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LOGIC OF CONCEPTS.

The device of applying symbols to stand for ideas, and then using the symbols as ideas, operates to the formation of more highly abstract ideas in a manner that is easily seen. For instance, because we observe that a great many objects present a certain quality in common, such as redness, we find it convenient to give this quality a name; and, having done so, we speak of redness in the abstract, or as standing apart from any particular object. Our word “redness” then serves as a sign or symbol of a quality, apart from any particular object of which it may happen to be a quality; and having made this symbolic abstraction in the case of a simple quality, such as redness, we can afterwards compound it with other symbolic abstractions, and so on till we arrive at verbal symbols of more and more abstract or general qualities, as well as qualities further and further removed from immediate perception. Thus, seeing that many other objects agree in being yellow, others blue, and so on, we combine all these abstractions into a still more general concept of Colour, which, quâ more abstract, is further removed from immediate perception—it being impossible that we can ever have a percept answering to the amalgamated concept of colour, although we have many percepts answering to the constituent concepts of colours.

So in the analogous case of objects. The proper names Peter, Paul, John, &c., stand in my mind as marks of my individual concepts: the term Man serves to sum up all the points of agreement between them—and also between all other individuals of their kind—without regard to their points of disagreement: the word Animal takes a still wider range, and so with nearly all words denoting objects. Like words connoting qualities, they may be arranged in rank above rank according to the range of their generality: and it is obvious that the wider this range the further is their meaning withdrawn from anything that can ever have been an object of immediate perception.

We shall afterwards find it is of the highest importance to note that these remarks apply quite as much to actions and states as they do to objects and qualities. Verbs, like nouns and adjectives, may be merely the names of simple recepts, or they may be compounds of other concepts—in either case differing from nouns and adjectives only in that they have to do with actions and states. To sow, to dig, to spin, &c., are names of particular actions; to labour is the name of a more general action; to live is the symbol of a concept yet more general. And it is obvious that here, as previously, the more general concepts are built out of the more special.

Later on I will adduce evidence to show that, whether we look to the growing infant or to the history of mankind as newly unearthed by the researches of the philologist, we alike find that no one of these divisions of simple concepts—namely, nouns, adjectives, and verbs—appears to present priority over the others. Or, if there is any evidence of such priority, it appears to incline in favour of nouns and verbs. But the point on which I desire to fasten attention at present is the enormous leverage which is furnished to the faculty of ideation by thus using words as the mental equivalents of ideas. For by the help of these symbols we climb into higher and higher regions of abstraction: by thinking in verbal signs we think, as it were, with the semblance of ideas: we dispense altogether with the necessity of actual images, whether of precepts or of recepts: we quit the sphere of sense, and rise to that of thought.

Take, for example, another type of abstract ideation, and one which not only serves better than most to show the importance of signs as substitutes for ideas, but also best illustrates the extraordinary results to which such symbolism may lead when carried out persistently. I refer to mathematics. Of course, before the idea of number or of relation can arise at all, the faculty of conception must have made great advances; but let us take this faculty at the point where the artifice of substituting signs for ideas has gone as far as to enable a mind to count by means of simple notation. It would clearly be impossible to conduct the least intricate trains of reasoning which invoke any ideas of number or proportion, were we deprived of the power of attaching particular signs to particular ideas of number. We could not even tell whether a clock had struck eleven or twelve, unless we were able to mark off each successive stroke with some distinctive sign; so that when it is said, as it often is, that an animal cannot count, we must remember that neither could a senior wrangler count if deprived of his symbols. “Man begins by counting things, grouping them visibly [i.e. by the Logic of Recepts]. He then learns to count simply the numbers, in the absence of things, using his fingers and toes for symbols. He then substitutes abstract signs, and Arithmetic begins. From this he passes to Algebra, the signs of which are not merely abstract but general; and now he calculates numerical relations, not numbers. From this he passes to the higher calculus of relations.”

And just as in mathematics the symbols that are employed contain in an easily manipulated form enormous bodies of meaning—possibly, indeed, the entire meaning of a long calculation—so in all other kinds of abstract ideation, the symbols which we employ—whether in gesture, speech, or writing—contain more or less condensed masses of signification. Or, to take another illustration, which, like the last example, I quote from Lewes, “It is the same with the development of commerce. Men begin by exchanging things. They pass to the exchange of values. First money, then notes or bills, is the symbol of value. Finally men simply debit and credit one another, so that immense transactions are effected by means of this equation of equations. The complicated processes of sowing, reaping, collecting, shipping, and delivering a quantity of wheat, are condensed into the entry of a few words in a ledger.”

