Mental Evolution in Man 51

Mental Evolution in Man 51

If the term “predication” is extended from a conceptual proposition

to a sentence-word, it thereby becomes deprived of that distinctive

meaning upon which alone the whole argument of my opponents is reared.

For, when used by a young child (or primitive man), sentence-words

require to be supplemented by gesture-signs in order to particularize

their meaning, or to complete the “predication.” But, where such is

the case, there is no longer any psychological distinction between

_speaking_ and _pointing_: if this is called predication, then the

predicative “category of language” has become identified with the

indicative: man and brute are conceded to be “brothers.”

 

Take an example. At the present moment I happen to have an infant who

has not yet acquired the use of any one articulate word. Being just

able to toddle, he occasionally comes to grief in one way or another;

and when he does so he seeks to communicate the nature of his mishap

by means of gesture-signs. To-day, for instance, he knocked his head

against a table, and forthwith ran up to me for sympathy. On my asking

him where he was hurt, he immediately touched the part of his head in

question—_i.e._ _indicated_ the painful spot. Now, will it be said

that in doing this the child was _predicating_ the seat of injury? If

so, all the distinctive meaning which belongs to the term predicating,

or the only meaning on which my opponents have hitherto relied, is

discharged. The gesture-signs which are so abundantly employed by the

lower animals would then also require to be regarded as predicatory,

seeing that, as before shown at considerable length, they differ in no

respect from those of the still speechless infant.

 

Therefore, whether my opponents allow or disallow the quality of

predication to sentence-words, alike and equally this argument

collapses. Their only logical alternative is to vacate their argument

altogether; no longer to maintain that “Speech is the Rubicon of Mind,”

but to concede that, as between the indicative phase of language which

we share with the lower animals, and the truly predicative phase which

belongs only to man, there is no distinction of kind to be attributed;

seeing that, on the contrary, whether we look to the psychogenesis of

the individual or to that of the race, we alike find a demonstrable

continuity of evolution from the lowest to the highest level of the

sign-making faculty.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV.

 

THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY (_continued_).

 

 

In the last chapter we have been concerned with the philology of

predication. In the present chapter I propose to consider the philology

of conception. Of course the distinction is not one that can be very

sharply drawn, because, as fully shown in my chapter on Speech, every

concept embodies a judgment, and therefore every denominative term is a

condensed proposition. Nevertheless, as my opponents have laid so much

stress on full or formal predication, as distinguished from conception,

I have thought it desirable, as much as possible, to keep these two

branches of our subject separate. Therefore, having now disposed of

all opposition that can possibly be raised on the ground of formal

predication, I will conclude by throwing the light of philology on the

origin of material predication, or the passage of receptual denotation

into conceptual denomination, as this is shown to have occurred in the

pre-historic evolution of the race.

 

It will be remembered that, under my analysis of the growth of

predication, much more stress has been laid in the last chapter than in

previous chapters on what I have called the protoplasm of predication

as this occurs in the hitherto undifferentiated “sentence-word.”

While treating of the psychology of predication in the chapter on

Speech, I did not go further back in my analysis than to point out

how the “nascent” or “pre-conceptual” propositions of young children

are brought about by the mere apposition of denotative terms—such

apposition having been shown to be due to sensuous association when

under the guidance of the “logic of events.” But when I came to deal

with the philology of predication, it became evident that there

was even an earlier phase of the faculty in question than that of

apposing denotative terms by sensuous association. For, as we have so

recently seen, philologists have proved that even before there were

any denotative terms respectively significant of objects, qualities,

actions, states, or relations, there were sentence-words which combined

in one vague mass the meanings afterwards apportioned to substantives,

adjectives, verbs, prepositions, &c., with the consequence that the

only kind of apposition which could be called into play for the purpose

of indicating the particular significance intended to belong to such

a word on particular occasions, was the apposition of gesture-signs.

Now, I had two reasons for thus postponing our consideration of what

is undoubtedly the earliest phase of articulate sign-making. In the

first place, it seemed to me that I might more easily lead the reader

to a clear understanding of the subject by beginning with a phase of

predication which he could most readily appreciate, than by suddenly

bringing him into the presence of a germ-like origin which is far

from being so readily intelligible. But over and above this desire

to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar, I had, in the second

place, a further and a better reason for not dealing with the ultimate

germ of articulate sign-making so long as I was dealing only with the

psychology of our subject. This reason was, that in the development of

speech as exhibited by the growing child—which, of course, furnishes

our only material for a study of the subject from a psychological point

of view—the original or germinal phase in question does not appear

to be either so marked, so important, or, comparatively speaking, of

such prolonged duration as it was in the development of speech in the

race. To use biological terms, this the earliest phase in the evolution

of speech has been greatly foreshortened in the ontogeny of mankind,

as compared with what it appears to have been in the phylogeny. The

result, of course, is that we should gain but an inadequate idea of

its importance, were we to estimate it by a merely psychological

analysis of what we now find in the life-history of the individual.

