George John Romanes

[1] Man’s Place in Nature, p. 59.

[2] It is perhaps desirable to explain from the first that by the words “difference of kind,” as used in the above paragraph and elsewhere throughout this treatise, I mean difference of origin. This is the only real distinction that can be drawn between the terms “difference of kind” and “difference of degree;” and I should scarcely have deemed it worth while to give the definition, had it not been for the confused manner in which the terms are used by some writers—e.g. Professor Sayce, who says, while speaking of the development of languages from a common source, “differences of degree become in time differences of kind” (Introduction to the Science of Language, ii. 309).

[3] See Mental Evolution in Animals, chapter on the Emotions.

[4] Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 159. “The term is a generic one, comprising all the faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all individuals of the same species.”

[5] Of course my opponents will not allow that this word can be properly applied to the psychology of any brute. But I am not now using it in a question-begging sense: I am using it only to avoid the otherwise necessary expedient of coining a new term. Whatever view we may take as to the relations between human and animal psychology, we must in some way distinguish between the different ingredients of each, and so between the instinct, the emotion, and the intelligence of an animal. See Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 335, et seq.

[6] If any one should be disposed to do so, I can only reply to him in the words of Professor Huxley, who puts the case tersely and well:—“What is the value of the evidence which leads one to believe that one’s fellow-man feels? The only evidence in this argument from analogy is the similarity of his structure and of his actions to one’s own, and if that is good enough to prove that one’s fellow-man feels, surely it is good enough to prove that an ape feels,” etc. (Critiques and Addresses, p. 282). To this statement of the case Mr. Mivart offers, indeed, a criticism, but it is one of a singularly feeble character. He says, “Surely it is not by similarity of structure or actions, but by language that men are placed in communication with one another.” To this it seems sufficient to ask, in the first place, whether language is not action; and, in the next, whether, as expressive of suffering, articulate speech is regarded by us as more “eloquent” than inarticulate cries and gestures?

[7] Of course where the term Reason is intended to signify Introspective Thought, the above remarks do not apply, further than to indicate the misuse of the term.

[8] I here neglect to consider the view of Bishop Butler, and others who have followed him, that animals may have an immortal principle as well as man; for, if this view is maintained, it serves to identify, not to separate, human and brute psychology. The dictum of Aristotle and Buffon, that animals differ from man in having no power of mental apprehension, may also be disregarded; for it appears to be sufficiently disposed of by the following remark of Dureau de la Malle, which I here quote as presenting some historical interest in relation to the theory of natural selection. He says: “Si les animaux n’Étaient pas suscÉptibles d’apprendre les moyens de se conserver, les espÈces se seraient anÉanties.”

[9] John Fiske, Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp. 42, 43 (1884).

[10] Natural Selection, p. 343. It will subsequently appear, as a general consequence of our investigation of savage psychology, that of these two opposite opinions the one advocated by Mr. Mivart is best supported by facts. But I may here adduce one or two considerations of a more special nature bearing upon this point. First, as to cerebral structure, the case is thus summed up by Professor Huxley:—“The difference in weight of brain between the highest and the lowest man is far greater, both relatively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest ape. The latter, as has been seen, is represented by, say 12 ounces of cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32:20 relatively; but, as the largest recorded human brain weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, the former difference is represented by more than 33 ounces absolutely, or by 65:32 relatively. Regarded systematically, the cerebral differences of man and apes are not of more than generic value—his family distinction resting chiefly on his dentition, his pelves, and his lower limbs” (Man’s Place in Nature, p. 103). Next, concerning cerebral function, Mr. Chauncey Wright well remarks:—“A psychological analysis of the faculty of language shows that even the smallest proficiency in it might require more brain power than the greatest proficiency in any other direction” (North American Review, Oct. 1870, p. 295). After quoting this, Mr. Darwin observes of savage man, “He has invented and is able to use various weapons, tools, traps, &c., with which he defends himself, kills or catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. He has made rafts or canoes for fishing, or crossing over to neighbouring fertile islands. He has discovered the art of making fire.... These several inventions, by which man in the rudest state has become so preeminent, are the direct results of the development of his powers of observation, memory, curiosity, imagination, and reason. I cannot, therefore, understand how it is that Mr. Wallace maintains that ‘natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape’” (Descent of Man, pp. 48, 49).

[11] The Human Species, English trans., p. 22.

[12] Sundry other and still more special distinctions of a psychological kind have been alleged by various writers as obtaining between man and the lower animals—such as making fire, employing barter, wearing clothes, using tools, and so forth. But as all these distinctions are merely particular instances, or detailed illustrations, of the more intelligent order of ideation which belongs to mankind, it is needless to occupy space with their discussion. Here, also, I may remark that in this work I am not concerned with the popular objection to Darwinism on account of “missing-links,” or the absence of fossil remains structurally intermediate between those of man and the anthropoid apes. This is a subject that belongs to palÆontology, and, therefore, its treatment would be out of place in these pages. Nevertheless, I may here briefly remark that the supposed difficulty is not one of any magnitude. Although to the popular mind it seems almost self-evident that if there ever existed a long series of generations connecting the bodily structure of man with that of the higher apes, at least some few of their bones ought now to be forthcoming; the geologist too well knows how little reliance can be placed on such merely negative testimony where the record of geology is in question. Countless other instances may now be quoted of connecting links having been but recently found between animal groups which are zoologically much more widely separated than are apes and men. Indeed, so destitute of force is this popular objection held to be by geologists, that it is not regarded by them as amounting to any objection at all. On the other hand, the close anatomical resemblance that subsists between man and the higher apes—every bone, muscle, nerve, vessel, etc., in the enormously complex structure of the one coinciding, each to each, with the no less enormously complex structure of the other—speaks so voluminously in favour of an uninterrupted continuity of descent, that, as before remarked, no one who is at all entitled to speak upon the subject has ventured to dispute this continuity so far as the corporeal structure is concerned. All the few naturalists who still withhold their assent from the theory of evolution in its reference to man, expressly base their opinion on those grounds of psychology which it is the object of the present treatise to investigate.

[13] In my previous work I devoted a chapter to “Imagination,” in which I treated of the psychology of ideation so far as animals are concerned. It is now needful to consider ideation with reference to man; and, in order to do this, it is further needful to revert in some measure to the ideation of animals. I will, however, try as far as possible to avoid repeating myself, and therefore in the three following chapters I will assume that the reader is already acquainted with my previous work. Indeed, the argument running through the three following chapters cannot be fully appreciated unless their perusal is preceded by that of chapters ix. and x. of Mental Evolution in Animals.

[14] Human Understanding, bk. ii., chap. ii., 10, 11. To this passage Berkeley objected that it is impossible to form an abstract idea of quality as apart from any concrete idea of object; e.g. an idea of motion distinct from that of any body moving. (See Principles of Human Knowledge, Introd. vii.-xix.). This is a point which I cannot fully treat without going into the philosophy of the great discussion on Nominalism, Realism, and Conceptualism—a matter which would take me beyond the strictly psychological limits within which I desire to confine my work. It will, therefore, be enough to point out that Berkeley’s criticism here merely amounts to showing that Locke did not pursue sufficiently far his philosophy of Nominalism. What Locke did was to see, and to state, that a general or abstract idea embodies a perception of likeness between individuals of a kind while disregarding the differences; what he failed to do was to take the further step of showing that such an idea is not an idea in the sense of being a mental image; it is merely an intellectual symbol of an actually impossible existence, namely, of quality apart from object. Intellectual symbolism of this kind is performed mainly through the agency of verbal or other conventional signs (as we shall see later on), and it is owing to a clearer understanding of this process that Realism was gradually vanquished by Nominalism. The only difference, then, between Locke and Berkeley here is, that the nominalism of the former was not so complete or thorough as that of the latter. I may remark that if in the following discussion I appear to fail in distinctly setting forth the doctrine of nominalism, I do so only in order that my investigation may avoid needless collision with conceptualism. For myself I am a nominalist, and agree with Mill that to say we think in concepts is only another way of saying that we think in class names.

[15] This simile has been previously used by Mr. Galton himself, and also by Mr. Huxley in his work on Hume.

