Mental Evolution in Man 25

Mental Evolution in Man 25

To this it may be answered that the talking birds might be looked to

as the possible—or even probable—rivals of articulating mammals in

respect of potential intelligence; and, therefore, that according to

the views which I am advocating, it might have been expected that there

should now be existing upon the earth some race of bird-like creatures

ready to dispute the supremacy of man.

 

This, however, would be a very shallow criticism. The veriest tyro in

natural science is aware that, if there is any truth at all in the

general theory of descent, we are everywhere compelled to see that

the conditions which determine the development of a species in any

direction are always of a complex character. Why one species should

remain constant through inconceivably enormous lapses of geological

time, while others pass through a rich and varied history of upward

change—why this should be so in any case we cannot say. We can only

say, in general terms, that the conditions which in any case determine

upward growth or stationary type are too numerous and complex to admit

of our unravelling them in detail. Now, if this is the case even as

between the structures of allied types—where there may be nothing

to indicate the difference of the conditions which have led to the

difference of results,—much more must it be the case between animals

so unlike as a parrot and an ape. I think he would be a bold man who

would affirm that even if the orang-outang had been able to articulate,

this ape would necessarily, or probably, have become the progenitor of

another human race. Absurd, then, it is to argue that, if the human

race sprang from some other species of man-like creature, and became

human in virtue of the power of articulation _plus_ all the other

conditions external and internal, therefore the talking birds ought

to have developed some similar progeny, merely because they happen to

satisfy one of these conditions.

 

Take a fair analogy. Flying is no doubt a very useful faculty to all

animals which present it, and it is shown to be mechanically possible

in animals so unlike one another as Insects, Reptiles, Birds, and

Mammals. We might therefore suppose that, from the fact of bats being

able to fly, many other mammals should have acquired the art. But, as

they have not done so, we can only say that the reason is because the

complex conditions leading to the growth of this faculty have been

satisfied in the bats alone. Similarly “the flight of thought” is a

most useful faculty, and it has only been developed in man. One of the

conditions required for its development—power of articulation—occurs

also in a few birds. But to argue from this that these birds ought to

have developed the faculty of thought, would be just as unwarrantable

as to argue that some other mammals ought to have developed the faculty

of flight, seeing that they all present the most important of the

needful conditions—to wit, bones and muscles actuated by nerves.

Indeed, the argument would be even more unwarranted than this; for we

can see plainly enough that the most important conditions required

for the development of thought are of a psychological and social

kind—those which are merely anatomical being but of secondary value,

even though, as I have endeavoured to indicate, they are none the less

indispensable.

 

In short, I am not endeavouring to argue that the influence of

articulation on the development of thought is in any way _magical_.

Therefore, the mere fact that certain birds are able to make articulate

sounds in itself furnishes no more difficulty to my argument than the

fact that they are able to imitate a variety of other sounds. For the

_psychological_ use of articulate sounds can only be developed in the

presence of many other and highly complex conditions, few if any of

which can be shown to obtain among birds. If any existing species

of anthropoid ape had proved itself capable of imitating articulate

sounds, there might have been a little more force in the apparent

difficulty; though even in that case the argument would not have been

so strong as in the above parallel with regard to the great exception

furnished by bats in the matter of flight.

 

So far, then, as we have yet gone, I do not anticipate that opponents

wall find it prudent to take a stand. Seeing that monkeys use their

voices more freely than any other animals in the way of intentionally

expressive intonation; that all the higher animals make use of gesture

signs; that denotative words are (psychologically considered) nothing

more than vocal gestures; that, if there is any psychological interval

between simple gesticulation and denotative articulation, the interval

is demonstrably bridged in the case alike of talking birds, infants,

and idiots;—seeing all these things, it is evident that opponents

of the doctrine of mental evolution must take their stand, not on

the faculty of _articulation_, but on that of _speech_. They must

maintain that the mere power of using denotative words implies no

real advance upon the power of using denotative gestures; that it

therefore establishes nothing to prove the possibility, or even the

probability, of articulation arising out of gesticulation; that their

position can only be attacked by showing how a sign-making faculty,

whether expressed in gesticulation or in articulation, can have become

developed into the faculty of predication; that, in short, the fortress

of their argument consists, not in the power which man displays of

using denotative words, but in his power of constructing predicative

propositions. This central position, therefore, we must next attack.

But, before doing so, I will close the present chapter by clearly

defining the exact meanings of certain terms as they will afterwards be

used by me.

 

By the _indicative_ stage of language, or sign-making, I will

understand the earliest stage that is exhibited by intentional

sign-making. This stage corresponds to the divisions marked four

and six in my representative scheme (p. 88), and, as we have now

so fully seen, is common to animals and human beings. Indicative

signs, then, whether in the form of gestures, tones, or words, are

intentionally significant. For the most part they are expressive of

emotional states, and simple desires. When, for example, an infant

holds out its arms to be taken by the nurse, or points to objects

in order to be taken to them, it cannot be said to be _naming_

anything; yet it is clearly _indicating_ its wants. Infants also cry

_intentionally_, or as a partly conventional sign to show discomfort,

whether bodily or mental.[92] They will likewise at an early age learn

wholly conventional signs whereby to indicate—though not yet to

name—particular feelings, objects, qualities, and actions. My son, for

instance, was taught by his nurse to shake his head for “No,” nod it

for “Yes,” and wave his hand for “Ta-ta,” or leave-taking: all these

indicative gestures he performed well and appropriately when eight and

a half months old. This indicative stage of language, or sign-making,

is universally exhibited by all the more intelligent animals, although

not to so great an extent as in infants. The parrot which depresses its

head to invite a scratching, the dog which begs before a wash-stand,

the cat which pulls one’s clothes to solicit help for her kittens in

distress—all these animals are making what I call _indicative_ signs.