 

It is perfectly true, as Professor Max Müller says, that “if an

English child says ‘Up,’ that _up_ is, to his mind, noun, verb, and

adjective, all in one.” Nevertheless, in a young child, from the very

first, there is a marked tendency to observe the distinctions which

belong to the principal parts of speech. The earliest words uttered

by my own children have always been nouns and proper names, such as

“Star,” “Mamma,” “Papa,” “Ilda,” &c.; and although, later on, some of

these earliest words might assume the functions of adjectives by being

used in apposition with other nouns subsequently acquired (such as

“Mamma-ba,” for a sheep, and “Ilda-ba” for a lamb), neither the nouns

nor the adjectives came to be used as verbs. It has been previously

shown that the use of adjectives is acquired almost as soon as that

of substantives; and although the poverty of the child’s vocabulary

then often necessitates the adjectives being used as substantives,

the substantives as adjectives, and both as rudimentary propositions,

still there remains a distinction between them as object-words and

quality-words. Similarly, although action-words and condition-words

are often forced into the position of object-words and quality-words,

it is apparent that the primary idea attaching to them is that which

properly belongs to a verb. And, of course, the same remarks apply to

relation-words, such as “Up.”

 

Take, for instance, the cases of pre-conceptual predication which

were previously quoted from Mr. Sully, namely, “Bow-wow” = “That is

a dog;” “Ot” = “This milk is hot;” “Dow” = “My plaything is down;”

“Dit ki” = “Sister is crying;” “Dit naughty” = “Sister is naughty;”

“Dit dow ga” = “Sister is down on the grass.” In all these cases it is

evident that the child is displaying a true perception of the different

functions which severally belong to the different parts of speech; and

so far as psychological analysis alone could carry us, there would

be nothing to show that the forcing of one part of speech into the

office of another, which so frequently occurs at this age, is due to

anything more than the exigencies of __EXPRESSION__ where as yet there

are scarcely any words for the conveyance of meaning of any kind.

Therefore, on grounds of psychological analysis alone, I do not see

that we are justified in arguing from these facts that a young child

has no appreciation of the difference between the functions of the

different parts of speech—any more than we should were we to argue

that a grown man has no such appreciation when he extends the meaning

of a substantive (such as “pocket”) so as to embrace the function of

an adjective on the one hand (_e.g._ “pocket-book”), and of a verb on

the other (_e.g._ “he _cannoned_ off the white, and _pocketed_ the

red”). What may be termed this grammatical abuse of words becomes an

absolute necessity where the vocabulary is small, as we well know when

trying to express ourselves in a foreign language with which we are

but slightly acquainted. And, of course, the smaller the vocabulary,

the greater is such necessity; so that it is greatest of all when an

infant is only just emerging from its infancy. Therefore, as just

remarked, on grounds of psychological analysis alone, I do not think

we should be justified in concluding that the first-speaking child has

no appreciation of what we understand by parts of speech; and it is on

account of the uncertainty which here obtains as between necessity and

incapacity, that I reserved my consideration of “sentence-words” for

the independent light which has been thrown upon them by the science of

comparative philology.

 

Now, when investigated by this light, it appears, as already

observed, that the protoplasmic condition of language prior to its

differentiation into parts of speech was of much longer duration in

the race than, relatively speaking, it is in the individual. Moreover,

it appears to have been of relatively much greater importance to the

subsequent development of language. How, then, is this difference

to be explained? I think the explanation is sufficiently simple. An

infant of to-day is born into the medium of already-spoken language;

and long before it is itself able to imitate the words which it hears,

it is well able to understand a large number of them. Consequently,

while still literally an _infant_, the use of grammatical forms is

being constantly borne in upon its mind; and, therefore, it is not at

all surprising that, when it first begins to use articulate signs, it

should already be in possession of some amount of knowledge of their

distinctive meanings as names of objects, qualities, actions, states,

or relations. Indeed, it is only as such that the infant has acquired

its knowledge of these signs at all; and hence, if there is any wonder

in the matter, it is that the first-speaking child should exhibit so

much vagueness as it does in the matter of grammatical distinction.

 

But how vastly different must have been the case of primitive man!

The infant, as a child of to-day, finds a grammar already made to its

use, and one which it is bound to learn with the first learning of

denotative names. But the infant, as an adult in primeval time, was

under the necessity of slowly elaborating his grammar together with his

denotative names; and this, as we have previously seen, he only could

do by the aid of gesture and grimace. Therefore, while the acquisition

of names and forms of speech by infantile man must have been thus in

chief part dependent on gesture and grimace, the acquisition by the

infantile child is now not only independent of gesture and grimace, but

actively inimical to both. The already-constructed grammar of speech

is the evolutionary substitute of gesture, from which it originally

arose; and, hence, so soon as a child of to-day begins to speak,

gesture-signs begin at once to be starved out by grammatical forms. But

in the history of the race gesture-signs were the nursing-mothers of

grammatical forms; and the more that their progeny grew, the greater

must have been the variety of functions which the parents were called

upon to perform. In other words, during the infancy of our race the

growth of articulate language must not only have depended, but also

reacted upon that of gesture-signs—increasing their number, their

intricacy, and their refinement, up to the time when grammatical forms

were sufficiently far evolved to admit of the gesture-signs becoming

gradually dispensed with. Then, of course, Saturn-like, gesticulation

was devoured by its own offspring; the relations between signs appealing to the eye and to the ear became gradually reversed; and, as is now the case with every growing child, the language of formal utterance sapped the life of its more informal progenitor.