mental evolution in men 44
The consideration that it is only those words which were successful
in the struggle for existence that can have become the progenitors
of subsequent language—and therefore the only words that have been
handed down to us as roots—has a still more important bearing upon
another of Professor Max Müller’s generalizations. From the fact
that all his 121 Sanskrit roots are expressive of “general” ideas
(by which term he of course includes what I call generic ideas), he
concludes that from its very earliest origin speech must have been
thus expressive of general ideas; or, in other words, that human
language could not have begun by the naming of particulars: from
the first it must have been concerned with the naming of “notions.”
Now, of course, if any vestige of real evidence could be adduced
to show that this “must have been” the case, most of the foregoing
chapters of the present work would not have been written. For the
whole object of these chapters has been to show, that on psychological
grounds it is abundantly intelligible how the conceptual stage of
ideation may have been gradually evolved from the receptual—the
power of forming general, or truly conceptual ideas, from the power
of forming particular and generic ideas. But if it could be shown—or
even rendered in any degree presumable—that this distinctly human
power of forming truly general ideas arose _de novo_ with the first
birth of articulate speech, assuredly my whole analysis would be
destroyed: the human mind would be shown to present a quality
different in origin—and, therefore, in kind—from all the lower
orders of intelligence: the law of continuity would be interrupted
at the terminal phase: an impassable gulf would be fixed between the
brute and the man. As a matter of fact, however, there is not only no
vestige of any such proof or even presumption; but, as we shall see in
our two following chapters, there is uniform and overwhelming proof
of precisely the opposite doctrine—proof, indeed, so uniform and
overwhelming that it has long ago induced all other philologists to
accept this opposite doctrine as one of the axioms of their science.
Leaving, however, this proof to be adduced in its proper place, I have
now merely to point out the futility of the evidence on which Professor
Max Müller relies.
This evidence consists merely in fact that the “121 original
concepts,” which are embodied in the roots of Aryan speech, are
expressive of “general ideas.” Now, this argument might be worth
considering if there were the smallest reason to suppose that in these
roots of Aryan speech we possess the aboriginal elements of language as
first spoken by man. But as we well know that this is immeasurably far
from being the case, the whole argument collapses. The mere fact that
many words which have survived as roots are words expressive of general
ideas, is no more than we might have antecedently expected. Remembering
that it is a favourable condition to a word surviving as a root that it
should prove itself a prolific parent of other words, obviously it is
those words which were expressive of ideas presenting some degree of
generality that would have had the best chance of thus coming down to
us, even from the comparatively high level of culture which, as we have
seen, is testified to by “the 121 original concepts.” Of course, as I
have already said, the case would have been different if any one were
free to suppose, even as a merely logical possibility, that this level
of culture represented that of primitive man when he first began to
employ articulate speech. But any such supposition is beyond the range
of rational discussion. The 121 concepts themselves yield overwhelming
evidence of belonging to a time _immeasurably remote_ from that of any
speechless progenitor of _Homo sapiens_; and in the enormous interval
(whatever it may have been) many successive generations of words must
_certainly_ have flourished and died.[190]
These remarks are directed to the comparatively few instances of
general ideas which, as a matter of fact, the list of “121 concepts”
presents. As already observed, the great majority of these “concepts”
exhibit no higher degree of “generality” than belongs to what I have
called a “pre-concept,” _i.e._ a “named recept.” But precisely the
same considerations apply to both. For, even supposing that a named
recept was originally a word used only to designate a “particular” as
distinguished from a “generic” idea, obviously it would have stood but
a poor chance of surviving as a root unless it had first undergone a
sufficient degree of extension to have become what I call receptually
connotative. A proper name, for instance, could not, as such, become
a root. Not until it had become extended to other persons or things
of a like class could it have secured a chance of surviving as a
root in the struggle for existence. As a matter of fact, I think it
most probable—not only from general considerations, but also from a
study of the spontaneous names first coined in “baby-language,”—that
aboriginal speech was concerned simultaneously with the naming both of
particular and of generic ideas—_i.e._ of individual percepts and of
recepts. It will be remembered that in Chapter III., while treating of
the Logic of Recepts, I dealt at some length with this subject. Here,
therefore, it will be sufficient to quote the conclusion to which my
analysis led.
