Mental Evolution in Man 21

Mental Evolution in Man 21

I take it then, as certainly proved, that the germ of the sign-making

faculty which is present in the higher animals is so far developed as

to enable these animals to understand not merely conventional gestures,

but even articulate sounds, irrespective of the tones in which they

are uttered. Therefore, in view of this fact, together with the fact

previously established that these same animals frequently make use of

conventional gesture-signs themselves, I think we are justified in

concluding _a priori_, that if these animals were able to articulate,

they would employ simple words to express simple ideas. I do not say,

nor do I think, that they would form propositions; but it seems to me

little less than certain that they would use articulate sounds, as

they now use natural or conventional tones and gestures, to express

such ideas as they now express in either of these ways. For instance,

it would involve the exercise of no higher psychical faculty to say

the word “Come,” than it does to pull at a dress or a coat to convey

the same idea; or to utter the word “Open,” instead of mewing in a

conventional manner before a closed door; or, yet again, to utter the

word “Bone,” than to select and carry a card with the word written

upon it. If this is so, we must conclude that the only reason why the

higher Mammalia do not employ simple words to convey simple ideas, is

that which we may term an accidental reason, so far as their psychology

is concerned; it is an anatomical reason, depending merely on the

structure of their vocal organs not admitting of articulation.[83]

 

Of course at this point my attention will be called to the case of

talking birds; for it is evident that in them we have the anatomical

conditions required for speech, though assuredly occurring at a

most unlikely place in the animal series; and therefore these

animals may be properly adduced to test the validity of my _a

priori_ inference—namely, that if the more intelligent brutes could

articulate, they would make a proper use of simple verbal signs.

Let it, however, be here remembered that birds are lower in the

psychological scale than dogs, or cats, or monkeys; and, therefore,

that the inference which I drew touching the latter need not

necessarily be held as applying also to the former. Nevertheless, it

so happens that even in the case of these psychologically inferior

animals the evidence, such as it is, is not opposed to my inference: on

the contrary, there is no small body of facts which goes to support it

in a very satisfactory manner. A consideration of this evidence will

now serve to introduce us to the fourth and last case presented in the

programme at the beginning of this chapter, or the case of articulation

with attribution of the meaning understood as attaching to the words.

 

* * * * *

 

Taking, first, the case of proper names, it is unquestionable that

many parrots know perfectly well that certain names belong to certain

persons, and that the way to call these persons is to call their

appropriate names. I knew a parrot which used thus to call its mistress

as intelligently as any other member of the household; and if she went

from home for a day, the bird became a positive nuisance from its

incessant calling for her to come.

 

And in a similar manner talking birds often learn correctly to assign

the names of other pet animals kept in the same house, or even the

names of inanimate objects. There can thus be no question as to the use

by talking birds of proper names and noun-substantives.

 

With respect to adjectives, Houzeau very properly remarks that the

apposite manner in which some parrots habitually use certain words

shows an aptitude correctly to perceive and to name qualities as well

as objects. Nor is this anything more than we might expect, seeing, on

the one hand, as already shown, that animals possess generic ideas of

many qualities, and, on the other, that an obvious quality is as much

a matter of immediate observation—and so of sensuous association—as

is the object of which it may happen to be a quality.

 

Again, it is no less certain that many parrots will understand the

meaning of active and passive verbs, whether as uttered by others

or by themselves. The request to “Scratch Poll” or the announcement

“Poll is thirsty,” when intentionally used as signs, show as true an

appreciation of the meaning of verbs—or rather, let us say, of verbal

signs indicative of actions and states—as is shown by the gesture-sign

of a dog or a cat in pulling one’s dress to indicate “come,” or mewing

before an open door to signify “open.”

 

But not only may talking birds attach appropriate significations

to nouns, adjectives, and verbs; they may even use short sentences

in a way serving to show that they appreciate—not, indeed, their

grammatical structure—but their applicability as a whole to particular

circumstances.[84] But this again is not a matter to excite surprise.

For all such instances of the apposite use of words or phrases by

talking birds are found on inquiry to be due, as antecedently we should

expect that they must, to the principle of association. The bird hears

a proper name applied to a person, and so, on learning to say the name,

henceforth associates it with that person. And similarly with phrases.

These with talking birds are mere vocal gestures, which in themselves

present but little more psychological significance than muscular

gestures. The verbal petition, “Scratch poor poll,” does not in itself

display any further psychological development than the significant

gesture already alluded to of depressing the head against the bars

of the cage; and similarly with all cases of the appropriate use of

longer phrases. Thus, supposing it to be due to association alone, a

verbal sign of any kind is not much more remarkable, or indicative of

intelligence, than is a gesture sign, or a vocal sign of any other

kind. The only respect in which it differs from such other signs is in

the fact that it is wholly arbitrary or conventional; and although,

as I have previously said, I do consider this an important point of

difference, I am not at all surprised that even the intelligence of a

bird admits of such special associations being formed, or that a wholly

arbitrary sign of any kind should here be acquired by this means, and

afterwards used as a sign.

 

And that the verbal signs used by talking birds are due to association,

and association only, all the evidence I have met with goes to prove.

