Mental Evolution in Man 28

Mental Evolution in Man 28

What is the difference between a recept and a concept? I cannot

answer this question more clearly or concisely than in the words of

the writer in the _Dublin Review_ before quoted. “The difference

is all the difference between seeing two things united, and seeing

them _as united_.” The difference is all the difference between

perceiving relations, and perceiving the relations _as related_, or

between cognizing a truth, and recognizing that truth _as true_. The

diving bird, which avoids a rock and fearlessly plunges into the sea,

unquestionably displays a receptual knowledge of certain “things,”

“relations,” and “truths;” but it does not know any of them _as such_:

although it knows them, it does not _know that it knows them_: however

well it knows them, it does not _think_ them, or regard the things,

the relations, and the truths which it perceives as _themselves the

objects of perception_. Now, over and above this merely receptual

knowledge, man displays conceptual, which means that he _is_ able to do

all these things that the bird cannot do: in other words, he is able

to set before his mind all the recepts which he has in common with the

bird, to think about them _as_ recepts, and by the mere fact, or in the

very act of so doing, to convert them into concepts. Concepts, then,

differ from recepts in that they are recepts which have themselves

become objects of knowledge, and the condition to their taking on

this important character is the presence of self-consciousness in the

percipient mind.[103]

 

I have twice stated the distinction as clearly as I am able; but, in

order to do it the fullest justice, I will now render it a third time

in the words of Mr. Mivart—some of whose terms I have borrowed in

the above paragraph, and therefore need not now repeat. He begins by

conveying the distinction as it was stated by Buffon, thus:—

 

“Far from denying feelings to animals, I concede to them everything

except thought and reflection.... They have sensations, but no

faculty of comparing them with one another, that is to say they have

not the power which produces ideas”—_i.e._ products of reflection.

Then, after alluding to Buffon’s views on the distinction between

“automatic memory” and “intellectual memory” (_i.e._ the distinction

which I have recognized in the Diagram attached to my previous work by

calling the former “memory” and the latter “recollection”), Mr. Mivart

adds:—“The distinction is one quite easy to perceive. That we have

automatic memory, such as animals have, is obvious: but the presence

of intellectual memory may be made evident by searching our minds (so

to speak) for something which we have fully remembered before, and

thus intellectually remember to have known, though we cannot now bring

it before the imagination. And as with memory, so with other of our

mental powers, we may, I think, distinguish between a higher and a

lower faculty of each; between our higher, self-conscious, reflective

mental acts—the acts of our intellectual faculty—and those of our

merely sensitive power. This distinction I believe to be one of the

most fundamental of all the distinctions of biology, and to be one

the apprehension of which is a necessary preliminary to a successful

investigation of animal psychology.”[104]

 

Were it necessary, I could quote from his work, entitled _Lessons from

Nature_, sundry further passages expressing the same distinction in

other words; but I have already been careful, even to redundancy, in

presenting this distinction, not only because it is the distinction

on which Mr. Mivart rests his whole argument for the separation of

man from the rest of the animal kingdom as a being unique in kind;

but still more because it is, as he is careful to point out, the one

real distinction which has hitherto always been drawn by philosophers

since the time of Aristotle. And, as I have already observed, it is

a distinction which I myself fully recognize, and believe to be the

most important of all distinctions in psychology. The only point of

difference, therefore, between my opinions and those—I will not say of

Mr. Mivart, but—of any other or possible opponent who understands the

psychology of this subject, is on the question whether, in view of the

light which has now been shed on psychology by the theory of evolution,

this important distinction is to be regarded as one of degree or as

one of kind. I shall now proceed to unfold the reasons which lead me

to differ on this point from Mr. Mivart, and so from all the still

extensive school of which he is, in my opinion, much the ablest

spokesman.

 

* * * * *

 

We have seen that the distinction in question consists in the presence

or absence of the faculty now fully explained, of reflective thought,

and that of this faculty the simplest manifestation is, as alleged

by my opponents, that which is afforded by “judgment.” But we have

also seen that this faculty of judgment does not first appear in

predication, unless we extend the term so as to embrace all acts

of denomination. In other words, we have seen that judgment first

arises with conception—and necessarily so, seeing that neither of

these things can occur without the other, but both arise as direct

exhibitions of that faculty of self-conscious or reflective thought of

which they are everywhere the immediate __EXPRESSION__. I will, therefore,

begin with a careful analysis of conceptual judgment.

 

We must first recur to the distinctions set forth at the close of the

last chapter, where it was shown that, without any prejudice to the

question touching the distinction between man and brute, there are five

different stages of intentional sign-making to be recognized—namely,

the indicative, the denotative, the connotative, the denominative, and

the predicative. From what has now been said regarding the essentially

predicative nature of all conceptual names, we may disregard the last

of these distinctions, and consider the denominative phase of language

as psychologically identical with the predicative. Similarly, we may

now neglect the indicative phase, as one which bears no relation to the

matters at present before us. Thus we have to fasten attention only

upon the differences between the denotative, the connotative, and the

denominative phases of language. This has already been done in general

terms; but must now be done in more detail. And for the sake of being

clear, even at the risk of being tedious, I will begin by repeating the

important distinctions already explained.

