the means of discrimination. In this respect the human race has advanced so far that every man is recognised as sui generis to some extent. In voice, countenance, gait and manner each is so distinctly unique that we say roundly "the style is (that is, indicates) the man." Not only has each his own peculiar way of expressing his feelings but he has also feelings peculiarly his own to express. Because of his curiosity, his sensitiveness and his mobility the occasions for ' utterance' or expression on the part of the primitive man will be numerous; because of his individuality, on the other hand, both the occasions and the utterances will vary somewhat with the man. Different individuals among men, like different species among the lower animals, will be affected by different situations or affected by the same situation in different ways. And as the affections vary so will the responses.

.But does not this suggest a boundless exuberance still further removed from any likeness to intelligible discourse than even the narrow limitations of natural signs: could such 'gift of tongues' ever be more than a Babel? That like the legendary Babel it is really an advance beyond the mere babble and gesture of natural man, Homo alalus, towards the fuller discourse of rational man, Homo sapiens, is what we have now to see. If there were neither general resemblance nor individual constancy in such utterances the case would be hopeless. Some considerable resemblance however is an obvious consequence of the specific organization common to all; and, notwithstanding the seemingly casual nature of each individual's peculiarities there is ample evidence of their persistence, which indeed the mere working of association would lead us to expect. One decisive instance may suffice. The blind deaf-mute, Laura Bridgman, was reported as uttering 'half a score of "noises" designating persons'' as well as nearly thirty others 'expressing her own feelings' and all these sounds, it was added, "so far as the data for comparison exist seem neither to have changed in character or in pantomimic accompaniment...for many years?."

1 To herself, of course, the idea of communicating with others in this way could never have occurred to her. For that purpose she used the manual signs by means of which Dr Howe had rescued her from the utter isolation in which the loss of every sense but touch had left her.

2 G. S. Hall, Mind, O. S. iv. 1879, p. 166. Apparently the number of these 19

W. P.

It is further noteworthy that the communities of primitive man were very small, consisting at most of a few families who wandered and hunted together, and that, as among the lowest savages and the higher apes now, such a community would have a recognised head, probably the strongest and most sagacious of the older males. Again at this level, as Darwin has pointed out, "the principle of imitation, of which we see only traces in the lower animals," will be an important factor in intellectual advancement; and especially so where there is one superior and commanding individual whom all will specially observe, be most likely to understand and most prone to imitate1. The prestige of such a pioneer would, as Tarde has happily pointed out, by holding the rest spell-bound, prevent confusion and make educational progress surer and easier. Finally, even with an average length of life far shorter than our own, the elder, who eventually became a new chief, would usually have had the time as well as the inclination to adopt in the main the ways of his predecessor. Thus linguistic tradition would gradually arise slightly differentiating one small tribe from another, much as public schools nowadays are differentiated by their various slangs2.

Another feature of primitive human intercourse that stands out clearly is the combination of gestures with variously modulated articulations, which is still most pronounced among the most savage races, and steadily diminishes as culture advances. At the beginning, when gesture predominated, the vocal accompaniments were probably almost entirely emotional, as the excessive modulation seems to shew only the gestures were meant to be and were in fact significant. But now these positions are almost completely transposed: the 'word' carries the meaning, is the veritable Móyos, the 'action' is only present where the feeling is

sounds was much greater than President Hall supposed. According to Lieber, who observed her for months together when she was much younger, she had then nearly sixty sounds for persons; and once, when asked how many sounds she recollected straightway produced twenty-seven (Smithsonian Contributions, 1851, ii. p. 26).

1 Cf. Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871, i. pp. 160 f.; Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 1876, pp. 89-102; Tarde, Les Lois de l'Imitation, 1900, pp. 83 ff.

2 46

Sagard, en 1631, comptait que, parmi les Hurons de l'Amerique du Nord, on trouvait difficilement la même langue non seulement dans deux villages, mais même dans deux familles du même village." Tarde, op. cit. p. 278 n., where still other instances are given.

intense1. At the outset that is to say, by motions mainly of the arms and hands-the organs of purposive movement-the most intellectual sense, the sense of sight, was directly appealed to: now by vocalisation movements, primarily the least purposive of any, the sense of hearing, the emotional sense par excellence, is directly addressed. Striking as this transformation is, it is readily explained as the result of economic survival. Just because speech, when it can be understood alone, relieves the guiding sense and its chief instruments, it was sure to supersede gesture—which engaged them both-provided the vocal utterances of each individual were constant in like situations and were also sufficiently varied and distinct in unlike ones. Both these conditions can be fulfilled even when there is no intention of communication, as the case of Laura Bridgman already mentioned and the records about other deaf-mutes2 together place beyond all question.