 

Following upon the indicative stage of language there is what I have

called _denotative_ (7 A in the scheme on p. 88). This likewise occurs

both in animals and in children when first beginning to speak—talking

birds, for instance, being able to learn and correctly use names as

_notæ_, or marks, of particular objects, qualities, and actions. Yet

such _notæ_—be they verbal or otherwise—thus learned by special

association, are not, strictly speaking, _names_. By the use of such

a sign the talking bird merely affixes a vocal mark to a particular

object, quality, or action: it does not _extend_ the sign to any

other similar objects, qualities, or actions of the same class; and,

therefore, by its use of that sign does not really _connote_ anything

of the particular object, quality, or action which it _denotes_.

 

So much, then, for signs as _denotative_. By signs as _connotative_,

I mean signs which are in any measure _attributive_. If we call a dog

Jack, that is a denotative name: it does not attribute any quality as

belonging to that dog. But if we call the animal “Smut,” or “Swift,” or

by any other word serving to imply some quality which is distinctive

of that dog, we are thereby connoting of the dog the fact of his

presenting such a quality. Connotative names, therefore, differ from

denotative, in that they are not merely _notæ_ or marks of the things

named, but also imply some character, or characters, as belonging

to those things. And the character, or characters, which they thus

imply, by the mere fact of implication, assign the things named to a

_group_: hence these connotative names are _con-notæ_, or the marking

of one thing _along with_ another—_i.e._ express an act of nominative

_classification_. This is an important fact to remember, because, as

we shall afterwards find, all connotative terms arise from the need

which we experience of thus verbally classifying our perceptions of

likeness or analogy. Moreover, it is of even still more importance

to note that such verbal classification may be either receptual or

conceptual. For instance, the first word (after _Mamma_, _Papa_,

&c.) that one of my children learnt to say was the word _Star_. Soon

after having acquired this word, she extended its signification to

other brightly shining objects, such as candles, gas-lights, &c. Here

there was plainly a perception of likeness or analogy, and hence the

term _Star_, from having been originally denotative, began to be also

connotative. But this connotative extension of the term must evidently

have been what I term receptual. For it is impossible to suppose that

at that tender age the child was capable of thinking about the term

_as_ a term, or of setting the term before the mind as an object of

thought, distinct from the object which it served to name. Therefore,

we can only suppose that the extension of this originally denotative

name (whereby it began to be connotative) resembled the case of a

similar extension mentioned in the last chapter, where my parrot raised

its originally denotative sign for a particular dog to an incipiently

connotative value, by applying that sign to all other dogs. That is to

say, both in the case of the child and the bird, connotation within

these moderate limits was rendered possible by means of receptual

ideation alone. But, with advancing age and developing powers, the

human mind attains to conceptual ideation; and it is then in a position

to constitute the names which it uses _themselves objects of thought_.

The consequence is that connotation may then no longer represent the

merely spontaneous __EXPRESSION__ of likeness receptually perceived: it

may become the intentional __EXPRESSION__ of likeness conceptually thought

out. In the mind of an astronomer the word _Star_ presents a very

different mass of connotative meaning from that which it presented to

the child, who first extended it from a bright point in the sky to a

candle shining in a room. And the reason of this great difference is,

that the conceptual thought of the astronomer, besides having greatly

_added_ to the connotation, has also greatly _improved_ it. The only

common quality which the name served to connote when used by the child

was that of brightness; but, although the astronomer is not blind to

this point of resemblance between a star and a candle, he disregards

it in the presence of fuller knowledge, and will not apply the term

even to objects so much more closely resembling a star as a comet or a

meteor. Now, this greater _accuracy_ of connotation, quite as much as

the greater _mass_ of it, has been reached by the astronomer in virtue

of his powers of conceptual thought. It is because he has thought about

his names _as_ names that he has thus been able with so much accuracy

to define their meanings—_i.e._ to limit their connotations in some

directions, as well as to extend them in others.

 

Obviously, therefore, we are here in the presence of a great

distinction, and one which needs itself to be in some way connoted.

It is, indeed, but a special exhibition of the one great distinction

which I have carried through the whole course of this work—namely,

that between ideation as receptual and conceptual. But it is none the

less important to designate this special exhibition of it by means of

well-defined terms; and I can only express surprise that such should

not already have been done by logicians. The terms which I shall use

are the following.

 

By a connotative name I will understand the connotative extension of

a denotative name, whether such extension be great or small, and,

therefore, whether it be extended receptually or conceptually. But

for the _exclusively conceptual_ extension of a name I will reserve

the convenient term _denomination_. This term, like those previously

defined, was introduced by the schoolmen, and by them was used as

synonymous with connotation. But it is evident that they (and all

subsequent writers) only had before their minds the case of conceptual

connotation, and hence they felt no need of the distinction which

for present purposes it is obviously imperative to draw. Now, I do

not think that any two more appropriate words could be found whereby

to express this distinction than are these words _connotation_ and

_denomination_, if for the purposes of my own subsequent analysis I am

allowed to define them in accordance with their etymology. For, when so

defined, a connotative sign will mean a _classificatory_ sign, whether

conferred receptually or conceptually; while a denominative sign will mean a connotative sign which has been conferred as such _with a truly conceptual intention_—_i.e._ with an introspective appreciation of its function as all that logicians understand by a _name_.