[16] Hence, the only valid distinction that can be drawn between abstraction and generalization is that which has been drawn by Hamilton, as follows: “Abstraction consists in concentration of attention upon a particular object, or particular quality of an object, and diversion of it from everything else. The notion of the figure of the desk before me is an abstract idea—an idea that makes part of the total notion of that body, and on which I have concentrated my attention, in order to consider it exclusively. This idea is abstract, but it is at the same time individual: it represents the figure of this particular desk, and not the figure of any other body.” Generalization, on the other hand, consists in an ideal compounding of abstractions, “when, comparing a number of objects, we seize on their resemblances; when we concentrate our attention on these points of similarity.... The general notion is thus one which makes us know a quality, property, power, notion, relation, in short, any point of view under which we recognize a plurality of objects as a unity.” Thus, there may be abstraction without generalization; but inasmuch as abstraction has then to do only with particulars, this phase of it is disregarded by most writers on psychology, who therefore employ abstraction and generalization as convertible terms. Mill says, “By abstract I shall always, in Logic proper, mean the opposite of concrete; by an abstract name the name of an attribute; by a concrete name, the name of an object” (Logic, i. § 4). Such limitation, however, is arbitrary—it being the same kind of mental act to “concentrate attention upon a particular object,” as it is to do so upon any “particular quality of an object.” Of course in this usage Mill is following the schoolmen, and he expressly objects to the change first introduced (apparently) by Locke, and since generally adopted. But it is of little consequence in which of the two senses now explained a writer chooses to employ the word “abstract,” provided he is consistent in his own usage.

[17] The age here mentioned closely corresponds with that which is given by M. Perez, who says:—“At seven months he compares better than at three; and he appears at this age to have visual perceptions associated with ideas of kind: for instance, he connects the different flavours of a piece of bread, of a cake, of fruit, with their different forms and colours” (First Three Years of Childhood, English trans., p. 31).

[18] Die Seele des Kindes, s. 87.

[19] Taine, Intelligence, p. 18.

[20] Human Understanding, bk. ii., ch. ii., §§ 5-7.

[21] If required, proof of this fact is to be found in abundance in the chapter on “Imagination,” Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 142-158. It is there shown that imagination in animals is not dependent only on associations aroused by sensuous impressions from without, but reaches the level of carrying on a train of mental imagery per se.

[22] Loc. cit., pp. 397-399. Allusion may also be here conveniently made to an interesting and suggestive work by another French writer, M. Binet (La Psychologie du Raisonnement, 1886). His object is to show that all processes of reasoning are fundamentally identical with those of perception. In order to do this he gives a detailed exposition of the general fact that processes of both kinds depend on “fusions” of states of consciousness. In the case of perception the elements thus fused are sensations, while in the case of reasoning they are perceptions—in both cases the principle of association being alike concerned.

[23] Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 118.

[24] In this connection I may quote the following very lucid statements from a paper by the Secretary of the Victoria Institute, which is directed against the general doctrine that I am endeavouring to advance, i.e. that there is no distinction of kind between brute and human psychology.

“Abstraction and generalization only become intellectual when they are utilized by the intellect. A bull is irritated by a red colour, and not by the object of which redness is a property; but it would be absurd to say that the bull voluntarily abstracts the phenomenon of redness from these objects. The process is essentially one of abstraction, and yet at the same time it is essentially automatic.” And with reference to the ideation of brutes in general, he continues:—“Certain qualities of an object engage his attention to the exclusion of other qualities, which are disregarded; and thus he abstracts automatically. The image of an object having been imprinted on his memory, the feelings which it excited are also imprinted on his memory, and on the reproduction of the image these feelings and the actions resulting therefrom are reproduced, likewise automatically: thus he acts from experience, automatically still. The image may be the image of the same object, or the image of another object of the same species, but the effect is the same, and thus he generalizes, automatically also.” Lastly, speaking of inference, he says:—“This method is common to man and brute, and, like the faculties of abstraction, &c., it only becomes intellectual when we choose to make it so.” (E. J. Morshead, in an essay on Comparative Psychology, Journ. Vic. Inst., vol. v., pp. 303, 304, 1870.) In the work of M. Binet already alluded to, the distinction in question is also recognized. For he says that the “fusion” of sensations which takes place in an act of perception is performed automatically (i.e. is receptual); while the “fusion” of perceptions which are concerned in an act of reason is performed intentionally (i.e. is conceptual).

[25] The more elaborate analysis of German psychologists has yielded five orders instead of three; namely, Wahrnehmung, Anschauung, Vorstellungen, Erfahrungsbegriff, and Verstandesbegriff. But for the purposes of this treatise it is needless to go into these finer distinctions.

[26] Outlines of Psychology, p. 342. The italics are mine. It will be observed that Mr. Sully here uses the term “generic” in exactly the sense which I propose.

[27] First Three Years of Childhood, English trans., pp. 180-182.

[28] Examination of Hamilton’s Philosophy, p. 403.

[29] To this, Max MÜller objects on account of its veiled conceptualism—seeing that it represents the “notion” as chronologically prior to the “name” (Science of Thought, p. 268). With this criticism, however, I am not concerned. Whether “the many pictures” which the mind thus forms, and blends together into what Locke terms a “compound idea,” deserve, when so blended, to be called “a general notion” or a “concept”—this is a question of terminology of which I steer clear, by assigning to such compound ideas the term recepts, and reserving the term notions, or concepts, for compound ideas after they have been named.

[30] Logos, p. 175, quoted by Max MÜller, who adds:—“The followers of Hume might possibly look upon the faded images of our memory as abstract ideas. Our memory, or, what is often equally important, our oblivescence, seems to them able to do what abstraction, as Berkeley shows, never can do; and under its silent sway many an idea, or cluster of ideas, might seem to melt away till nothing is left but a mere shadow. These shadows, however, though they may become very vague, remain percepts; they are not concepts” (Science of Thought, p. 453). Now, I say it is equally evident that these shadows are not percepts: they are the result of the fusion of percepts, no one of which corresponds to their generic sum. Seeing, then, that they are neither percepts nor concepts, and yet such highly important elements in ideation, I coin for them the distinctive name of recepts.

[31] Life of Hume, p. 96.

[32] Steinthal and Lazarus, however, in dealing with the problem touching the origin of speech, present in an adumbrated fashion this doctrine of receptual ideation with special reference to animals. For instance, Lazarus says, “Es gibt in der gewÖhnlichen Erfahrung kein so einfaches Ding von einfacher Beschaffenheit, dass wir es durch eine Sinnesempfindung wahrnehmen kÖnnten; erst aus der Sammlung seiner Eigenschaften, d. h. erst aus der Verbindung der mehreren Empfindungen ergibt sich die Wahrnehmung eines Dinges: erst indem wir die weisse Farbe sehen, die HÄrte fÜhlen und den sÜssen Geschmack empfinden, erkennen wir ein StÜck Zucker” (Das Leben der Seele (1857), 8, ii. 66). This and other passages in the same work follow the teaching of Steinthal; e.g. “Die Anschauung von einem Dinge ist der Complex der sÄmmtlichen Empfindungserkenntnisse, die wir von einem Dinge haben ... die Anschauung ist eine Synthesis, aber eine unmittelbare, die durch die Einheit der Seele gegeben ist.” And, following both these writers, Friedrich MÜller says, “Diese Sammlung und Einigung der verschiedenen Empfindungen gemÄss der in den Dingen verbundenen Eigenschaften heisst Anschauung” (Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, i. 26). On the other hand, their brother philologist, Geiger, strongly objects to this use of the term Anschauung, under which, he says, “wird theils etwas von der Sinneswahrnehmung gar nicht Unterschiedenes verstanden, theils auch ein dunkles Etwas, welches, ohne dass die Bedingungen und Ursachen zu erkennen sind, die Einheit der Wahrnehmungen zu kleineren und grÖssern Complexen bewirken soll.... So dass ich eine solche ‘Synthesis’ nicht auch bei dem Thiere ganz ebenso wie bei dem Menschen voraussetze: ich glaube im Gegentheile, dass es sich mit der Sprache erst entwickelt” (Ursprung der Sprache, 177, 178). Now, I have quoted these various passages because they serve to render, in a brief and instructive form, the different views which may be taken on a comparatively simple matter owing to the want of well-defined terms. No doubt the use of the term Anschauung by the above writers is unfortunate; but by it they appear to me clearly to indicate a nascent idea of what I mean by a recept. They all three fail to bring out this idea in its fulness, inasmuch as they restrict the powers of non-conceptual “synthesis” to a grouping of simple perceptions furnished by different sense-organs, instead of extending it to a synthesis of syntheses of perceptions, whether furnished by the same or also by different senses. But these three philologists are all on the right psychological track, and their critic Geiger is quite wrong in saying that there can be no synthesis of (non-conceptual) ideas without the aid of speech. As a matter of fact the dunkles Etwas which he complains of his predecessors as importing into the ideation of animals, is an Etwas which, when brought out into clearer light, is fraught with the highest importance. For, as we shall subsequently see, it is nothing less than the needful psychological condition to the subsequent development both of speech and thought. The term Apperception as used by some German psychologists is also inclusive of what I mean by receptual ideation. But as it is also inclusive of conceptual, nothing would here be gained by its adoption. Indeed F. MÜller expressly restricts its meaning to conceptual ideation, for he says, “Alle psychischen Processe bis einschliesslich zur Perception lassen sich ohne Sprache ausfÜhren und vollkommen begreifen, die Apperception dagegen lÄsst sich nur an der Hand der Sprache denken” (loc. cit. i., 29).