The possession of the vocal apparatus requisite for such articulation and intonation as those of the human voice is not enough; though the main stress has sometimes been laid on this. Thus Herbart maintained that dogs would speak if they could, and Lotze seemingly agreed, though he inclined to attribute the obstacle to defective hearing rather than to imperfect voice. But the parrot, though almost our equal in mere articulation, cannot express by voice as much of what it feels as a dog can. And surely dogs do speak, though their speech belongs to a stage of evolution far below the human or even the simian level. How much farther, say, the chimpanzee would have advanced, if it had been domesticated like the dog and for as long a time, it would be hard to tell. But no doubt the dog has advanced a long way. "The dog in a wild state," it has been said, "only howls; but when he becomes the friend and companion of man,...his vocabulary, if it may be so called, then increases in order to express [i.e. in consequence of] his enlarged and varied [experiences and] emotions"." And this is the essential point-varied experiences and a characteristic vocal

1 Thus Helen Keller's teacher reported: "She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, as soon as she has words to supply their place." H. Keller: The Story of my Life, p. 317.

2 Cf. Tylor, Early History of Mankind, pp. 72 ff.; Steinthal, "Ueber die Sprache der Taubstummen," Kleine Schriften, i. pp. 34 f.

3 E. Jesse, Anecdotes of Dogs, 1846.

"Von

response for each. Both are forthcoming in abundance through the curiosity and impressibility of the primitive man. Natur aus ist der Mensch eine Resonanz, die ununterbrochen die erhaltenen Eindrücke wiedertönt: schweigen lernt er erst allmälig1." This was the creative onomatopoeia that the Mosaic legend is said to prefigure. For the primitive man, what he calls out, when he sees a thing, comes back to him as the name of the thing, when he sees it again. Even though altogether subjective in origin, it becomes in the course of repeated experiences quite objective in sense. The observation of children bears this out3. Ham or mum (food) is in this respect quite on a par with the directly imitative bow-wow or puff-puff. Thus things that have no sound of their own to imitate may yet 'ring a sound' out of us, and so get names'.

We must be content with this brief attempt to sketch the origin of language, and pass now to what for us is the main question: In what way, when it already exists, is language instrumental in the development as distinct from the communication of thought? But first of all, what in general is thinking, of which language is the instrument?

Distinction between Sense and Understanding

§ 2. In entering upon this inquiry we are really passing one of the most 'hard and fast' lines in the old psychology—that between sense and understanding. So long as a multiplicity of faculties was assumed the need was less felt for a clear exposition of their connexion. A man had senses and intellect much as he had eyes and ears; the heterogeneity in the one case was no more puzzling than in the other. But for psychologists who do not cut the knot in that fashion it is confessedly a hard matter to explain the relation of the two. The contrast of receptivity and

1 Volkmann, Psychologie, 1875, Bd. i. p. 329.

2 Genesis, ii. 19.

3 Cf. "M. Taine on the Acquisition of Language by Children," Mind, O. S. ii. (1877), pp. 252 ff., especially p. 256 fin. Taine's article led to another from C. Darwin, op. cit. pp. 285 ff., cf. especially p. 293.

4 Such is the theory of Steinthal which Max Müller parodied in nicknaming it the ding-dong theory, but which later and abler philologists have treated with marked respect.

293 activity hardly avails; for all presentation involves some activity, and essentially the same activity, that of attention. Nor can we well maintain that the presentations of sense and understanding differ altogether in kind; albeit such a view has been held from Plato downwards. Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit prius in sensu: the blind and deaf are necessarily without some concepts that we possess. If pure being is pure nothing, pure thought is equally empty. Thought involves a certain elaboration of sensory and motor presentations and has no content apart from these. We cannot even say that the forms of this elaboration are psychologically a priori; on the contrary, what is epistemologically the most fundamental is the last to be psychologically realised. This is not only true in fact; it is also true of necessity, inasmuch as the formation of more 'concrete' concepts is an essential preliminary to the formation of others more 'abstract' -those most abstract, like the Kantian categories, &c., being thus the last of all to be thought out or understood. And though this formative work is substantially voluntary, yet, if we enter upon it, the form at each step is determined by the so-called matter, and not by us; in this respect 'the spontaneity of thought' is not really freer than the receptivity of sense1. It is sometimes said that thinking is always synthetic even when the thought is expressed analytically, AB is B—and this is true; but imagining is always merely synthetic. And the processes which yield the ideational train are also the processes employed in intellectual synthesis. Moreover, it would be arbitrary to say, from the simple inspection of their content, at what point the mere generic image ceases and the true concept begins-so continuous are the two2.

No wonder, then, that English psychology has been prone to regard thinking as only a special kind of perception, 'the

1 Locke, so often misrepresented, expressed this truth according to his lights in the following: "The earth will not appear painted with flowers nor the fields covered with verdure whenever we have a mind to it....... Just thus is it with our understanding: all that is voluntary in our knowledge is the employing or withholding any of our faculties from this or that sort of objects and a more or less accurate survey of them" (Essay, IV. xiii. § 2).

2 The latter may be regarded as implicit in the former; and so it remains in what we call the intelligent behaviour of animals. But it is often unconsciously explicated when we endeavour to describe their 'state of mind' using terms appropriate only to our own conduct, as if, that is to say, their images were actually concepts.