Mental Evolution in Man 30

Mental Evolution in Man 30

What, then, are we to say about the faculty of judgment in relation to

these three stages of ideation—namely, the receptual, pre-conceptual,

and conceptual? We can only institute the parallel and consequent

distinction between judgment as receptual, pre-conceptual, and

conceptual.[109] As now so often stated, the distinguishing features of

a judgment as fully displayed in any act of formal predication, are the

bringing together in self-conscious thought of two concepts, and the

distinguishing of some relation between them as such. Therefore we do

not say that a brute judges when, without any self-conscious thought,

it brings together certain reminiscences of its past experience in the

form of recepts, and translates for us the results of its ideation

by the performance of what Mr. Mivart calls “practical inferences.”

Therefore, also, if a brute which is able to name each of two recepts

separately (as is done by a talking bird), were to name the two recepts

simultaneously when thus combined in an act of “practical inference,”

although there would then be the outward semblance of a proposition,

we should not be strictly right in calling it a proposition. It would,

indeed, be the statement of a truth _perceived_; but not the statement

of a truth perceived _as true_.[110]

 

Now, if all this be admitted in the case of a brute—as it must be

by any one who takes his stand on the faculty of true or conceptual

judgment,—obviously it must also be admitted in the case of the

growing child. In other words, if it can be proved that a child is able

to state a truth before it can state a truth as true, it is thereby

proved that in the psychological history of every human being there

is first the incompleted kind of judgment required for dealing with

receptual knowledge, and so for stating truths perceived, and next

the completed judgment, which deals with conceptual knowledge, and so

is enabled to state truths perceived as true. Of course the condition

to the raising of this lower kind of judgment (if for convenience

we agree so to term it) into the higher, is given by the advent of

self-consciousness; and therefore the place where _statement_ of truth

passes into _predication_ of truth must be determined by the place

at which this kind of consciousness first supervenes. Where it does

first supervene we shall presently have to consider. Meanwhile I am

but endeavouring to make clear the fact that, unless my opponents

abandon their position altogether, they must allow that there is

_some_ difference to be recognized between the connotative powers of a

parrot and the connotative powers of a man. But if they do allow this,

they must further allow that between the place where the connotative

powers of a child first surpass those of a parrot, and the place where

those powers first become truly conceptual, there is a large tract of

ideation which it is impossible to ignore. In order, therefore, not

to prejudice the question before us, I have thus far confined myself

to a mere designation of these great and obvious distinctions. But

seeing that even this preliminary step has necessitated a great deal of

explanation, I feel it may conduce to clearness if I end the present

chapter with a tabular statement of the sundry distinctions in question.

 

By _receptual judgments_ I will understand the same order of ideation

as Mr. Mivart expresses by his term “practical inferences of brutes,”

instances of which have already been given in Chapter III.

 

By _pre-conceptual judgments_ I will understand those acts of virtual

or rudimentary judgment which are performed by children subsequent to

the “practical inferences” which they share with brutes, but prior to

the advent of self-conscious reflection. These pre-conceptual judgments

may be expressed either by gestures, connotative classifications, or

by both combined. Some instances of them have already been given in

the present chapter: further and better instances will be given in the

chapters which are to follow.

 

By _conceptual judgments_ I will understand full and complete judgments

in the ordinary acceptation of this term.

 

Receptual judgment, then, has to do with recepts; pre-conceptual

judgment with pre-concepts; and true judgments with true concepts. Or,

conversely stated, receptual knowledge leads to receptual judgment

(_e.g._ when a sea-bird dives into water but alights upon land):

pre-conceptual knowledge leads to pre-conceptual judgment in the

statement of such knowledge (_e.g._ when a child, by extending the name

of a dog to the picture of a dog, virtually affirms, though it does not

conceive, the resemblance which it perceives): and, lastly, conceptual

knowledge leads to conceptual or veritable judgment, in the statement

of such knowledge known as knowledge (_e.g._ when, in virtue of his

powers of reflective thought, a man not only states a truth, but states

that truth as true).

 

* * * * *

 

Thus far I doubt whether my opponents will find it easy to meet me.

They may, of course, cavil at some or all of the above distinctions;

but, if so, it is for them to show cause for complaint. They have

raised objections to the theory of evolution on purely psychological

grounds. I meet their objections upon these their own grounds, and

therefore the only way in which they can answer me is by showing

that there is something wrong in my psychological analysis. This I

fearlessly invite them to do. For all the distinctions which I have

made I have made out of consideration to the exigencies of their

argument. Although these distinctions may appear somewhat bewilderingly

numerous, I do not anticipate that any competent psychologist will

complain of them on account of their having been over-finely drawn.