[33] As stated in a previous foot-note, this truth is well exhibited by M. Binet, loc. cit.

[34] The word Logic is derived from ?????, which in turn is derived from ??d?, to arrange, to lay in order, to pick up, to bind together.

[35] The terms Logic of Feelings and Logic of Signs were first introduced and extensively employed by Comte. Afterwards they were adopted, and still more extensively employed by Lewes, who, however, seems to have thought that he so employed them in some different sense. To me it appears that in this Lewes was mistaken. Save that Comte is here, as elsewhere, intoxicated with theology, I think that the ideas he intended to set forth under these terms are the same as those which are advocated by Lewes—although his incoherency justifies the remark of his follower:—“Being unable to understand this, I do not criticize it” (Probs. of Life and Mind, iii., p. 239). The terms in question are also sanctioned by Mill, as shown by the above quotation (p. 42).

[36] Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 62.

[37] Special attention, however, may be drawn to the fact that the term “unconscious judgment” is not metaphorical, but serves to convey in a technical sense what appears to be the precise psychology of the process. For the distinguishing element of a judgment, in its technical sense, is that it involves an element of belief. Now, as Mill remarks, “when a stone lies before me, I am conscious of certain sensations which I receive from it; but if I say that these sensations come to me from an external object which I perceive, the meaning of these words is, that receiving the sensations, I intuitively believe that an external cause of those sensations exists” (Logic, i., p. 58). In cases, such as that mentioned in the text, where the “unconscious judgment” is wrong—i.e. the perception illusory—it may, of course, be over-ridden by judgment of a higher order, and thus we do not end by believing that the bowl is a sphere. Nevertheless, so far as it is dependent on the testimony of our senses, the mind judges erroneously in perceiving the bowl as a sphere. In his work on Illusions, Mr. Sully has shown that illusions of perception arise through the mental “application of a rule, valid for the majority of cases, to an exceptional case.” In other words, an erroneous judgment is made by the non-conceptual faculties of perception—this judgment being formed upon the analogies supplied by past experience. Of course, such an act of merely perceptual inference is not a judgment, strictly so called; but it is clearly allied to judgment, and convenience is consulted by following established custom in designating it “unconscious,” “intuitive,” or “perceptual judgment.”

[38] Descent of Man, p. 76.

[39] See Animal Intelligence, pp. 465, 466.

[40] Of course the words “general idea” and “concept” here are open to that psychological objection for the avoidance of which I have coined the terms generic idea and recept.

[41] In my previous works I have already quoted facts of animal intelligence narrated by this author, but not any of those which I am now about to use.

[42] Intelligence of Animals, English trans., p. 20.

[43] Ibid., p. 107. This identical illustration appears to have occurred independently both to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Leslie Stephen. All these writers use the terms “abstract” and “general” as above; but, of course, as shown in my last chapter, this is merely a matter of terminology—in my opinion, however, objectionable, because appearing to assume, without analysis, that the ideation of brutes and of men is identical in kind.

[44] Ibid., pp. 43, 44.

[45] Ibid., p. 39.

[46] Ibid., p. 30. In the present connection, also, I may refer to the chapter on Imagination in my previous work, where sundry illustrations are given of this faculty as it occurs in animals; for wherever imagination leads to appropriate action, there is evidence of a Logic of Recepts, which in the higher levels of imagination, characteristic of man, passes into a Logic of Concepts.

Since publishing the chapter just alluded to, I have received an additional and curious illustration of the imaginative faculty in animals, which I think deserves to be published for its own sake. Of course we may see in a general way that dogs and cats resemble children in their play of “pretending” that inanimate objects are alive, and this betokens a comparatively high level of the imaginative faculty. The case which I am about to quote, however, appears to show that this kind of imaginative play may extend in animals, as in children, to the still higher level of not only pretending that inanimate objects are alive, but of “peopling space with fancy’s airy forms.” I shall quote the facts in the words of my correspondent, who is Miss Bramston, the authoress.

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

[47] Ibid., pp. 125, 126.

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

[49] Lessons from Nature, pp. 219, 220.

[50] See Animal Intelligence, pp. 422-424.

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

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

[53] Taine, On Intelligence, pp. 16, 17.

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

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

[56] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 91.

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

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

[59] See Animal Intelligence, p. 158.

[60] Animal Intelligence, pp. 114-116.

[61] Kreplin, quoted by BÜchner.

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

[63] Fac. Ment. des Animaux, tom. ii., p. 348.

[64] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 84, 85.

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

[66] For information on all these points, see Darwin, Expression of the Emotions.

[67] Quoted by Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 80.

[68] Burton, City of the Saints, p. 151.

[69] Loc. cit., p. 78.

[70] Sign-language among the North American Indians, &c., by Lieut.-Col. Garrick Mallery (First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1881).

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

[72] Loc. cit., p. 39.

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

[74] Early History of Mankind, pp. 24-32.

[75] Loc. cit., p. 54.

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

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

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

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

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

[81] See, for instance, Watson’s Reasoning Power in Animals, pp. 137-149, and Meunier’s Les Animaux Perfectibles, ch. xii.

[82] Ursprung der Sprache, p. 122.

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

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

[85] Journal of Mental Science, July, 1879.

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

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

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

Af-ta (in imitation of the sound which the nurse used to make when pretending to drink) = drinking or a drink, drinking-vessel, and hence a glass of any kind.

Vy = a fly.

Vy-’ta = window, i.e. the ‘ta or af-ta (glass) on which a fly walks.

Blow = candle.

Blow-hattie = a lamp, i.e. candle with a hat or shade.

’Nell = a flower, i.e. smell.

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

Numby = food of any kind (onomatopoetic).

Nunny = dress of any kind.

Milly = dressing, and any article used in dressing, e.g. a pin.

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

Diddle-iddle = a hole; hence a thimble; hence a finger.

Wasky = the sea.

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

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

[90] Encyclop. Brit., 9th ed., art. Philology.

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

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

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

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

[95] Nature, August 21, 1879.

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

[97] Lessons from Nature, pp. 226, 227.

[98] For instance, Professor Francis Bowen, of Harvard College, in an essay on The Human and Brute Mind, Princeton Review, 1880.

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

[100] Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, i., 115.

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

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

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

[104] Nature, August 21, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lower recept = an automatic grouping of percepts.

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

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

Higher concept = a named compound of concepts.

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

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

Conceptual naming = denomination.

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

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

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

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

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

[113] See Mental Evolution in Animals, chapter on “Imagination.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

[120] Loc. cit., p. 377.

[121] Loc. cit., pp. 435, 436.

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

[123] Sully, loc. cit., p. 377.

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

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

[126] Outlines of Psychology, p. 378.

[127] Vorlesungen, &c., i. 289.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[139] See p. 166.

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

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

[142] EncyclopÆdia Britannica, eighth edition, 1857, Art. “Language.”

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

[144] Encycl. Brit., loc. cit. Remembering that the above was published two years before the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, this clear enunciation of the struggle for existence in the field of philology appears to me deserving of notice.