“A generic idea is generic because the particular ideas of which
it is composed present such obvious points of resemblance that
they spontaneously fuse together in consciousness; but a general
idea is general for precisely the opposite reason—namely, because
the points of resemblance which it has seized are obscured from
immediate perception, and therefore could never have fused together in
consciousness but for the aid of intentional abstraction, or of the
power of a mind knowingly to deal with its own ideas as ideas. In other
words, the kind of classification with which recepts are concerned is
that which lies nearest to the kind of classification with which all
processes of so called perceptual inference depend—such as mistaking a
bowl for a sphere. But the kind of classification with which concepts
are concerned is that which lies furthest from this purely automatic
grouping of perceptions. Classification there doubtless is in both
cases; but in the one order it is due to the closeness of resemblances
in an act of perception, while in the other it is due to their
remoteness.”[191]
Of course it goes without saying that this “closeness of resemblances
in an act of perception” may be due either to similarities of
sense-perceptions themselves (as when the colour of a ruby is seen
to resemble that of “pigeon’s blood”), or to frequency of their
associations in experience (as when a sea-bird groups together in one
recept the sundry sensations which go to constitute its perception of
water, with its generic classification of water as a medium in which
it is safe to dive). Now, if we remember these things, can we possibly
wonder that the palæontology of speech should prove early roots to
have been chiefly expressive of “generic” as distinguished from
“general” ideas on the one hand, or “particular” ideas on the other?
By failing to observe this real distinction between classification
as receptual and conceptual—_i.e._ as given immediately in the act
of perception itself, or as elaborated of set purpose through the
agency of introspective thought, Professor Max Müller founds his whole
argument on another and an unreal distinction: he everywhere regards
the bestowing of a name as in itself a sufficient proof of conceptual
thought, and therefore constitutes the faculty of denotation,
equally with that of denomination, the distinctive criterion of a
self-conscious mind. But, as we have now so repeatedly seen, such
is certainly not the case. Actions and processes so habitual, or so
immediately apparent to perception, as those with which the great
majority of these “121 concepts” are concerned, do not betoken any
order of ideation higher than the pre-conceptual, in virtue of which
a young child is able to give __EXPRESSION__ to its higher receptual life
prior to the advent of self-consciousness. Or, as Geiger tersely
says:—“In enzelnen Fällen ist die Entstehung von Gattungsbegriffe aus
Mangel an Unterscheidung gleichwohl kaum zu bezweifeln.”[192]
Again, if we look to the still closer analogy furnished by savages, we
meet with a still further corroboration of this view. For instance,
Professor Sayce remarks that in “all savage and barbarous dialects,
while individual objects of sense have a superabundance of names,
general terms are correspondingly rare.” And he gives a number of
remarkable illustrations.[193]
In view of these considerations, my only wonder is that these 120
root-words do not present _better_ evidence of conceptual thought. I
have already given my reasons for refusing to suppose that we have here
to do with the “original” framers of spoken language; and looking to
the comparatively high level of culture which the people in question
must have reached, it seems remarkable that the root-words of their
language should only in so few instances have risen above the level
of pre-conceptual utterance.[194] This, however, only shows how
comparatively small a part self-conscious reflection need play in the
practical life of uncultured man: it does not show that the people
in question were remarkably deficient in this distinctively human
faculty. Archdeacon Farrar tells us that he has observed the whole
conversational vocabulary of certain English labourers not to exceed
a hundred words, and probably further observation would have shown
that the great majority of these were employed without conceptual
significance. Therefore, if these labourers had had to coin their own
words, it is probable that, without exception, their language would
have been destitute of any terms betokening more than a pre-conceptual
order of ideation. Nevertheless, these men must have been capable,
in however undeveloped a degree, of truly conceptual ideation: and
this proves how unsafe it would be to argue from the absence of
distinctively conceptual terms to the poverty of conceptual faculty
among any people whose root-words may have come down to us—although,
no doubt, in such a case we appear to be getting within a comparatively
short distance of the origin of this faculty.
The point, however, now is that really aboriginal, and therefore
purely denotative names, must certainly have been “generic” as well as
“particular”: they must have been the names of recepts as well as of
percepts, of actions as well as of objects and qualities. Moreover, it
is equally certain that among this aboriginal assemblage of denotative
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