Thus, without further treatment, it must be obvious that it is impossible for us to over-estimate the importance of Language as the handmaid of Thought. “A sign,” as Sir William Hamilton says, “is necessary to give stability to our intellectual progress—to establish each step in our advance as a new starting-point for our advance to another beyond. … Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us to make every intellectual conquest the basis of operations for others still beyond.” Moreover, thought and language act and react upon one another; so that, to adopt a happy metaphor from Professor Max Müller, the growth of thought and language is coral-like. Each shell is the product of life, but becomes in turn the support of new life. In the same manner each word is the product of thought, but becomes in turn a new support for the growth of thought.

It seems needless to say more in order to show the immense importance of sign-making to the development of ideation—the fact being one of universal recognition by writers of every school. I will, therefore, now pass on to the theme of the present chapter, which is that of tracing in further detail the logic of this faculty, or the method of its development.

From what I have already said, it may have been gathered that the simplest concepts are merely the names of recepts; while concepts of a higher order are the names of other concepts. Just as recepts may be either memories of particular percepts, or the results of many percepts (i.e. sundry other recepts) grouped as a class; so concepts may be either names of particular recepts, or the results of many named recepts (i.e. sundry other concepts) grouped as a class. The word “red,” for example, is my name for a particular recept; but the word “colour” is my name for a whole group of named recepts. And similarly with words signifying objects, states, and actions. Hence, we may broadly distinguish between concepts as of two orders—namely, those which have to do with recepts, and those which have to do with other concepts. For a concept is a concept even though it be nothing more than a named recept; and it is still a concept, even though it stands for the highest generalization of thought. I will make this distinction yet more clear by means of better illustrations.

Water-fowl adopt a somewhat different mode of alighting upon land, or even upon ice, from that which they adopt when alighting upon water; and those kinds which dive from a height (such as terns and gannets) never do so upon land or upon ice. These facts prove that the animals have one recept answering to a solid substance, and another answering to a fluid. Similarly, a man will not dive from a height over hard ground or over ice, nor will he jump into water in the same way as he jumps upon dry land. In other words, like the water-fowl, he has two distinct recepts, one of which answers to solid ground, and the other to an unresisting fluid. But, unlike the water-fowl, he is able to bestow upon each of these recepts a name, and thus to raise them both to the level of concepts. So far as the practical purposes of locomotion are concerned, it is of course immaterial whether or not he thus raises his recepts into concepts; but, as we have seen, for many other purposes it is of the highest importance that he is able to do this. Now, in order to do it, he must be able to set his recept before his own mind as an object of his own thought: before he can bestow upon these generic ideas the names of “solid” and “fluid,” he must have cognized them as ideas. Prior to this act of cognition, these ideas differed in no respect from the recepts of a water-fowl; neither for the ordinary requirements of his locomotion is it needful that they should: therefore, in so far as these requirements are concerned, the man makes no call upon his higher faculties of ideation. But, in virtue of this act of cognition, whereby he assigns a name to an idea known as such, he has created for himself—and for purposes other than locomotion—a priceless possession: he has formed a concept.

Nevertheless, the concept which he has formed is an extremely simple one—amounting, in fact, to nothing more than the naming of one among the most habitual of his recepts. But it is of the nature of concepts that, when once formed, they admit of being intentionally compared; and thus there arises a new possibility in the way of grouping ideas—namely, no longer by means of sensuous associations, but by means of symbolic representations. The names of recepts now serve as symbols of the recepts themselves, and so admit of being grouped without reference to the sensuous perceptions out of which they originally sprang. No longer restricted to time, place, circumstance, or occasion, ideas may now be called up and manipulated at pleasure; for in this new method of ideation the mind has, as it were, acquired an algebra of recepts: it is no longer necessary that the actual recepts themselves should be present to sensuous perception, or even to representative imagination. And as concepts are thus symbols of recepts, they admit, as I have said, of being compared and combined without reference to the recepts which they serve to symbolize. Thus we become able, as it were, to calculate in concepts in a way and to an extent that would be quite impossible in the merely perceptual medium of recepts. Now, it is in this algebra of the imagination that all the higher work of ideation is accomplished; and as the result of long and elaborate syntheses of concepts we turn out mental products of enormous intricacy—which, nevertheless, may be embodied in single words. Such words, for example, as Virtue, Government, Mechanical Equivalent, stand for immensely more elaborated concepts than the words Solid or Fluid—seeing that to the former there are no possible equivalents in the way of recepts.