[145] Science of Thought, preface, p. xi.

[146] Darwinism tested by the Science of Language, p. 41.

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

[148] Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, I. i. 77. This estimate is accepted by Professor Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. ii., p. 32.

[149] Hovelacque, Science of Language, English trans., p. 37.

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

[151] Hovelacque, loc. cit., p. 130.

[152] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 126.

[153] Introduction, &c., vol. i., p. 374.

[154] Ibid., vol. i., pp. 375, 376.

[155] Ibid., p. 120. See also his Principles of Comparative Philology, 2nd ed., p. ix.

[156] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i., 125, 126.

[157] Hovelacque, Science of Language, p. 130.

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

[159] Introduction, &c., i. 120.

[160] Ibid., i. 116.

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

[162] Life and Growth of Language, p. 259.

[163] Ibid., p. 262.

[164] I may add that the hypothesis admits of corroboration from sources not mentioned by its author. For Archdeacon Farrar wrote in 1865:—“The neglected children in some of the Canadian and Indian villages, who are left alone for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort of lingua franca, partially or wholly unintelligible to all except themselves;” and he quotes Mr. R. Moffat as “testifying to a similar phenomenon in the villages of South Africa (Mission Travels).” He also alludes to the fact that “deaf-mutes have an instinctive power to develop for themselves a language of signs,” which, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, embraces the use of arbitrary articulations, even though in this case the speakers cannot themselves hear the sounds which they make.

While this work is passing through the press an additional paper has been published by Dr. Hale, entitled, The Development of Language. It supplies further evidence in support of this hypothesis.

[165] Wundt, Vorlesungen, &c., ii., 380, 381.

[166] Sayce, Introduction to Science of Language, ii, 13.

[167] The difference of opinion in question seems to arise from individual prepossessions with regard to the ulterior question whether or not the aboriginal roots of all languages must have been polysyllabic. For my own part, and for the reasons already given, I can see no presumption in favour of the view that primitive languages must all have presented the “polysinthetic genius.”

[168] Histoire des Langues Semitique, p. 138.

[169] Etymological Dictionary, p. 746.

[170] See Max MÜller, Science of Thought, p. 332.

[171] Ibid., p. 404.

[172] Ethnologische Forschungen, ii., s. 73, et seq. He here quotes Varro to the effect that the roots of Latin amount to about a thousand.

[173] Language and the Study of Language, p. 256.

[174] Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, ii., p. 4.

[175] Geiger, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 16.

[176] Sayce, loc. cit., ii. p. 6.

[177] Wedgwood, Etymol. Dict., p. iii.

[178] Farrar, Origin of Language, p. 53.

[179] Science of Thought, p. 439.

[180] Science of Thought, p. 549.

[181] Science of Thought, pp. 551, 552.

[182] Ibid., pp. 551, 552.

[183] “The Aryan languages are the languages of a civilized race; the parent speech to which we may inductively trace them was spoken by men who stood on a relatively high level of culture” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 56). “The primitive tribe which spoke the mother-tongue of the Indo-European family was not nomadic alone, but had settled habitations, even towns and fortified places, and addicted itself in part to the rearing of cattle, in part to the cultivation of the earth. It possessed our chief domesticated animals—the horse, the ox, the goat, and the swine, besides the dog: the bear and the wolf were foes that ravaged its flocks; the mouse and the fly were already domestic pests.... Barley, and perhaps also wheat, was raised for food, and converted into meal. Mead was prepared from honey, as a cheering and inebriating drink. The use of certain metals was known; whether iron was one of them admits of question. The art of weaving was practised; wool and hemp, and possibly flax, being the materials employed.... The weapons of offence and defence were those which are usual among primitive peoples, the sword, spear, bow, and shield. Boats were manufactured and moved by oars.... The art of numeration was learned, at least up to a hundred; there is no general Indo-European word for ‘thousand.’ Some of the stars were noticed and named; the moon was the chief measurer of time. The religion was polytheistic, a worship of the personified powers of nature” (Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, pp. 207, 208). For a more detailed account of this interesting people, see Poescher, Die Arier.

[184] “Unsere Wurzeln sind die Urwurzeln nicht; wir haben vielleicht, von keiner einzigen die erste, ursprÜngliche Laut-form mehr vor uns, ebensowenig wohl die Urbedeutung” (Geiger, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 65). And this opinion, so far as I know, is adopted as an axiom by all other philologists.

[185] “It is impossible to bring down the epoch at which the Aryan tribes still lived in the same locality, and spoke practically the same language, to a date much later than the third millennium before the Christian era” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii., p. 320).

[186] This fact alone would be sufficient to dispose of what I cannot but consider, from any and every point of view, the transparent absurdity of the doctrine that “the formation of thought is the first and natural purpose of language, while its communication is accidental only” (Science of Thought, p. 40). Such a “purpose” would imply “thought” as already formed; and, therefore, the doctrine must suppose a purpose to precede the conditions of its own possibility.

[187] I use the term “verbs” merely for the sake of brevity and clearness. Of course there cannot have been verbs, strictly so-called, before there were parts of speech of any kind. The more accurate statement is given in the next sentence, and is the one which I desire to be understood hereafter in the short-hand expression “verbs.”

[188] “It must be borne in mind that primitive man did not distinguish between phenomena and volitions, but included everything under the head of actions, not only the involuntary actions of human beings, such as breathing, but also the movements of inanimate things, the rising and setting of the sun, the wind, the flowing of water, and even such purely inanimate phenomena as fire, electricity, &c.; in short, all the changing attributes of things were conceived as voluntary actions” (Sweet, Words, Logic and Grammar, p. 486).

[189] As a matter of fact, and as we shall subsequently see, there is an immense body of purely philological evidence to show that verbs are really a much later product of linguistic growth than either nouns or pronouns. This is proved by their comparative paucity in many existing languages of low development (their place being taken by pronominal appositions, &c.); and also by tracing the origin of many of them to other parts of speech. (See especially Garnett’s Essays, Pritchard on the Celtic Languages, Quart. Rev., Sept. 1876; The Derivation of Words from Pronominal and Prepositional Roots, Proc. Philol. Soc. vol. ii.; and On the Nature and Analysis of the Verb, ibid., vol. iii.) Later on it will be shown that in the really primitive stages of language-growth there is no assignable distinction between any of the parts of speech. Archdeacon Farrar well remarks, “The invention of a verb requires a greater effort of abstraction than that of a noun.... We cannot accept it as even possible that from roots meaning to shine, to be bright, names were formed for sun, moon, stars, &c.... In some places, indeed, Professor MÜller appears to hold the correct view, that at first ‘roots’ stood for any and every part of speech, just as the monosyllabic expressions of children do” (Chapters on Language, pp. 196, 197; see, also, some good remarks on the subject by Sir Graves Haughton, Bengali Grammar, p. 108).

[190] “Standst du dabei, als sich der Brust des noch stummen Urmenschen der erste Sprachlaut entrang? und verstandst du ihn? Oder hat man dir die Urwurzeln jener ersten Menschen vor hundert tausend Jahren Überliefert? Sind das, was du als Wurzeln hinstellst, und was wirklich Wurzeln sein mÖgen, auch Wurzeln der Urzeit, unverÄnderte Reflexlaute? Sind jene deine Wurzeln Älter als sechstausend, als zehntausend Jahre? und wie viel mÖgen sie sich in den frÜheren Jahrzehntausenden verÄndert haben? wie mag sich ihre Bedeutung verÄndert haben?” (Steinthal, Zeits. b. Volkerpysch. u. Sprachwiss., 1867, s. 76).

[191] Supra, p. 68, et seq.

[192] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 74. To the same effect, and from the side of psychology, I may quote Wundt:—“Oft hat man desshalb in der Sprache einen Ubergang vom Abstrakten zum Konkreten zu finden geglaubt, weil dieselbe thatsÄchlich zunÄchst umfassendere, dann individuellere Vorstellungen bezeichnet und erst zuletzt wieder die Namen individueller Objekte zu Gemeinnamen stempelt. Aber was am Anfang dieser Reihe liegt ist etwas ganz anderes als was den Schluss derselben bildet: Gemeinnamen sind wirkliche Zeichen fÜr Allgemeinvorstellungen und Begriffe. Jene ersten Vorstellungen, welche das Bewusstsein bildet und die Sprache ausdrÜckt, sind nicht Allgemeinvorstellungen sondern umfassende Vorstellungen. Beides ist wesentlich aus einander zu halten” (Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 382). The passage then proceeds to discuss the psychology of the subject.

