other hand, the kind of classification with which concepts are concerned is that which lies furthest from the automatic groupings of sensuous perception: it depends on the power of analytically distinguishing between essentials and non-essentials among resemblances which occur associated together in experience. Classification there doubtless is in both cases; but in the one it is due to the obviousness of analogies, while in the other it is due to the mental dissociation of analogies as apparent and real. Or else, in the one case it is due to constancy of association in experience of the objects, attributes, actions, &c., classified; while in the other case it is due to a conscious disregard of such association.

Now, if we remember these things, we can no longer wonder that the palÆontology of speech should prove early roots to have been expressive of “generic,” as distinguished from “general” ideas. The naming of actions and processes so habitual, or so immediately apparent to perception, as those to which the “121 concepts” tabulated by Professor Max MÜller refer, does not betoken an order of ideation very much higher than the pre-conceptual, in virtue of which a young child is able to give expression to its higher receptual life, prior to the advent of self-consciousness. In view of these considerations, my only wonder is that the 121 root-words do not present better evidence of conceptual thought. This, however, only shows how comparatively small a part self-conscious reflection need play in the practical life of early man, even when so far removed from the really “primitive” condition of hitherto wordless man as was that of the pastoral people who have left this record of ideation in the roots of Aryan speech.

After having thus explained the absence of words significant of “particular ideas” among the roots of existing language, as well as the generic character of those which the struggle for existence has permitted to come down to us, we went on to consider sundry other corroborations of our previous analysis which are yielded by the science of philology. First we saw that this science has definitely proved two general facts with regard to the growth of predication—namely, that in all the still existing radical languages there is no distinction between noun, adjective, verb, or particle; and that the structure of all other languages shows this to have been the primitive condition of language-structure in general: “every noun and every verb was originally by itself a complete sentence,” consisting of a subject and predicate fused into one—or rather, let us say, not yet differentiated into the two, much less into the three parts which now go to constitute the fully evolved structure of a proposition. Now, this form of predication is “condensed” only because it is undeveloped; it is the undifferentiated protoplasm of predication, wherein the “parts of speech” as yet have no existence. And just as this, the earliest stage of predication, is distinctive of the pre-conceptual stage of ideation in a child, so it is of the pre-conceptual ideation of the race. Abundant evidence was therefore given of the gradual evolution of predicative utterance, pari passu with conceptual thought—evidence which is woven through the whole warp and woof of every language which is now spoken by man. In particular, we saw that pronouns were originally words indicative of space relations, and strongly suggestive of accompanying acts of pointing—“I” being equivalent to “this one,” “He” to “that one,” &c. Moreover, just as the young child begins by speaking of itself in the third person, so “Man regarded himself as an object before he learnt to regard himself as a subject,”[337] as is proved by the fact that “the objective cases of the personal as well as of the other pronouns, are always older than the subjective.”[338] Pronominal elements afterwards became affixed to nouns and verbs, when these began to be differentiated from one another; and thus various applications of a primitive and highly generalized noun or verb were rendered by means of these elements, which, as even Professor Max MÜller allows, “must be considered as remnants of the earliest and almost pantomimic phase of language, in which language was hardly as yet what we mean by language, namely logos, a gathering, but only a pointing.” Similarly, Professor Sayce remarks of this stage in the evolution of predicative utterance—which, be it observed, is precisely analogous to that occupied by a young child whose highly generalized words require to be assisted by gestures—“It is certain that there was a time in the history of speech when articulate or semi-articulate sounds uttered by primitive man were made the significant representations of thought by the gestures with which they were accompanied: and this complex of sound and gesture—a complex in which, be it remembered, the sound had no meaning apart from the gesture—was the earliest sentence.” Thus it was that “grammar has grown out of gesture”—different parts of speech, with the subsequent commencements of declension, conjugation, &c., being all so many children of gesticulation: but when in subsequent ages the parent was devoured by this youthful progeny, they continued to pursue an independent growth in more or less divergent lines of linguistic development.

For instance, we have abundant evidence to prove that, even after articulate language had gained a firm footing, there was no distinction between the nominative and genitive cases of substantives, nor between these and adjectives, nor even between any words as subject-words and predicate-words. All these three grammatical relations required to be expressed in the same way, namely, by a mere apposition of the generalized terms themselves. In course of time, however, these three grammatical differentiations were effected by conventional changes of position between the words apposed, in some cases the form of predication being A B, and that of attribution or possession B A, while in other branches of language-growth the reverse order has obtained. Eventually, however, “these primitive contrivances for distinguishing between the predicate, the attribute, and the genitive, when the three ideas had in course of ages been evolved by the mind of the speaker, gradually gave way to the later and more refined machinery of suffixes, auxiliaries, and the like.”[339]

And so it is with all the other so-called “parts of speech,” in those languages which, in having passed beyond the primitive stage, have developed parts of speech at all. “These are the very broadest outlines of the process by which conceptual roots were predicated, by which they came under the sway of the categories—became substantives, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, or by whatever other names the results thus obtained may be described. The minute details of this process, and the marvellous results obtained by it, can be studied in the grammar of every language or family of languages.”[340] Thus, philology is able to trace back, stage by stage, the form of predication as it occurs in the most highly developed, or inflective language, to that earliest stage of language in general, which I have called the indicative.

Many other authorities having been quoted in support of these general statements, and also for the purpose of tracing the evolution of predicative utterance in more detail, I proceeded to give illustrations of different phases of its development in the still existing languages of savages; and thus proved that they, no less than primitive man, are unable to “supply the blank form of a judgment,” or to furnish what my opponents regard as the criterion of human faculty. Therefore, the only policy which can possibly remain for these opponents to take up, is that of abandoning their Aristotelian position: no longer to take their stand upon the grounds of purely formal predication as this happens to have been developed in the Indo-European branch of language; but altogether upon those of material predication, or, as I may say, upon the meaning or substance of a judgment, as distinguished from its grammar or accidents.

In other words, it may possibly still be argued that, although the issue is now thrown back from the “blank form” of predication on which my opponents have hitherto relied, to the hard fact of predication itself, this hard fact still remains. Even though I have shown that in the absence of any parts of speech predication requires to be conducted in a most inefficient manner; still, it may be said, predication is conducted, and must be conducted—for assuredly it is only in order to conduct it that speech can ever have existed at all.

Now, I showed that if my opponents do not adopt this change of position, their argument is at an end. For I proved that, after all the foregoing evidence, there is no longer any possibility of question touching the continuity of growth between the predicative germ in a sentence-word, and the fully evolved structure of a formal proposition. But, on the other hand, I next showed that this change of position, even if it were made, could be of no avail. For, if the term “predication” be thus extended to a “sentence-word,” it thereby becomes deprived of that distinctive meaning upon which alone the whole argument of my adversaries is reared: it is conceded that no distinction obtains between speaking and pointing: the predicative phase of language has been identified with the indicative: man and brute are acknowledged to be “brothers.” That is to say, if it be maintained that the indicative signs of the infant child or the primitive man are predicative, no shadow of a reason can be assigned for withholding this designation from the indicative signs of the lower animals. On the other hand, if this term be denied to both, its application to the case of spoken language in its fully evolved form must be understood to signify but a difference of phase or degree, seeing that the one order of sign-making has been now so completely proved to be but the genetic and improved descendant of the other. In short, the truth obviously is that we have a proved continuity of development between all stages of the sign-making faculty; and, therefore, that any attempt to draw between one and another of them a distinction of kind has been shown to be impossible.