30. Signs and Names.
The co-ordination of names and signs with numbers calls for a few general remarks on co-ordination of this nature.
The possibility of carrying out the formal operations effected in one of the groups upon the co-ordinated group itself facilitates to an extraordinary extent the practical shaping of the reality for definite purposes. If by counting we have ascertained that a group of people numbers sixty, we can infer without actually executing the steps that it is possible to form these men in six rows of ten, or in five rows of twelve, or in four rows of fifteen, but that we cannot obtain complete rows if we try to arrange them in sevens or elevens. These and numberless other peculiarities we can learn of the group of men from its amount, that is, from its co-ordination with the numerical group of sixty. In co-ordination, therefore, we have a means of acquainting ourselves with facts without having to deal directly with the corresponding realities.
It is clear that men will very soon notice and avail themselves of so enormous an advantage for the mastery and shaping of life. Thus, we see the process of co-ordination in general use among the most primitive men. Even the higher animals know how to utilize co-ordination consciously. When the dog learns to answer to his name, when the horse responds to the "Whoa" and the "Gee" of his driver there is in each case a co-ordination of a definite action or series of actions, that is, of a concept with a sign, or, in other words, of a concept with a member of another group; and in this there need not be the least similarity between the things co-ordinated with each other. The only requirement is that on the one hand the co-ordinated sign should be easily and definitely expressed and be to the point, and that, on the other hand, it should be easily "understood," that is, comprehended by the senses and unmistakably differentiated from other signs co-ordinated with other things.
Thus, we find that the most frequent concepts of co-ordinated sound signs form the beginnings of language in the narrower sense. It is very difficult to ascertain for what reasons the particular forms of sound signs have been chosen, nor is it a matter of great importance. In the course of time the original causes have disappeared from our consciousness and the present connection is purely external. This is evident from the enormous difference of languages in which hundreds of different signs are employed for the same concept.
Now it would be quite possible to solve the problem of co-ordinating with each group of concepts a corresponding group of sounds, so that each concept should have its own sound, or, in other words, that the co-ordination should be unambiguous. It would not by any means be beyond human power to accomplish this, if it were not for the fact that the concepts themselves are still in so chaotic a state as they are at present. We have seen that the attempts of Leibnitz and Locke to draw up a system of concepts, if only in broad outline, have undergone no further development since. Even the most regulated concepts as well as the familiar concepts of daily life are in ceaseless flux, while the co-ordinated signs are comparatively more stable. But they, too, undergo a slow change, as the history of languages shows, and in accordance with quite different laws from those which govern the change of concepts. The consequence is that in language the co-ordination of concepts and words is far from being unambiguous. The science of language designates the presence of several names for the same concept and of several concepts for the same name by the words synonym and homonym. These forms, which have arisen accidentally, signify so many fundamental defects of language, since they destroy the principle of unambiguity upon which language is based. In consequence of the false conception of its nature we have until now positively shrunk from consciously developing language in such a way that it should more and more approach the ideal of unambiguity. Such an ideal is in fact scarcely known, much less recognized.