[193] Introduction, &c., ii. 5, 6.

[194] And even as regards this minority (such as “to be,” “to think,” “to do,” &c.), we must remember an important consideration on which Geiger bestows a number of excellent pages. Briefly put, this consideration is that the offspring of words are everywhere proved to have progressively changed their meanings by successive steps and in divergent lines: applying this general law to the case of roots, it follows that the oldest meaning which philology is able to trace as expressed by a root, need not be anywhere near the meaning which attached to its remoter parents: the latter may have been much less conceptual.

[195] Professor Max MÜller says in one place, “The Science of Language, by inquiring into the origin of general terms, has established two facts of the highest importance, namely, first, that all terms were originally general; and, secondly, that they could not be anything but general” (Science of Thought, p. 456). Elsewhere, however, he says, “Although during the time when the growth of language becomes historical and most accessible, therefore, to our observation, the tendency certainly is from the general to the special, I cannot resist the conviction that before that time there was a pre-historic period during which language followed an opposite direction. During that period roots, beginning with special meanings, became more and more generalized, and it was only after reaching that stage that they branched off again into special channels” (ibid., pp. 383, 384). Again, in his earlier work on the Science of Language (vol. i., pp. 425-432), he argues in favour of terms having been aboriginally general. It will thus be seen that with reference to this question he is not consistent. Touching the first of his doctrines above quoted, Geiger pertinently observes that against such a conclusion there lies the obvious absurdity, that if a language were to consist exclusively of general terms, it would be ipso facto unintelligible to its own speakers; “for what hope could there be of any mutual understanding with a language comprising only such words as “to bind,” “to sound,” &c.? (Ursprung der Sprache, s. 16). Clearly, Professor Max MÜller’s difficulties regarding this subject are quite imaginary, and would disappear if he were to entertain the natural alternative that there is no reason to suppose aboriginal words were exclusively restricted to being either special or general—i.e. generic.

[196] Bunsen, Philosophy of Universal History, ii. 131.

[197] Professor Max MÜller in all his works; but it is observable that his opposition to what he calls the “bow-wow and pooh-pooh theory” was more strenuous in his earlier publications than it is in his later.

[198] It is needless to say that innumerable instances might be quoted of this metaphorical change in the meanings of words, even in existing languages,—so much so, indeed, that, as Richter says, all languages are but dictionaries of forgotten metaphors. For example, there is a single Hebrew word of three letters which may bear any one of the following significations:—to mix, to exchange, to stand in place of, to pledge, to interfere, to be familiar, to disappear, to set, to do a thing in the evening, to be sweet, a fly or beetle, an Arabian, a stranger, the weft of cloth, the evening, a willow, and a raven. (See Farrar, Chapters on Language, p. 229. He adds, “Assuming that all these significations are ultimately deducible from one and the same root, we see at once the extent to which metaphor must have been at work.” For further examples of the same principle, see ibid., pp. 234, 251, 252.)

[199] Science of Thought, pp. 317, 318.

[200] Or, as Heyse puts it, many onomatopoeias are not “old fruitful roots of language, but modern inventions which remain isolated in language, and are incapable of originating any families of words, because their meaning is too limited and special to admit of a manifold application” (System, s. 92, quoted by Farrar, Chapters on Language, p. 152, who also shows that words of onomatopoetic origin are not invariably sterile. When such origin is not so remote as to have become wholly obscured by a widely connotative extension, it does remain possible to trace its progeny through areas of smaller extension).

[201] “Nichtsdestoweniger bleibt es eine wichtige psychologische Thatsache, dass die Laute einen onomatopoetischen Werth haben, dass wir diesen Werth heute noch fÜhlen. Nur ist dieses GefÜhl nicht sicher genug, um als wissenschaftlicher Beweis zu gelten, wie es denn auch bei den verschiedenen Racen verschieden ist. Die Sprachen der mongolischen Race haben zur Bezeichnung von Naturereignissen viele OnomatopÖien, welche wir nicht mitfÜhlen. Und das ist weder zu verwundern, noch ist es ein Beweis gegen die geistige Einheit des Menschengeschlechtes. Das GefÜhl wird ja vielfach durch Associationen der Vorstellungen bestimmt. Andere Associationen aber walten im Kaukasier, andere im Mongolen” (Zeits. b. Volkerpsych. u. Sprachwissen., 1867, s. 76).

[202] Introduction, &c., i., p. 108. He points out that “bilbit, glut-glut, and puls, are all attempts to represent the same sound.”

[203] Chapters on Language, p. 154.

[204] Ueber Namen des Donners, 1855.

[205] Steinthal’s Zeitschrift, &c.

[206] Professor Max MÜller has argued that in the Indo-European languages the apparently onomatopoetic words signifying “thunder” are derived from the root tan, to “stretch,” and therefore were not of imitative origin. But Farrar has satisfactorily met this objection, even as regards this one particular case, by showing that even if not originally onomatopoetic, these words afterwards “became so from a feeling of the need that they should be” (Origin of Language, p. 82). See also, Chapters on Language, pp. 178-182; Heyse, System, s. 93; and Wundt, Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 396.

[207] See also Nodier, Dictionnaire des OnomatopÉes; and Wedgwood, Dictionary of English Etymology.

[208] Probably the explanation of this apparent inconsistency is to be found in the fact that NoirÉ’s special version of the onomatopoetic theory comes within easy distance of a hypothesis which Max MÜller had himself previously sanctioned. This hypothesis, originally propounded by Heyse in his System der Sprachwissenschaft, is that, just as every inorganic substance in nature gives out a particular sound when struck—metal one sound, wood another, stone another, &c.—so different animals have inherent tendencies (or “instincts”) to emit distinctive sounds. In the case of primitive man this inherent tendency was in the direction of articulate speech. For my own part, I do not see that this theory explains anything; and therefore agree with Geiger, who says of it:—“Die Annahme eines jetzt erloschenen VermÖgens der SprachschÖpfung und die damit zusammenhÄngende von einem vollkommenen Urzustande des Menschen ist eine Zuflucht zum Unbegreiflichen, und nicht weit von dem EingestÄndnisse entfernt, dass es uns der Natur der Dinge nach fÜr immer unmÖglich sei, den wahren Sinn der Urwurzeln zu erkennen und den Vorgang des Sprachursprunges zu erklÄren. Wir wÜrden mit einer solchen Annahme auf einen mystischen Standpunkt zurÜckgefÜhrt sein, da doch schon Herder das ‘Gespenst vom Wort FÄhigkeit’ bekÄmpft und gesagt hat: ‘Jch gebe den Menschen nicht gleich plÖtzlich neue KrÄfte, keine sprachschaffende FÄhigkeit, wie eine willkÜrliche qualitas occulta’” (Ursprung der Sprache, s. 24). Sayce, also, well remarks of this hypothesis, “It really rests upon an a priori conception of the origin of speech, which is neither borne out by linguistic facts nor easily intelligible.... Such a theory of language is plainly mystical” (Introduction to Science of Language, vol. i., pp. 66, 67).

[209] Encyclo. Brit., art. “Philology,” vol. xviii., p. 769.

[210] See, for instance, Farrar, Chapters on Language, p. 184.

[211] See above, pp. 138-144.

[212] See above, pp. 121, 122.

[213] See Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 394, 395.

[214] See above, pp. 132-136.

[215] Introduction to the Science of Language, ii. 302.

[216] See above, pp. 138-143.

[217] Der Ursprung der Sprache, s. 31. His own answer to the question is as follows:—“Sind die WÖrter Produkte der Natur order der WillkÜr? Beides und beides nicht. Kein Wort hat naturnothwendig seine bestimmte Bedeutung; insofern sind sie alle willkÜrlich: aber keines ist zu seiner Bedeutung durch menschliche WillensthÄtigkeit gekommen” (ibid., s. 113).

[218] Schelling, Einl. in die Philos. d. Mythologie, s. 51.

