Mental Evolution in Man 64
“Dit” is the denotative name of one recept, “ki” the denotative name of
another: the object and the action which these two recepts severally
represent happen to occur together before the child’s observation:
the child, therefore, denotes them simultaneously—_i.e._ brings
them into _apposition_. The apposition in consciousness of these two
recepts, with their corresponding denotations, is thus effected _for_
the child by the logic of events: it is not effected _by_ the child in
the way of any intentional or self-conscious grouping of its ideas,
such as we have seen to be the distinguishing feature of the logic of
concepts. Here, then, comes the dilemma. For I say, either you here
have conceptual judgment, or else you have not. If you say that this
is conceptual judgment, you destroy the basis of your own distinction
between man and brute, because then you must also say that brutes
conceptually judge—the child as yet not having attained to conceptual
self-consciousness. If, on the other hand, you say that here you have
not conceptual judgment, inasmuch as you have not self-consciousness,
I ask at what stage in the subsequent development of the child’s
intelligence you would consider conceptual judgment to arise. Should
you answer that it first arises when conceptual self-consciousness
first supplies the condition to its arising, I must refer you to the
proof already given that the advent of self-consciousness is itself a
gradual process, the precedent conditions of which are supplied far
down in the animal series. But if this is so, where the faculty of
stating a truth perceived passes into the higher faculty of perceiving
the truth as true, there is a continuous series of gradations
connecting the one faculty with the other. Up to the point where this
continuous series of gradations begins, the mind of the child is, as I
have already proved, indistinguishable from the mind of an animal by
any one principle of psychology. Will you, then, maintain that up to
this time the two orders of psychical existence are identical in kind,
but that during its ascent through this final series of gradations the
human intelligence becomes distinct in kind from that of animals, and
_therefore also from its own previous self_? If so, your argument here
ends in a contradiction.
In confirmation of this my general argument, two subsidiary
considerations were then added. The first was that although the
advance to true self-consciousness from lower grades of mental
development is no doubt a very great and important matter, still
it is not so great and important in comparison with what this
development is afterwards destined to become, as to make us feel that
it constitutes any distinction _sui generis_—or even, perhaps, the
principal distinction—between the man and the brute. For even when
self-consciousness does arise, and has become fairly well developed,
the powers of the human mind are still in an almost infantile
condition. In other words, the first genesis of true self-consciousness
marks a comparatively low level in the evolution of the human mind—as
we might expect that it should, if its genesis depends upon, and
therefore lies so near to, those precedent conditions in merely animal
psychology to which I have assigned it. But, if so, does it not
follow that, great as the importance of self-consciousness afterwards
proves to be in the development of distinctively human ideation,
in itself, or in its first beginning, it does not betoken any very
perceptible advance upon those powers of pre-conceptual ideation which
it immediately follows? There is thus shown to be even less reason
for regarding the first advent of conceptual self-consciousness as
marking a psychological difference of kind, than there would be so
to regard the advent of those higher powers of conceptual ideation
which subsequently—though as gradually—supervene between early
childhood and youth. Yet no one has hitherto ventured to suggest that
the intelligence of a child and the intelligence of a youth display a
difference of kind.
The second subsidiary consideration which I adduced was, that even
in the case of a fully developed self-conscious intelligence, both
receptual and pre-conceptual ideation continue to play an important
part. The vast majority of our verbal propositions are made for the
practical purposes of communication, or without the mind pausing to
contemplate the propositions in the light of self-consciousness. No
doubt in many cases, or in those where highly abstract ideation is
concerned, this independence of the two faculties is more apparent
than real: it arises from each having undergone so much elaboration
by the assistance which it has derived from the other, that both are
now in possession of a large body of organized material on which to
operate, without requiring, whenever they are exercised, to build up
the structure of this material _ab initio_. When I say “Heat is a mode
of motion,” I am using what is now to me a mere verbal sign, which
expresses an external fact: I do not require to examine my own ideas
upon the abstract relation which the proposition sets forth, although
for the original attainment of these ideas I had to exercise many and
complex efforts of conceptual thought. But although I hold this to be
the true explanation of the apparent independence of predication and
introspection in all cases of highly abstract thought, I am convinced,
on the ground of adequate reasons given, that in all cases where
those lower orders of ideation are concerned to which I have so often
referred as receptual and pre-conceptual, the independence is not only
apparent, but real. Now, if the reasons which I have assigned for this
conclusion are adequate—and they are reasons sanctioned by Mill,—it
follows that the ideation concerned in ordinary predication becomes so
closely affiliated with that which is expressed in the lower levels
of sign-making, that even if the connecting links were not supplied
by the growing child, no one would be justified, on psychological
grounds alone, in alleging any difference of kind between one level and
another. The object of all sign-making is communication, and from our
study of the lower animals we know that communication first has to do
exclusively with recepts, while from our study of the growing child we
know that it is the signs used in the communication of recepts which
first lead to the formation of concepts. For concepts are first of all
named recepts, known as such; and we have seen in previous chapters
that this kind of knowledge (_i.e._ of names as names) is rendered
possible by introspection, which, in turn, is reached by the naming of
self as an agent. But even after the power of conceptual introspection
has been fully reached, demand is not always made upon it for the
communication of merely receptual knowledge; and therefore it is that
not every proposition requires to be introspectively contemplated as
such before it can be made. Given the power of denotative nomination on
the one hand, and the power of even the lowest degree of connotative
nomination on the other, and all the conditions are furnished to
the formation of non-conceptual statements, which differ from true
propositions only in that they do not themselves become objects of
thought. And the only difference between such a statement when made by
a young child, and the same statement when similarly made by a grown
man, is that in the former case it is not even _potentially_ capable of
itself becoming an object of thought.