Hence I say we must begin by recognizing the great reach of intellectual territory which is covered by what are called concepts. At the lowest level they are nothing more than named recepts; beyond that level they become the names of other concepts; and eventually they become the named products of the highest and most complex co-ordinations of concepts which have been achieved by the human mind. By the term Lower Concepts, then, I will understand those which are nothing more than named recepts, while by the term Higher Concepts I will understand those which are compounded of other concepts.

The next thing I wish to make clear is that concepts of the lower order of which I speak, notwithstanding that they are the simplest kind of concepts possible, are already something more than the names of particular ideas: they are the names of what I have called generic ideas, or recepts. We may search through the whole dictionary of any language and not find a single word which stands as a name for a truly particular idea—i.e. for the memory of a particular percept. Proper names are those which most nearly approach this character; but even proper names are really names of recepts (as distinguished from particular percepts), seeing that every object to which they are applied is a highly complex object, presenting many and diverse qualities, all of which require to be registered in memory as appertaining to that object if it is again to be recognized as the same.

Names, then, are not concerned with particular ideas, strictly so called: concepts, even of the lowest order, have to do with generic ideas. Furthermore, the generic ideas with which they have to do are for the most part highly generic: even before a recept is old enough to be baptized—or sufficiently far developed to be admitted as a member of the body conceptual—it is already a highly organized product of ideation. We have seen in the last chapter how wonderfully far the combining power of imagination is able to go without the aid of language; and the consequence of this is, that before the advent of language mind is already stored with a rich accumulation of orderly ideas, grouped together in many systems of logical coherency. When, therefore, the advent of language does take place, it is needless that this work of logical grouping should be recommenced ab initio. What language does is to take up the work of grouping where it has been left by generic ideation; and if it is found expedient to name any generic ideas, it is the more generic as well as the less generic that are selected for the purpose. In short, immense as is the organizing power of the Logos, it does not come upon the scene of its creative power to find only that which is without form and void: rather does it find a fair structure of no mean order of system, shaped by prior influences, and, so far as thus shaped, a veritable cosmos.

Again, all concepts in their last resort depend on recepts, just as in their turn recepts depend on percepts. This fact admits of being abundantly proved, not only by general considerations, but also by the etymological derivation of abstract terms. The most highly abstract terms are derived from terms less abstract, and these from others still less abstract, until, by two or three such steps at the most, we are in all cases led directly back to their origin in a “lower concept”—i.e. in the name of a recept. As I will prove later on, there is no abstract word or general term in any language which, if its origin admits of being traced at all, is not found to have its root in the name of a recept. Concepts, therefore, are originally nothing more than named recepts; and hence it is a priori impossible that any concept can be formed unless it does eventually rest upon the basis of recepts. Owing to the elaboration which it subsequently undergoes in the region of symbolism, it may, indeed, so far cease to bear any likeness to its parentage that it is only the philologist who can trace its lineage. When we speak of Virtue, we need no longer think about a man, nor need we make any conscious reference to the steering of a ship when we use the word Government. But it is none the less obvious that both these highly abstract words have originated in the naming of recepts (the one of an object, the other of an action); and that their subsequent elevation in the scale of generality has been due to a progressive widening of conceptual significance at the hands of symbolical thought. In other words, and to revert to my previous terminology, “higher concepts” can in no case originate de novo: they can only be born of “lower concepts,” which, in turn, are the progeny of recepts.

I must now recur to a point with which we were concerned at the close of the last chapter. I there showed that the kind of classification, or mental grouping of ideas, which goes to constitute the logic of recepts, differs from the mental grouping of ideas which constitutes the logic of concepts, in that while the former has to do with similarities which are most obvious to perception, and therefore with analogies which most obtrude themselves upon attention, the latter have to do with similarities which are least obvious to perception, and therefore with analogies which are least readily apparent to the senses. Classification there is in both cases; but while in the one it depends on the closeness of the resemblances in an act of perception, in the other it is expressive of their remoteness. Now, from this it follows that the more conceptual the classification, the less obvious to immediate perception are the similarities between the things classified; and, consequently, the higher a generalization the greater must be the distance by which it is removed from the merely automatic groupings of receptual ideation.