[219] Anthropologie der NaturvÖlker, i., 272. See also, F. MÜller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenshaft, I. i. 49.

[220] Science of Language, ii. 91, 92.

[221] Grund. d. Sprachwiss., i., 43.

[222] Ægypten, i. 324.

[223] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 119, 120.

[224] Science of Thought, 423-440.

[225] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 111.

[226] Ibid., i. 113, 114.

[227] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 121.

[228] Science of Thought, p. 242.

[229] Garnett, Philolo. Essays, p. 87.

[230] Ibid., 77, 78.

[231] Farrar, Origin of Language, p. 99. The passage continues, “We might have conjectured this from the fact already noticed, that children learn to speak of themselves in the third person—i.e. regard themselves as objects—long before they acquire the power of representing their material selves as the instrument of an abstract entity.” He also alludes to “some admirable remarks to this effect in Mr. F. Whalley Harper’s excellent book on the Power of Greek Tenses;” and recurs to the subject in his more recently published Chapters on Language, p. 62. I could quote other authorities who have commented upon this philological peculiarity of early pronouns; but will only add the following in order to show how the peculiarity in question may continue to survive even in languages still spoken. “The Malay ulun, ‘I,’ is still ‘a man’ in Lampong, and the Kawi ugwang, ‘I,’ cannot be separated from nwang, ‘a man’” (Sayce, Introduction, ii. 26). Lastly, Wundt has pointed out that this impersonal form of speech is distinctive, not only of early pronominal elements, but also of early forms of predication. For instance, “Die ersten Urtheile, die in das Bewusstsein hereinbrechen, subjektlose Urtheile sind, und dass die PrÄdikate derselben stets eine sinnliche Vorstellung ausdrÜcken. ‘Es leuchtet es glÄnzt, es tÖnt,’—solcher Art sind die Urtheile, die der Mensch zuerst denkt und zuerst ausspricht. Jenes PrÄdikat, dass sogleich bei der Wahrnehmung eines Gegenstandes sich aufdrÄngt, wird zur Bezeichnung des Gegenstandes selber. ‘Das Leuchtende, GlÄnzende, TÖnende,’—solcher Art find die WÖrter, die ursprÜnglich in der Sprache gebildet werden” (loc. cit., ii. 377).

[232] Science of Thought, p. 221.

[233] Ibid., p. 554.

[234] Ibid., 241.

[235] Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii. 25; see also to the same effect, Bleek, Ursprung der Sprache, 70-72; F. MÜller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenshaft, I., i., s. 40; and NoirÉ, Logos, p. 186. The chief ground of this scepticism is that it is difficult to conceive how a word could ever have gained a footing if it did not from the first present some independent predicative meaning. But it seems to me that the force of this objection is removed if we remember the sounds which are arbitrarily invented by young children and uneducated deaf-mutes, not to mention the inarticulate clicks of the Bushmen. Moreover, there is nothing inimical to the pronominal theory in the supposition that pronominal elements, even of the most aboriginal kind, were survivals of still more primitive sentence-words—a supposition which would of course remove the difficulty in question. But, as explained in the text, this difficulty, even if it could not be thus met, would really not be one of any importance to my exposition.

[236] Introduction, &c., i. 117.

[237] Introduction, &c., ii. 301. Or, as Wundt puts it, “Die demonstrative Wurzel ist daher eine demonstrirende Pantomime in einen Laut Übersetzt” (Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 392).

[238] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 415. See also F. MÜller, loc. cit., I. i. 2, p. 2, for another statement of the same facts referred to by Sayce.

[239] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 416.

[240] Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, in Trans. Philo. Soc., 1867, p. 493.

[241] Science of Thought, p. 442.

[242] See especially Garnett, On the Nature and Analysis of the Verb.

[243] Science of Thought, p. 223.

[244] Ibid., p. 442.

[245] Sayce, Introduction, &c.

[246] I refer the reader to what is said on both these aspects of the verb in question by my opponents (see pp. 165-167.)

[247] Farrar, Origin of Language, pp. 105, 106.

[248] Garnett, On the Nature and Analysis of the Verb, Proc. Philo. Soc., vol. iii.

[249] Sayce, Introduction, &c., i. 415.

[250] Geiger, Development of the Human Race, English trans., p. 22.

[251] Sweet, Words, Logic, and Grammar, in Trans. Philol. Soc., 1876, pp. 486, 487.

[252] Sweet, loc. cit., pp. 489, 490.

[253] Bleek, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 69, 70.

[254] Science of Thought, p. 241.

[255] Steinthal, Charakteristik, &c., 165, 173.

[256] Garnett, Philological Essays, p. 310.

[257] Ibid., p. 311.

[258] Ibid., p. 312.

[259] Ibid., p. 314.

[260] See Chapter on Speech, p. 166.

[261] I may remark that it was Aristotle who first fell into the error of identifying the copula with the verb to be, by which it happens to be expressed in Greek. For many centuries afterwards this error was a fruitful source of endless confusions; but it is curious to find a wholly new fallacy springing from it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Touching the subject and predicate, Aristotle, of course, never contemplated any more primitive relation between them than that which obtained in the only forms of speech with which he was acquainted. As regards his “categories” the following remarks by Professor Max MÜller are worth quoting:—

“These categories, which proved of so much utility to the early grammarians, have a still higher interest to the students of the science of language and thought. Whereas Aristotle accepted them simply as the given forms of predication in Greek, after that language had become possessed of the whole wealth of its words, we shall have to look upon them as representing the various processes by which those Greek words, and all our own words and thoughts, too, first assumed a settled form. While Aristotle took all his words and sentences as given, and simply analyzed them in order to discover how many kinds of predication they contained, we ask how we ever came into possession of such words as horse, white, many, greater, here, now, I stand, I fear, I cut, I am cut. Anybody who is in possession of such words can easily predicate, but we shall now have to show that every word by itself was from the first a predication, and that it formed a complete sentence by itself. To us, therefore, the real question is, how these primitive sentences, which afterwards dwindled away into mere words, came into existence. The true categories, in fact, are not those which are taught by grammar, but those which produced grammar, and it is these categories which we now proceed to examine” (Science of Thought, p. 439).

[262] Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii. 229. He adds, “Had Aristotle been a Mexican, his system of logic would have assumed a wholly different form.”

[263] Introduction, &c., i, 15.

[264] In these considerations I find myself able largely to reconcile what has always been regarded as a contradiction between the views of Professor Whitney and those of other philologists on the subject of sentence-words. Partly following Schleicher—who maintains the doctrine still more unequivocally—he regards the word as having been historically prior to the sentence. This, of course, is in contradiction to the doctrine of the sentence having been historically prior to the word, which, as we have seen, is the doctrine now held by philologists in general. But, now, what the latter doctrine really amounts to is, that words were sentences before they were names—predicative before they were nominative; and, as I understand it, Whitney’s objection to this doctrine is really raised on grounds of psychology. If so, the above considerations show that he is perfectly right. Intellectually, primitive man was fully capable of acquiring the use of words as names; and, therefore, psychologically considered, it was only an accident of social environment which prevented him from so doing.

[265] Science of Thought, pp. 432, 433.

[266] Pp. 281, 282, note.

[267] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 65. For the original German, see the passage as previously quoted on page 273, note.

[268] As pointed out in a previous chapter, curious ambiguity attaches to this term. For, as used in biology, it means the hitherto undifferentiated, while in psychology and elsewhere a “generalization” means the synthetically integrated. But, as psychologists never speak of ideas as “generalized,” I here use the word in its biological sense. See also above, pp. 277-280.

[269] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 69, 70.

[270] Bleek entertains no doubt on this point.

[271] Compare also close of Chapter VII. (pp. 138-144), where the children mentioned by Dr. Hale are shown to have adopted the syntax of gesture-language in their spontaneously devised spoken language.

[272] Chapter VI., pp. 114-120.

[273] Sign-Language, &c., p. 284. On page 352, this writer further supplies a most interesting comparison between gesture and spoken language as both are used by the North American Indians—showing that the syntax in the two cases is identical.

[274] Whitney, Encyclo. Brit., loc. cit., p. 770. It is interesting to note that the psychological importance of this principle was clearly enunciated by Locke:—“It may lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come out under the cognizance of our senses” (Human Understanding, iii. i. 5).