* * * * *
The investigation having been thus concluded so far as comparative
psychology was concerned, I next turned upon the subject the
independent light of comparative philology. Whereas we had hitherto
been dealing with what on grounds of psychological analysis alone
we might fairly infer were the leading phases in the development of
distinctively human ideation, we now turned to that large mass of
direct evidence which is furnished by the record of Language, and is
on all hands conceded to render a kind of unintentional record of the
pre-historic progress of this ideation.
The first great achievement of comparative philology has been that of
demonstrating, beyond all possibility of question, that language as
it now exists did not appear ready-made, or by way of any specially
created intuition. Comparative philology has furnished a completed
proof of the fact that language, as we now know it, has been the result
of a gradual evolution. In the chapter on “Comparative Philology,”
therefore, I briefly traced the principles of language growth, so far
as these are now well recognized by all philologists. It was shown,
as a matter of classification, that the thousand or more existing
languages fall into about one hundred families, all the members of each
family being more or less closely allied, while members of different
families do not present evidence of genetic affinity. Nevertheless,
these families admit of being comprised under larger groups or
“orders,” in accordance with certain characteristics of structure, or
type, which they present. Of these types all philologists are agreed
in distinguishing between the Isolating, the Agglutinating, and the
Inflectional. Some philologists make a similar distinction between
these and the Polysynthetic, while all are agreed that from the
agglutinative the Incorporating type has been derived, and from the
inflectional the Analytic.
Passing on from classification to phylogeny, we had to consider the
question of genetic relationship between the three main orders, _inter
se_, and also between the Polysynthetic type and the Agglutinating.
The conflict of authoritative opinion upon this question was shown to
have no bearing upon the subject-matter of this treatise, further than
to emphasize the doctrine of the polyphylectic origin of language—the
probability appearing to be that, regarded as types, both the isolating
and the polysynthetic are equally archaic, or, at all events, that they
have been of equally independent growth. In this connection I adduced
the hypothesis of Dr. Hale, to the effect that the many apparently
independent tongues which are spoken by different native tribes of
the New World, may have been in large part due to the inventions
of accidentally isolated children. The curious correlation between
multiplicity of independent tongues and districts favourable to the
life of unprotected children—in Africa as well as in America—seemed
to support this hypothesis; while good evidence was given to show that
children, if left much alone, do invent for themselves languages which
have little or no resemblance to that of their parents.
Without recapitulating all that was said upon the phases and causes of
linguistic evolution in its various lines of descent, it will be enough
to remind the reader that in every case the result of philological
inquiry is here the same—namely, to find that languages become simpler
in their structure the further they are traced backwards, until we
arrive at their so-called “roots.” These are sometimes represented as
the mysterious first principles of language, or even as the aboriginal
_data_ whose origin is inexplicable. As a matter of fact, however,
these roots are nothing more than the ultimate results of philological
analysis: in no other sense than this can they be supposed “primary.”
Seeing, then, that these roots represent the materials of language
up to the place where the evolution of language no longer admits of
being clearly traced, it is evident that their antecedents, whatever
they may have been, necessarily lie beyond the reach of philological
demonstration, as distinguished from philological inference. This,
of course, is what an evolutionist knows antecedently _must be the
case somewhere_ in the course of any inquiry touching the process of
evolution, wherever he may have occasion to trace it. For the further
he is able to trace it, the nearer must he be coming to the place where
the very material which he is investigating has taken its origin;
and as it is this material itself which furnishes the evidences of
evolution, when it has been traced back to its own origin, the inquiry
reaches a vanishing point. Adopting the customary illustration of a
tree, we might say that when a philologist has traced the development
of the leaves from the twigs, the twigs from the branches, the branches
from the stems, and the stems from the roots, he has given to the
evolutionist all the evidence of evolution which in this particular
line of inquiry is antecedently possible. The germ of ideation out of
which the roots developed must obviously lie beyond the reach of the
philologist as such; and if any light is to be thrown upon the nature
of this germ, or if any evidence is to be yielded of the phases whereby
the germ gave origin to the roots, this must be done by some other
lines of inquiry finding similar germs giving rise to similar products
elsewhere. In the present instance, the only place where we can look
for such parallel processes of evolution is in the case of the growing child, which I have already considered.
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