As showing how association acts in this case, I may quote the following

remarks of Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.S., on his own parrot, which he

carefully observed. He says that when alone this bird used to “utter a

long catalogue of its sayings, more especially if it heard talking at a

distance, as if wishing to join in the conversation, but at other times

a particular word or phrase is only spoken when suggested by a person

or object. Thus, certain friends who have addressed the bird frequently

by some peculiar __EXPRESSION__, or the whistling of an air, will always

be welcomed by the same words or tune, and as regards myself, when I

enter the house—for my footstep is recognized—the bird will repeat

one of my sayings. If the servants enter the room Poll will be ready

with one of their __EXPRESSION__s, and in their own tone of voice. It is

clear that there is a close association in the bird’s mind between

certain phrases and certain persons or objects, for their presence or

voice at once suggests some special word. For instance, my coachman,

when coming for orders, has so often been told half-past two, that no

sooner does he come to the door than Poll exclaims, ‘Half-past two.’

Again, having at night found her awake, and having said, ‘Go to sleep,’

if I have approached the cage after dark the same words have been

repeated. Then, as regards objects, if certain words have been spoken

in connection with them, these are ever afterwards associated together.

For example, at dinner time the parrot, having been accustomed to have

savory morsels given to her, I taught her to say, ‘Give me a bit.’ This

she now constantly repeats, but only and appropriately at dinner-time.

The bird associates the __EXPRESSION__ with something to eat, but, of

course, knows no more than the infant the derivation of the words she

is using. Again, being very fond of cheese, she easily picked up the

word, and always asks for cheese towards the end of the dinner course,

and at no other time. Whether the bird attaches the word to the true

substance or not I cannot say, but the time of asking for it is always

correct. She is also fond of nuts, and when these are on the table

she utters a peculiar squeak; this she has not been taught, but it is

Poll’s own name for nuts, for the sound is never heard until the fruit

is in sight. Some noises which she utters have been obtained from the

objects themselves, as that of a cork-screw at the sight of a bottle of

wine, or the noise of water poured into a tumbler on seeing a bottle of

water. The passage of the servant down the hall to open the front door

suggests a noise of moving hinges, followed by a loud whistle for a

cab.”[85]

 

Concerning the accuracy of these observations I have no doubt, and I

could corroborate most of them were it necessary. It appears, then,

first, that talking birds may learn to associate certain words with

certain objects and qualities, certain other words or phrases with the

satisfaction of particular desires and the observation of particular

actions; words so used we may term vocal-gestures. Second, that they

may invent sounds of their own contriving, to be used in the same

way; and that these sounds may be either imitative of the objects

designated, as the sound of running fluid for “Water,” or arbitrary, as

the “particular squeak” that designated “Nuts.” Third, but that in a

much greater number of cases the sounds (verbal or otherwise) uttered

by talking birds are imitative only, without the animals attaching to

them any particular meaning. The third division, therefore, we may

neglect as presenting no psychological import; but the first and second

divisions require closer consideration.

 

In designating as “vocal gestures”[86] the correct use (acquired by

direct association) of proper names, noun-substantives, adjectives,

verbs, and short phrases, I do not mean to disparage the faculty which

is displayed. On the contrary, I think this faculty is precisely

the same as that whereby children first learn to talk; for, like

the parrot, the infant learns by direct association the meanings of

certain words (or sounds) as denotative of certain objects, connotative

of certain qualities, expressive of certain desires, actions, and

so on. The only difference is that, in a few months after its first

commencement in the child, this faculty develops into proportions far

surpassing those which it presents in the bird, so that the vocabulary

becomes much larger and more discriminative. But the important thing

to attend to is that at first, and for several months after its

commencement, the vocabulary of a child is always designative of

particular objects, qualities, actions, or desires, and is acquired

by direct association. The distinctive peculiarity of human speech,

which elevates it above the region of animal gesticulation, is of

later growth—the peculiarity, I mean, of using words, no longer as

stereotyped in the framework of special and direct association, but as

movable types to be arranged in any order that the meaning before the

mind may dictate. When this stage is reached, we have the faculty of

predication, or of the grammatical formation of sentences which are

no longer of the nature of vocal gestures, designative of particular

objects, qualities, actions, or states of mind: but vehicles for the

conveyance of ever-changing thoughts.

 

We shall presently see that this distinction between the naming and

the predicating phases of language is of the highest importance in

relation to the subject of the present treatise; but meanwhile all we

have to note is that the naming phase of spoken language occurs—in

a rudimentary form, indeed, but still unquestionably—in the animal

kingdom; and that the fact of its doing so is not surprising, if

we remember that in this stage language is nothing more than vocal

gesticulation. Psychologically considered, there is nothing more

remarkable in the fact that a bird which is able to utter an articulate

sound should learn by association to use that sound as a conventional

sign, than there is that it should learn by association similarly to

use a muscular action, as it does in the act of depressing its head

as a sign to have it scratched. Therefore we may now, I think, take

the position as established _a posteriori_ as well as _a priori_, that

it is, so to speak, a mere accident of anatomy that all the higher

animals are not able thus far to talk; and that, if dogs or monkeys

were able to do so, we have no reason to doubt that their use of words

and phrases would be even more extensive and striking than that which

occurs in birds. Or as Professor Huxley observes, “a race of dumb

men, deprived of all communication with those who could speak, would

be little indeed removed from the brutes. The moral and intellectual

differences between them and ourselves would be practically infinite,

though the naturalist should not be able to find a single shadow even of specific structural difference.