and the reaction which this pain sets up may either suppress the desire or prompt to efforts to avoid or overcome the obstacles in its way. To inquire into these alternatives would lead us into the higher phases of voluntary action; but we must first consider the relation of desire to feeling more closely.

Instances are by no means wanting of very imperious desires accompanied by the clear knowledge that their gratification will be positively distasteful'. On the other hand it is possible to recollect or picture circumstances, known or believed to be intensely pleasurable, without any desire for their realisation being awakened at all: we can recall or admire without desiring. There is then no fixed and invariable connexion between desire and feeling. Yet there are many psychologists who maintain that desire is excited always by the prospect of the pleasure that may arise through its gratification, and that the strength of the desire is proportional to the intensity of the pleasure thus anticipated. Quidquid petitur petitur sub specie boni is their main formula. The plausibility of this doctrine here rests partly upon a seemingly imperfect analysis of what strictly pertains to desire, and partly upon the fact that it is substantially true both of what we may call 'presentation-prompted' action, which belongs to an earlier stage than desire, and of the more or less rational action which belongs to a later. In the very moment of enjoyment it may be fairly supposed that action is sustained mainly by the pleasure received and is proportional to the intensity of that pleasure. But here there is no re-presentation and no seeking; the conditions essential to desire, therefore, do not apply. Again, in rational action, where both are present, it may be true -to quote the words of an able advocate of the view here controverted-that "our character as rational beings is to desire everything exactly according to its pleasure value?" Yet consider what such conceptions as 'the good,' 'pleasure value' and 'rational action' involve. Here we have foresight and calculation, regard for self as an object of permanent interest—in a word, Butler's 'cool self-love'; but desire in this respect is 'blind,' without either the present certainty of sense or the assured prevision of reason. Pleasure in the past, no doubt, has usually

1 As such an instance may be cited Plato's story of Leontius, the son of Aglaion, in Rep. IV. 439 fin.

Bain, Emotions and the Will, 3rd ed. p. 438.

brought about the association between the representation of the desired object and the movement for its realisation; but neither the recollection of this pleasure nor its anticipation is necessary to desire, and even when present they do not determine what urgency it will have. The best proof of this lies in certain habitual desires. Pleasures are diminished by repetition, whilst habits are strengthened by it; if the intensity of desire, therefore, were proportioned to the 'pleasure value' of its gratification, the desire for renewed gratification should diminish as this pleasure grows less; but, if the present pain of restraint from action determines the intensity of desire, this should increase as the action becomes habitual. And observation seems to shew that, unless either prudence suggests the forcible suppression of such belated desires, or the active energies themselves fail, these desires may in fact become more imperious, although less and less productive of positive pleasure, as time goes on.

In this there is, of course, no exception to the general principle that action is consequent on feeling-a greater pleasure being preferred before a less, a less pain before a greater; for, though the feeling that follows upon its satisfaction be less or even change entirely, still the pain of the unsatisfied desire increases as the desire hardens into habit. It is also a point in favour of the position here taken that appetites, which may be compared to inherited desires, certainly prompt to action by present pain rather than by prospective pleasure.

The higher forms of emotion and action belong to the intellective and self-conscious level, to which we now pass, and we must try to treat of them there in due course1.

1 Cf. ch. xvi.

CHAPTER XII

INTELLECTION

Acquisition of Language

§ 1. Desire naturally prompts to the search for the means to its satisfaction and frequently to a mental rehearsal of various possible courses of action, their advantages and disadvantages. Thus, by the time the ideational continuum had become sufficiently developed to furnish free ideas as material for thought, motives were already forthcoming for thinking to begin. It is impossible precisely to determine just when this level was first attained: the advance was too gradual for that. Fitfully, in the excitement aroused by strange and perplexing circumstances, the higher animals give unmistakable signs of intelligence. But thinkingas a permanent activity at least-it may be fairly said, owes its origin to the acquisition of speech.