 

When a parrot calls a dog _Bow-wow_ (as a parrot, like a child, may

easily be taught to do), the parrot may be said, in one sense of

the word, to be _naming_ the dog; but it is not _predicating_ any

characters as belonging to a dog, or performing any act of _judgment_

with regard to a dog. Although the bird may never (or but rarely) utter

the name save when it sees a dog, this fact is attributable to the

laws of association acting only in the receptual sphere: it furnishes

no shadow of a reason for supposing that the bird _thinks_ about a

dog _as_ a dog, or sets the concept Dog before its mind as a separate

object of thought. Therefore, all my opponents must allow that in one

sense of the word there may be names without concepts: whether as

gestures or as words (vocal gestures), there may be signs of things

without these signs presenting any vestige of predicative value. Names

of this kind I have called _denotative_: they are marks affixed to

objects, qualities, actions, &c., by receptual association alone.

 

Next, when a denotative name has been formed and applied as the mark of

one thing, its use may be extended to denote also another thing, which

is seen to belong to the same class or kind. When denotative names

are thus extended, they become what I have called _connotative_. The

degree to which such classificatory extension of a denotative name may

take place depends, of course, on the degree in which the mind is able

to take cognizance of resemblances or analogies. Now, these degrees

are as various as are the degrees of intelligence itself. Long before

the differential engine of Conception has come to the assistance of

Mind, both animals and human beings (as previously shown) are able to

go a long way in the distinguishing of resemblances, or analogies, by

means of receptual ideation alone. When such receptual discrimination

is expressed by the corresponding extension of denotative names, the

degree of connotation which such names may thus acquire depends upon

the degree of this receptual discrimination. Even my parrot was able to

extend its denotative name for a particular dog to any other dog which

it happened to see—thus precisely resembling my child, who extended

its first denotative word _Star_ to a candle. Connotation, then, begins

in the purely receptual sphere of ideation; and although in man it is

afterwards carried up into the conceptual sphere, it is obviously most

imperative for the purposes of this analysis to draw a distinction

between connotation as receptual and as conceptual.

 

This distinction I have drawn by assigning the word _denomination_

to all connotation which is of a truly conceptual nature—or to the

bestowing of names _consciously recognized as such_. And I have just

shown that when connotation is thus denominative or conceptual, it is

psychologically the same as predication. Therefore it is only in this

denominative sense of the word, or in cases where conceptual ideation

is concerned, that an act of naming involves an act of judgment,

strictly so called.

 

Such being the psychological standing of the matter, it is evident

that the whole question before us is narrowed down to a clearing up

of the relations that obtain between connotation as receptual and

conceptual—or between connotation, that is, and connotation that is

not, denominative. To do this I will begin by quoting an instance of

un-denominative or receptual connotation in the case of a young child.

 

“There is this peculiar to man—the sound which has been associated in

his case with the perception of some particular individual is called up

again, not only at the sight of absolutely similar individuals, but

also by the presence of individuals strikingly different, though in

some respects comprised in the same class. In other words, analogies

which do not strike animals strike men. The child says _Bow-wow_,

first to the house-dog, then, after a little, he says _Bow-wow_ to

the terriers, mastiffs, and Newfoundlands he sees in the street. A

little later he does what an animal never does, he says _Bow-wow_ to a

paste-board dog which barks when squeezed, then to a paste-board dog

which does not bark, but runs on wheels, then to the silent motionless

bronze dog which ornaments the drawing-room, then to his little cousin

who runs about the room on all fours, then, at last, to a picture

representing a dog.”[105]

 

Now, in this small but typical history we have a clear exhibition, in a

simple form, of the development of a connotative name within the purely

receptual sphere. At first the word _Bow-wow_ was merely a denotative

name—or a mark affixed to a particular object of perception. But

when the child’s mind took cognizance of the resemblances between

the house-dog, terriers, mastiffs, and Newfoundlands, it expressed

the fact by extending the name _Bow-wow_ to all these dogs. The

name, from being particular, thus became generic, or indicative of

_resemblances_; and, therefore, from being merely denotative, became

truly connotative: it now served to express _common attributes_. Next,

this receptual connotation of the name was still further widened, so

as to include—or to signify—the resemblances between dogs and their

images, pictures, &c. Now, in these several and successive acts of

connotative naming, the child was obviously advancing to higher and

higher levels of receptual classification; but, no less obviously, it

would be absurd to suppose that the child was thus raising the name

_Bow-wow_ to any _conceptual_ value. All that any child in such a case

is doing is to extend its receptual appreciation of resemblance through

widening circles of generic grouping, and correspondingly to extend

the receptual connotation of a denotative name. In order to do this

(within the limits that we are now considering), there is no need for

any introspective regarding of the name as a name: there is no need to

contemplate the widening connotation of the name: there is no need to

_judge_, to _define_, to _denominate_. Such classification as is here effected can be effected within the region of receptual consciousness alone (as we well know from the analogous case of the parrot, and the“practical inferences” of the lower animals generally);