[275] Whitney, Encyclo. Brit., p. 770. See also Nodier, Notions de Linguistique, p. 39; Garnett, Essays, p. 89; Grimm, Gesch. d. d. Sprache, s. 56 et seq.; Pott, Metaphern vom Leben, &c., Zeitschr. fur Vergl. Sprachf. Jahrg., ii., heft 2; Heyse, System, &c., s. 97; and Farrar, Origin of Language, 130; Chapters on Language, pp. 67, 133, 204-246. He refers to the above, and quotes the following passages from Emerson and Carlyle:—“As the limestone of the Continent consists of infinite masses of shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images and tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin” (Essays on the Poets). “Language is the flesh-garment of Thought. I said that Imagination wore this flesh-garment; and does she not? Metaphors are her stuff. Examine Language. What, if you except a few primitive elements of natural sound, what is it all but metaphors recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the flesh-garment of Language—then are metaphors its muscles, its tissues, and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for: is not your very attention a stretching-to?” (Sartor Resartus, ch. x.).

[276] Science of Thought, p. 329.

[277] Science of Language, p. 123.

[278] Logos, p. 258, et seq.

[279] Geiger, Address delivered before the International Congress for ArchÆology and History at Bonn, 1868.

[280] Geiger, A Lecture to the Commercial Club of Frankfort-on-the-Main (1869).

[281] Perhaps the most interesting department of fundamental metaphor is that wherein the metaphor is found by philological research to have reference, not to any natural object, quality, &c., but to a pre-existing action or gesture as already made by man himself for the purpose of conveying information, expressing his emotions, &c. For fundamental metaphor of this kind obviously brings us within seeing distance of the time when the audible signs of articulations were born of the visible signs of gesture and grimace. In illustration of this branch of our subject I will only quote one passage; but the reader will at once perceive how easy it would be to furnish many other instances from the etymology of words now in habitual use.

“The further a language has been developed from its primordial roots, which have been twisted into forms no longer suggesting any reason for their original selection, and the more the primitive significance of its words has disappeared, the fewer points of contact can it retain with signs. The higher languages are more precise because the consciousness of the derivation of most of their words is lost, so that they have become counters, good for any sense agreed upon and for no other.

“It is, however, possible to ascertain the included gesture even in many English words. The class represented by the word supercilious will occur to all readers, but one or two examples may be given not so obvious and more immediately connected with the gestures of our Indians. Imbecile, generally applied to the weakness of old age, is derived from the Latin in, in the sense of on, and bacillum, a staff, which at once recalls the Cheyenne sign for old man [previously mentioned]. So time appears more nearly connected with [Greek: teinÔ], to stretch, when information is given of the sign for long time, in the Speech of Kin Che-ess, in this paper, namely, placing the thumbs and forefingers in such a position as if a small thread was held between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, the hands first touching each other, and then moving slowly from each other, as if stretching a piece of gum-elastic” (Mallery, Sign-Language, &c., p. 350). This writer also says, with reference to the uncivilized languages which he has specially studied, “In the languages of North America, which have not become arbitrary, to the degree exhibited by those of civilized man, the connection between the idea and the word is only less obvious than that still unbroken connection between the idea and the sign, and they remain strongly affected by the concepts of outline, form, place, position, and feature on which gesture is founded, while they are similar in their fertile combination of radicals. Indian language consists of a series of words that are but slightly differentiated parts of speech following each other in the order suggested in the mind of the speaker without absolute laws of arrangement, as its sentences are not completely integrated. The sentence necessitates parts of speech, and parts of speech are possible only when a language has reached that stage where sentences are logically constructed. The words of an Indian tongue, being synthetic or undifferentiated parts of speech, are in this respect strictly analogous to the gesture elements which enter into a sign-language. The study of the latter is therefore valuable for comparison with the words of the former. The one language throws much light upon the other, and neither can be studied to the best advantage without a knowledge of the other.”

[282] There are certain writers, such as Du Ponceau, Charlevoix, James, Appleyard, Threlkeld, Caldwell, &c., who have sought to represent that the languages of even the lowest savages are “highly systematic and truly philosophical,” &c. But this opinion rests on a radically false estimate of the criteria of system and philosophy in a language. For the criteria chosen are exuberance of synonyms, intricacies or complications of forms, &c., which are really works of a low development. The fallacy is now acknowledged to be such by all philologists. Even Farrar, who at first himself fell into this error (Origin of Language, p. 28), in his subsequent work writes:—“Further examination has entirely removed this belief. For this apparent wealth of synonyms and grammatical forms is chiefly due to the hopeless poverty of the power of abstraction. It would not only be no advantage, but even an impossible encumbrance to a language required for literary purposes. The transnormal character of these tongues only proves that they are the work of minds incapable of all subtle analysis, and following in one single direction an erroneous and partial line of development.... If language proves anything, it proves that these savages must have lived continuously in a savage condition” (Farrar, Chapters on Language, pp. 53, 54, who also refers to numerous authorities).

[283] The term “conception” here is, of course, equivalent to my term “pre-conception.” When my daughter uttered her first denotative word “star,” she was, indeed, bestowing a name; but it was the name of a recept, not of a concept.

[284] Farrar, Chapters on Language, pp. 198, 199.

[285] Mithridates, iii. 325, 397. See also Pott, Etym. Forsch., ii. 167; and Heyse, System, 132.

[286] Latham, Races of Man, p. 376.

[287] Quatrefages, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, 1860; Maury, La Terre et l’Homme, p. 433.

[288] Mem. sur le Syst. Gram., &c., p. 120.

[289] Malay Grammar, i., p. 68, et seq.

[290] Journl. Ameri. Orient, Soc., i. No. 4, p. 402.

[291] Casalis, Grammar, p. 7.

[292] Pickering, Indian Languages, p. 26.

[293] Vocabulary of the Dialects of some of the Aboriginal Tribes of Tasmania, p. 34.

[294] Introduction, &c., vol. ii., p. 6.

[295] Ibid., vol. i., p. 379.

[296] A Lecture delivered at Frankfort, 1869.

[297] Science of Thought, p. 245.

[298] Essays, p. 89.

[299] Chapters on Language, p. 133.

[300] Herder, Abhandl., s. 122.

[301] Das Leben der Seele, ii. 47.

[302] Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, i. 35, 36.

[303] See, for example, F. MÜller, loc. cit., i. 36, 37.

[304] Some of the supporters of the interjectional theory in this extreme, not to say extravagant form, appear to go on the assumption that primitive and hitherto speechless man already differed from the lower animals in presenting conceptual thought. This assumption would, of course, explain why man alone began to invest his instinctive cries, &c., with the character of names. But, from a psychological point of view, any such assumption is obviously a putting of the cart before the horse. I make this remark in order to add that the objection would not apply if the ideation were supposed to be pre-conceptual—i.e. beyond the level reached by any brute, though not yet distinctively human. Later on, I myself espouse a theory to this effect.

[305] E.g. by Mr. Ward, in his Dynamical Sociology.

[306] Differences of opinion are entertained by philologists concerning the value of “nursery-language,” or “baby-talk,” as a guide to the probable stages of language-growth in primitive man. Without going into the arguments upon this question on either side, it appears to me that the analogy as above limited cannot be objected to even by the most extreme sceptics upon the philological value of infantile utterance. And it is only to this extent that I anywhere use the analogy.

[307] For cases, see Heinieke, Beobachtungen Über Stumme, s. 137, &c.

[308] Ibid., s. 73.

[309] Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 238.

[310] The carnivorous habits of this animal (which is named as a new species) are most interesting. It is surmised that in its wild state it must live upon birds; but in the Zoological Gardens it is found to show a marked preference for cooked meat over raw. It dines off boiled mutton-chops, the bones of which it picks with its fingers and teeth, being afterwards careful to clean its hands. It mixes a little straw with the mutton as vegetables, and finishes its dinner with a dessert of fruits. But a more important point is that this animal answers its keeper in vocal tones—or rather grunts—when he speaks to it, and these tones are understood by the keeper as indicative of different mental states. I have spent a great deal of time in observing this animal, but the publicity and other circumstances render it difficult to do much in the way of experiment or tuition. With regard to teaching her to count, see above, p. 58; and with regard to her understanding of words, p. 126.