For each of them marks off an important territory of ideation, and

all the territories so marked off must be separately noted, if the

alleged distinction of kind between one and another is to be seriously

investigated. In his essays upon the theory of evolution, Mr. Mivart

not unfrequently complains of the disregard of psychological analysis

which is betokened by any __EXPRESSION__ of opinion to the effect, that

as between one great territory of ideation and another there is only

a difference of degree. But surely this complaint comes with an ill

grace from a writer who bases an opposite opinion upon a precisely

similar neglect—or upon a bare statement of the greatest and most

obvious of all the distinctions in psychology, without so much as any

attempt to analyze it. Therefore, if my own attempt to do this has

erred on the side of overelaboration, it has done so only on account

of my desire to do full justice to the opposite side. In the result,

I claim to have shown that if it is possible to suggest a difference

of kind between any of the levels of ideation which have now been

defined, this can only be done at the last of them—or where the advent

of self-consciousness enables a mind, not only to _know_, but to _know

that it knows_; not only to _receive_ knowledge, but also to _conceive_

it; not only to _connotate_, but also to _denominate_; not only to

_state a truth_, but also to state that truth _as true_. The question,

therefore, which now lies before us is that as to the nature of this

self-consciousness—or, more accurately, whether the great and peculiar

distinction which this attribute confers upon the human intellect is

to be regarded as a distinction of degree only, or as a distinction of

kind. To answer this question we must first investigate the rise of

self-consciousness in the only place where its rise can be observed,

namely, in the psychogenesis of a child.[111]

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER X.

 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

 

My contention in this chapter will be that, given the protoplasm

of the sign-making faculty so far organized as to have reached the

denotative stage; and given also the protoplasm of judgment so far

organized as to have reached the stage of stating a truth, without the

mind being yet sufficiently developed to be conscious of itself as an

object of thought, and therefore not yet able to state to itself a

truth as true; by a confluence of these two protoplasmic elements an

act of fertilization is performed, such that the subsequent processes

of mental organization proceed apace, and soon reach the stage of

differentiation between subject and object.

 

And here, to avoid misapprehension, I may as well make it clear at the

outset that in all which is to follow I am in no way concerned with

the philosophy of this change, but only with its history. On the side

of its philosophy no one can have a deeper respect for the problem

of self-consciousness than I have; for no one can be more profoundly

convinced than I am that the problem on this side does not admit of

solution. In other words, so far as this aspect of the matter is

concerned, I am in complete agreement with the most advanced idealist;

and hold that in the datum of self-consciousness we each of us possess,

not merely our only ultimate knowledge, or that which only is “real

in its own right,” but likewise the mode of existence which alone the

human mind is capable of conceiving as existence, and therefore the

_conditio sine quâ non_ to the possibility of an external world.

With this aspect of the question, however, I am in no way concerned.

Just as the functions of an embryologist are confined to tracing the

mere history of developmental changes of living structure, and just

as he is thus as far as ever from throwing any light upon the deeper

questions of the how and the why of life; so in seeking to indicate

the steps whereby self-consciousness has arisen from the lower stages

of mental structure, I am as far as any one can be from throwing light

upon the intrinsic nature of that the probable genesis of which I am

endeavouring to trace. It is no less true to-day than it was in the

time of Soloman, that “as thou knowest not how the bones do grow in the

womb of her that is with child, thou knowest not what is the way of the

spirit.”

 

* * * * *

 

If we are agreed that it is only in man that self-consciousness is to

be found at all, it follows that only to man can we look for any facts

bearing upon the question of its development. And inasmuch as it is

only during the first years of infancy that a normal human being is

destitute of self-consciousness, the statement just made implies that

only in infant psychology need we seek for the facts of which we are

in search. Further, as I maintain that self-consciousness arises out

of an admixture of the protoplasm of judgment with the protoplasm of

sign-making (according to the signification of these terms as already

explained), I have now to make good this opinion upon the basis of

facts drawn from the study of infant psychology.

 

Nevertheless, before I proceed to the heart of the subject, I think it

will be convenient to consider those faculties of mind which, occurring

both in the infant and in the animal, in the former case precede the

advent of self-consciousness, and, according to my view, prepare the

way for it.

 

It will, I suppose, on all hands be admitted that self-consciousness

consists in paying the same kind of attention to internal or psychical

processes as is habitually paid to external or physical processes—a

bringing to bear upon subjective phenomena the same powers of

perception as are brought to bear upon the objective. The degrees in

which such attention may be yielded are, of course, as various in the

one case as in the other; but this does not affect my psychological definition of self-consciousness.