For example, the earliest classification of the animal kingdom with which we are acquainted, grouped together, under the common designation of “creeping things,” articulata, mollusca, reptiles, amphibia, and even certain mammals, such as weasels, &c. Here, it is evident, the classification reposed only on the very superficial resemblances which are exhibited by these various creatures in their modes of locomotion. As yet conceptual thought had not been directed to the anatomy of animals; and, therefore, when it undertook a classification of animals, in the first instance it went no further than to note the most obvious differences as to external form and movement. In other words, this earliest conceptual classification was little more than the verbal statement of a receptual classification. But when the science of comparative anatomy was inaugurated by the Greeks, a much more conceptual classification of animals emerged—although the importance of anything like a systematic arrangement of the animal kingdom as a whole was so little appreciated that it does not appear to have been attempted, even by Aristotle. For, marvellous as is the advance of conceptual grouping here displayed by him, he confined himself to drawing anatomical comparisons between one group of animals and another; he neither had any idea of group subordinate to group which afterwards constituted the leading principle of taxonomic research, nor does he anywhere give a tabular statement of his own results, such as he could scarcely have failed to give had he appreciated the importance of classifying the animal kingdom as a systematic whole. Lastly, since the time of Ray the best thought of the best naturalists has been bestowed upon this work, with the result that conceptual ideation has continuously ascended through wider and wider generalizations, or generalizations more and more chastened by the intentional and combined accumulations of knowledge. How enormous, then, is the contrast between the first simple attempt at classification as made by the early Jews, and the elaborate body of abstract thought which is presented by the taxonomic science of to-day.

Similar illustrations might be drawn from any of the other departments of conceptual evolution, because everywhere such evolution essentially consists in the achievement of ideal integrations further and further removed from simple perceptions. Or, as Sir W. Hamilton puts it, “by a first generalization we have obtained a number of classes of resembling individuals. But these classes we can compare together, observe their similarities, abstract from their differences, and bestow on their common circumstance a common name. On the second classes we can again perform the same operation, and thus, ascending through the scale of general notions, throwing out of view always a greater number of differences, and seizing always on fewer similarities in the formation of our classes, we arrive at length at the limit of our ascent in the notion of being or existence.”[54]

Now, the point on which I wish to be perfectly clear about is, that this process of conceptual ideation, whereby ideas become general, must be carefully distinguished from the processes of receptual ideation, whereby ideas become generic. For these latter processes consist in particular ideas, which are given immediately in sense perception, becoming by association of similarity or contiguity automatically fused together; so that out of a number of such associated percepts there is formed a recept, without the need of any intentional co-operation of the mind in the matter. On the other hand, a general idea, or concept, can only be formed by the mind itself intentionally classifying its recepts known as such—or, in the case of creating “higher concepts,” performing the same process with its already acquired general ideas, for the purpose of constructing ideas still more general. A generic idea, then, is generalized in the sense that a naturalist speaks of a lowly organism as generalized—i.e. as not yet differentiated into the groups of higher and more specialized structures that subsequently emanate therefrom. But a general idea is generalized in the sense of comprising a group of such higher and more specialized structures, already formed and named under a common designation with reference to their points of resemblance. Classification there is in all cases; but in the receptual order it is automatic, while in the conceptual order it is introspective.

So far as my analysis has hitherto gone, I do not anticipate criticism or dissent from any psychologist, to whatever school he may belong. But there is one matter of subordinate importance which I may here most conveniently dispose of, although my views with regard to it may not meet with universal assent.