[311] “If there once existed creatures above the apes and below man, who were extirpated by primitive man as his especial rivals in the struggle for existence, or became extinct in any other way, there is no difficulty in supposing them to have possessed forms of speech, more rudimentary and imperfect than ours” (Professor Whitney, Art. Philology, Ency. Brit., vol. xviii., p. 769).

[312] Houzeau gives a very curious account of his observations on this subject in his FacultÉs Mentales des Animaux, tom. ii., p. 348.

[313] Descent of Man, p. 87.

[314] Descent of Man, p. 87.

[315] This term is used by Haeckel as synonymous with Pithecanthropoi, or the ape-like men, who are supposed to have immediately preceded Homo sapiens (History of Evolution, English trans., vol. ii., p. 293). In the next instalment of work I will consider what has to be said in favour of this view from the side of my anthropology. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to bear in mind that, as previously stated, great as is the psychological difference introduced by the faculty of speech, for the attainment of this faculty anatomical changes so minute as to be imperceptible were all that seem to have been required. “The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a man’s intelligence and an ape’s, therefore there must be an equally immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a ‘great gulf’ between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the difference. And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the human from the simian stirps” (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, p. 103).

[316] Here I will ask the reader to bear in mind the considerations above adduced from Geiger, as to the encouragement which must have been given to a semiotic use of vocal sounds by habitual attention being given to the movements of the mouth in significant grimace—such attention being naturally bestowed in larger measure by an intelligent ape-like creature which was accustomed to depend chiefly on its sense of sight, than it would be by any of the existing quadrumana.

[317] For sign-making among the social insects, see above, pp. 88-95.

[318] Here, be it observed, the element of truth which belongs to the first of the three hypotheses that we are considering comes in. Compare foot-note on page 364: Homo alalus, though not yet a conceptual thinker, is nevertheless in possession of a higher receptual life than has ever been attained by a brute, and is correspondingly more capable of utilizing as signs interjectional or other sounds which emanate from the “purely physiological grounds” of his own organization.

[319] See Preyer, loc. cit., for a detailed account of the order in which the consonants are developed in the growing child. Also Professor Holden, on the Vocabularies of Children, in Proc. Amer. Philolo. Ass., 1877. There can be no doubt that vowel sounds must have been of early origin in the race; but in what order the consonants may have followed is much more doubtful. For different races now exhibit great differences with regard to the use—and even to the capability of using—consonantal sounds; the Chinese, for instance, changing r into l, while the Japanese change l into r. And, of course, the whole science of comparative philology may be said to be based upon a study of the laws of “phonetic change.” But it is obviously a matter of no importance in what particular order the different articulate sounds were first evolved. According to Prince Lucien Bonaparte, who has investigated the matter with much care, the total number of these sounds that can be possibly made by the human organs of vocalization is 385. See, also, Ellis, on Early English Pronunciation; and, for the limitation of consonants in various languages of existing races, Hovelaque, Science of Language, English trans., pp. 49, 61, 81.

[320] “When we remember the inarticulate clicks which still form part of the Bushman’s language, it would seem as if no line of division could be drawn between man and beast, even when language is made the test” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii., p. 302).

[321] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 52.

[322] Introduction, &c., ii., 302: by “thought” of course he means what I mean by recepts.

[323] Here also compare the first of the three hypotheses, the important elements of truth in which are, as I have already more than once observed, to be considered as adopted by Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, and therefore also by the present one.

[324] The song of the gibbon has already been alluded to in a quotation from Darwin. I may here add that the chimpanzee “Sally” not unfrequently executes an extraordinary performance of an analogous kind. The song, however, is by no means so “musical.” It is sung without any regard to notation, in a series of rapidly succeeding howls and screams—very loud, and accompanied by a drumming of the legs upon the ground. She will only thus “break forth into singing” after more or less sustained excitement by her keeper; but more often than not she refuses to be provoked by any amount of endeavour on his part.

[325] Compare quotations from the German philologists in support of the first hypothesis, pp. 361, 362.

[326] See pp. 288-290.

[327] Welt als Entwickelung der Geists, s. 255. This book, however, was not published until 1874—i.e. some years after the Descent of Man.

[328] This is likewise the view that was ably supported by Geiger on philological grounds, Ursprung der Sprache, 1869; and by Haeckel on grounds of general reasoning, History of Creation, English trans., 1876.

[329] “How many of the roots of language were formed in this way it is impossible to say; but when we consider that there is no modern word which we can derive from such cries as the sailor makes when he hauls a rope, or the groom when he cleans a horse, it does not seem likely that they can have been very numerous” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., i., p. 110).

[330] With regard to the erect attitude, we must remember that, although the chimpanzee and orang never adopt it, the only other kinds of anthropoid apes—namely, gorilla and gibbon—frequently do so when progressing on level surfaces. In the case of the gorilla, indeed, although the fore-limbs quit the ground and the locomotion thus becomes bipedal, the body is never fully straightened up; but in the case of the gibbon the erect attitude may be said to be complete when the animal is walking. (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, pp. 36-49). With regard to the selection and use of stones as tools, Commander Alfred Carpenter, R.N., thus describes the modus operandi of monkeys inhabiting islands off S. Burmah:—“The rocks at low-water are covered with oysters. The monkeys select stones of the best shape for their purpose from shingle of the beach, and carry them to the low-water mark, where the oysters live, which may be as far as eighty yards from the beach. This monkey has chosen the easiest way to open the rock-oyster, namely, to dislocate the valves by a blow on the base of the upper one, and to break the shell over the attaching muscle” (Nature, vol. xxxvi., p. 53. In connection with this subject see also Animal Intelligence, p. 481).

[331] See above, p. 220.

[332] See pp. 220-222.

[333] See pp. 179-181.

[334] See above, pp. 300, 301.

[335] Whitney.

[336] Sayce.

[337] Farrar.

[338] Garnett.

[339] Sayce.

[340] Max MÜller.

[341] See especially Science of Thought, chaps, ii. and iv. The following quotations may suffice to justify this statement. “If once a genus has been rightly recognized as such, it seems to me self-contradictory to admit that it could ever give rise to another genus.... Once a sheep always a sheep, once an ape always an ape, once a man always a man.... What seems to me simply irrational is to look for a fossil ape as the father of a fossil man.... Why should it be the settled or ready-made Pithecanthropus who became the father of the first man, though everywhere else in nature what has once become settled remains settled, or, if it varies, it varies within definite limits only? (pp. 212-215).... If the germ of a man never develops into an ape, nor the germ of an ape into a man, why should the full-grown ape have developed into a man? (p. 117).... Let us now see what Darwin himself has to say in support of his opinion that man does not date from the same period which marks the beginning of organic life on earth—that he has not an ancestor of his own, like the other great families of living beings, but that he had to wait till the mammals had reached a high degree of development, and that he then stepped into the world as the young or as the child of an ape” (p. 160), &c., &c. So far as can be gathered from these, and other statements to the same effect, it does not appear that Professor Max MÜller can ever have quite understood the theory of evolution, even in its application to plants and animals. For these are not criticisms upon that theory: they are failures to appreciate in what it is that the theory itself consists.

[342] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 84.

[343] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 119.

[344] It would be no answer to say that by “names” he means only signs of ideas which present a conceptual value—or, in other words, that he would refuse to recognize as a name what I have called a denotative sign. For the question here is not one of terminology, but of psychology. I care not by what terms we designate these different sorts of signs; the question is whether or not they differ from one another in kind. If the term “name” is expressly reserved for signs of conceptual origin, it would be no argument, upon the basis of this definition, to say that there cannot be names without concepts; for, in terms of the definition, this would merely be to enunciate a truism: it would be merely to say that without concepts there can be no concepts, nor, À fortiori, the signs of them. In short, the issue is by no means one as to a definition of terms; it is the plain question whether or not a non-conceptual sign is the precursor of a conceptual one. And this is the question which I cannot find that Max MÜller has adequately faced.

[345] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 91. The exact words are, “Die Sprache hat die Vernunft erschaffen: vor ihr war der Mensch vernunftlos.” It is needless to observe that the word which I have rendered by its English equivalent “Reason” is here used in the sense of conceptual thought.

[346] Wundt, Vorlesungen, &c., ii. 282.