The elaboration, then, of this indispensable instrument, which more than anything else enables our 'psychological individual' to advance to the distinctly human or rational stage, calls for some preliminary consideration'. We start with gestures and vocal

1 It must here be noted that the higher development of the individual is only possible through intercourse with other individuals, that is to say, through society. Without language we should be mutually exclusive and impenetrable, comparable almost to so many physical atoms; with language each several mind may transcend its own limits and share the minds of others. As a herd of individuals mankind would have a natural history as other animals have; but personality only emerges out of intercourse with persons, and of such intercourse language is the means. But, important for the future development of our 'psychological individual' as this addition of a transparent and responsive world of minds to the dead opaqueness of external things unquestionably is, that development does not cease to be an individual development. The only new point-and it is one to keep in sight-is that the materials of this development no longer consist of nothing but presentations elaborated by a single mind. Still that combination of individual experiences which subordinates individual idiosyncrasy and isolation to the objectivity and solidarity of

utterances, which-though they are now intentional signs-were originally just emotional expressions and nothing more. But some advance became possible so soon as 'the ejective level' of experience was attained', so soon, that is to say, as the individual experient could recognise that within the common environment were other individuals of its own kind. Then the "desire of communication," it is supposed, "impelled men to the production of language" and "turned the instinctive into the intentional." But this transition, we may well believe, was a far more gradual process than such deliberate purpose as 'desire to communicate' implies, and also began far below the level of the human animal : in other words, language was neither invented nor discovered, but throughout has been 'evolved.'

An emotional cry, grimace or gesture is frequently significant to others who already know from past experience the situation that called it forth, though itself emitted in entire ignorance of their presence and without forethought at all. Similarly sounds and antics would be significant none the less to others, because they originated as merely instinctive imitations not intended to 'intimate' anything to anybody. Yet these fortuitous advantages, when realised, would sooner or later be turned to account; and spontaneous utterances which proved to possess meaning, would be 'repeated' intentionally, both to convey it to other persons and to extend it to other cases. So sympathy would become suggestive and mimicry symbolic. In this way the deliberate purpose to communicate would find both the means of communicating and communication itself as a fact, already in existence, and not still needing to be produced. Primitive man would slip into speech without knowing it.

But the mutual converse of brute animals seems entirely to rest upon, and never to go beyond, the spontaneous utterance of 'natural signs". Hence such converse is the same for the same species at all times and in all places; whereas human speech varies indefinitely according to time and place, depends on custom and tradition rather than on nature and heredity. Here, then, there

Universal Mind immediately affects the individual only 'in accordance with psychical laws.' We have no need therefore to overstep our proper domain in studying the advance from the non-rational stage to the stage of reason.

1 Cf. above, ch. ii, § 1, p. 33.

2 Cf. Darwin, Descent of Man, i, pp. 53 f.; R. L. Garner, Gorillas and Chimpanzees, 1896, ch. vi.

seems to be after all a discontinuity which evolution will not bridge. We are not therefore surprised to find Max Müller and others asserting with great confidence and yet with little reason that "language is our Rubicon which no brute will cross"; that otherwise indeed "there would be no precise point where the animal ended and man began." But such continuity is just what evolution, i.e. epigenesis, implies. To suppose that the brute would remain a brute after the acquisition of language, or that man could be man before it, is to miss the meaning of evolution altogether. Though all philological detail is doubtless lost in the obscurity of the remote past, the fact of this gradual advance from natural signs to so-called 'conventional signs' is no longer questioned; and its chief features are tolerably clear.

First of all, but needing only the briefest mention, are the biological traits characteristic of the so-called anthropoid apes, the mammals most nearly related to man. Among them, the sociable and leisurely life that abundance of nutritious food and scarcity of enemies make possible is found along with the erect posture, the mobile face and head, the supple hands perfectly focused by both eyes together, and lastly the voluble voice. A diversity of perceptions and movements on the one hand and a facility of emotional expression on the other, elsewhere unparalleled, are thus ensured. Hence no other animals display such activity, agility, imitativeness, curiosity and impressibility ---save, of course, man himself, who is still more alert, skilful, observant, inquisitive and emotional.

Passing to psychological traits, perhaps the most fundamental is the one just now mentioned-the experient's ability not merely to recognise its kind in general but to distinguish between different individuals within it. This power, we may well suppose, increases steadily with the progress of organic differentiation; for this at the same time enlarges the material to discriminate and

1 Ants occupy an intermediate place in so far as they can distinguish members of their own community from those of other communities of their species; but not till the level of the higher vertebrates is reached have we any clear evidence that one individual is recognised as distinct from another-as ewes and their lambs for example recognise each other in a flock. Strictly speaking, everything that truly is at all, is an individual; yet, as Leibniz long ago remarked, "paradox though it appear, it is never possible for us to know exactly the individuality of anything, for individuality involves infinity" (Nouveaux Essais, 111, iii, § 6). But the very limitation that prevents us from knowing some individuals at all makes our relative discrimination of others adequate for us.