It appears to me an obvious feature of our introspective life that we are able to carry on elaborate processes of ideation without the aid of words—or, to put it paradoxically, that we are able to conceive without concepts. I am, of course, aware that this apparently obvious power of being able to think without any mental rehearsal of verbal signs (the verbum mentale of scholasticism) is denied by several writers of good standing—notably, for instance, by Professor Max Müller, who seeks with much elaboration to prove that “not only to a considerable extent, but always and altogether, we think by means of names.”[55] Now this statement appears to me either a truism or untrue: it is either tautological in expression, or erroneous in fact. If we restrict the term “thought” to the operation of naming, it is merely a truism to say that there can be no thought without language; for this is merely to say that there can be no naming without names. But if the term “thought” is taken to cover all processes of ideation which we do not share with brutes, I hold that the statement is opposed to obvious fact; and, therefore, I agree with the long array of logicians and philosophers whom Professor Max Müller quotes as showing what he calls “hesitation” in accepting a doctrine which in his opinion is the inevitable conclusion of Nominalism. For to me it appears evident that within the region of concepts, the frequent handling of those with which the mind is familiar enables the mind to deal with them in somewhat the same automatic manner as, on a lower plane of coordinated action, the pianist deals with his chords and phrases. Whereas at first it required intentional and laborious effort to perform these many varied and complex adjustments, by practice their performance passes more and more out of the range of conscious effort, until they come to be executed in a manner well-nigh mechanical. So in the case of purely mental operations, even of the highest order. At first every link in the chain of ideation requires to be separately fastened to attention by means of a word: every step in a process of reasoning requires to be taken on the solid basis of a proposition. But by frequent habit the thinking faculty ceases to be thus restricted: it passes, so to speak, from one end of the chain to the other without requiring to pause at every link: for its original stepping-stones it has substituted a bridge, over which it can pass almost at a bound. Or, again, to change the metaphor, there arises a method of short-hand thinking, wherein even the symbols of ideas (concepts) need no longer appear in consciousness: judgment follows judgment in logical sequence, yet without any articulate expression by the verbum mentale. This, I say, is a matter of fact which it appears to me a very small amount of introspection is enough to verify. On reading a letter, for instance, we may instantaneously decide upon our answer, and yet have to pause before we are able to frame the propositions needed to express that answer. Or, while writing an essay, how often does one feel, so to speak, that a certain truth stands to be stated, although it is a truth which we cannot immediately put into words. We know, in a general way, that a truth is there, but we cannot supply the vehicle which is to bring it here; and it is not until we have tried many devices, each of which involve long trains of sequent propositions, that we begin to find the satisfaction of rendering explicit in language what was previously implicit in thought. Again, in playing a game of chess we require to take cognizance of many and complex relations, actual and contingent; so that to play the game as it deserves to be played, we must make a heavy demand on our powers of abstract thinking. Yet in doing this we do not require to preach a silent monologue as to all that we might do, and all that may be done by our opponent. Lastly, to give only one other illustration, in some forms of aphasia the patient has lost every trace of verbal memory, and yet his faculties of thought for all the practical purposes of life are not materially impaired.

On the whole, therefore, I conclude that, although language is a needful condition to the original construction of conceptional thought, when once the building has been completed, the scaffolding may be withdrawn, and yet leave the edifice as stable as before. In this way familiar concepts become, as it were, degraded into recepts, but recepts of a degree of complexity and organization which would not have been possible but for their conceptional parentage. With Geiger we may say, “So ist denn überall die Sprache primar, der Begriff entsteht durch das Wort.”[56] Yet this does not hinder that with Friedrich Müller we should add, “Sprechen ist nicht Denken, sondern es ist nur Ausdruck des Denkens.”[57]

With the exception of the last paragraph, my analysis, as already observed, will probably not be impugned by any living psychologist, either of the evolutionary or non-evolutionary schools; for, with the exception of this paragraph, I have purposely arranged my argument so as thus far to avoid debatable questions. And it will be observed that even this paragraph has really nothing to do with the issue which lies before us; seeing that the question with which it deals is concerned only with intellectual processes exclusively human. But now, after having thus fully prepared the way by a somewhat lengthy clearing of preliminary ground, we have to proceed to the question whether it is conceivable that the faculty of speech, with all the elaborate structure of ideation to which it has led, can have arisen by way of a natural genesis from the lower faculties of mind. As we have now seen, it is on all hands agreed that the one and only distinction between human and animal psychology consists in the former presenting this faculty which, otherwise stated, means, as we have likewise seen, the power of translating ideas into symbols, and using these symbols in the stead of ideas.

This, I say, is the one distinction upon which all are agreed; the only question is as to whether it is a distinction of kind or of degree. Since the time when the ancient Greeks applied the same word to denote the faculty of language and the faculty of thought, the philosophical propriety of the identification has become more and more apparent. Obscured as the truth may have become for a time through the fogs of Realism, discussion of centuries has fully cleared the philosophical atmosphere so far as this matter is concerned. Hence, in these latter days, the only question here presented to the evolutionist is—Why has no mere brute ever learnt to communicate with its fellows? Why has man alone of animals been gifted with the Logos? To answer this question we must undertake a somewhat laborious investigation of the philosophy of Language.