Criticism of the negations of this thesis.
That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted. The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivocations and errors.
The first of the equivocations is that of those who observe that one can likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers, ideographic signs, without any word, even pronounced silently and almost insensibly within one; that there are languages in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the written sign also be examined, and so on. But when we said "speak," we intended to employ a synecdoche, by which was to be understood "expression" in general, for we have already remarked that expression is not only so-called verbal expression. It may or may not be true that certain concepts may be thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without expressions.
Others point out that animals, or certain animals, think and reason without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think, whether they be rudimentary men, like savages who refuse to be civilized, rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists maintained, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he does not base himself on such conjectures as to dogs or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal and brutal in man: of the animal side or basis of what we feel in ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the worse, for them. This means that in respect to them also we must talk, not of "nature" as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps larger and stronger in them than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose that animals think and form concepts, what kind of conjecture would justify the assertion that they do so without corresponding expressions? Analogy with man, knowledge of the spirit, human psychology, the instrument of all our conjectures as to animal psychology, would constrain us on the contrary to suppose that if they think in any way, they also somehow speak.
Another objection is derived from human psychology, and indeed literary psychology, to the effect that the concept can exist without the word, for it is certainly true that we all know books well thought and ill written: that is to say, a thought which remains beyond the expression, or notwithstanding faulty expression. But when we talk of books well thought and ill written, we cannot mean anything but that in such books are parts, pages, periods or propositions well thought and well written, and other parts (perhaps the least important) ill thought and ill written, not really thought and so not really expressed. Where Vico's Scienza nuova is really ill written, it is also ill thought. If we pass from the consideration of big books to a short sentence, the error or inaccuracy of such a contention will leap to the eyes. How could a single sentence be clearly thought and confusedly written?
All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts (concepts) in an intuitive form, which is an abbreviated or rather peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to communicate it easily to any other given person or persons. Hence it is incorrect to say that we have the thought without the expression; whereas we should rather say that we have, indeed, the expression, but in such a form that it is not easy to communicate it to others. This, however, is a very variable, relative fact. There are always those who catch our thought on the wing, prefer it in this abbreviated form, and would be wearied by the greater development of it required by others. In other words, the thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but æsthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions, into which different psychological elements enter. The same argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the altogether empirical distinctior between an internal and an external language.
Art and science.
The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together; they meet on one side, which is the æsthetic side. Every scientific work is also a work of art. The æsthetic side may remain little noticed when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to understand the thought of the man of science and to examine its truth. But it is no longer unnoticed when we pass from the activity of understanding to that of contemplation and see that thought either develop itself before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous or insufficient words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes called great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or less fragmentary writers even if their fragments have the scientific value of harmonious, coherent, and perfect works.
We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The fragments, the flashes, console us for the whole, because it is far easier to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work of genius, to liberate the flame latent in the spark, than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon mediocre expression in pure artists? "Mediocribus esse poetis non di, non homines, non concessere columnae" The poet or painter who lacks form, lacks everything, because he lacks himself. Poetical material permeates the souls of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the view which denies all content to art, just the intellectual concept being understood as content. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to "concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of content, but also that it has no content.
Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry.