Animal Life and Intelligence

by C. Lloyd Morgan

We name the isolates; that is, we apply to each an arbitrary symbol to stand for the isolated quality or relation. All words (except the obviously onomatopoetic, such as "bow-wow," "cuckoo," etc.) are arbitrary symbols associated with objects, or qualities, or relations, or other phenomena. And abstract names of isolates are, so to speak, the pegs on which we hang the qualities we have separated by analysis and isolation, while class-names are pegs upon which we can hang a group of similars reached by the process of isolation; for all classing and grouping of objects, or qualities, or relations involves, so far as the process is a conscious one, the principle of analysis. In classing objects, we group them in reference to certain characters which they have in common, disregarding certain other characters in which they differ. We group together, for example, sights, or sounds, or smells, and distinguish them from each other and from tastes and touches. And then we go further, and class all these together as sensations having certain characteristics in common whereby they are distinguished from perceptions of relation and so forth.

Perhaps it may be objected that classification comes much earlier in the mental process than I am now putting it. It may be said that the recognition of a sensation as a touch, or a smell, or a sound involves a classification of sensations in these categories, and that the simple perception of an orange involves the placing of the object in this class of bodies. And, undoubtedly, we have here the germs of the process. Sensation and perception give us the materials for classification; the perception of similarity and difference gives us the sine quâ non of the process. Nevertheless, although there may be an earlier unconscious grouping of phenomena, it is only when the mind is specially directed to these materials, with the object of grouping them according to their similarities, that we can speak of classification proper—conscious and intentional classification, as opposed to unconscious grouping. And this involves the intentional selection of the points of similarity, and discarding or neglecting the points of difference. It involves the process of analysis or isolation. There is a vast difference between the perceptual recognition of objects as similar, and conceptual classification on grounds of similarity. Just as the recognition of a sensation as now and not then, or here and not there, or as due to something outside us, gives us the germs from which, on ultimate analysis, our ideas of time, space, and causation are reached; so does the recognition of these sensations as of this kind and not that give us the germ from which, on analysis, the process of classification may arise. True, conscious, scientific classification is late in development.

And here let us notice that the conclusions we have reached in this chapter are the outcome of analysis and classification. The sensations with which we started are isolates. In considering their quality, intensity, sequence, we were isolating and classifying these special modes of their existence. Localization and outward projection involved isolation. We simply see the orange before us. To understand and explain how we come to see it as we do see it involves a somewhat subtle analysis. We perceive it to be yellow, round, resistant; and then, isolating these qualities, we reach conceptions of yellowness, roundness, and resistance, quite apart from oranges. Throughout our description the terms we used were very largely terms denoting classified isolates.

Lastly, having enormously increased our knowledge by this process of isolation, we proceed to build in the knowledge thus gained to the structure of our constructs. This is the third and last stage in construction. The first stage is the formation of indefinite constructs by immediate association; the second is the definition of constructs by examination; and the third is the completion of constructs by synthesis.

And the further this process of analysis and isolation is carried, the more we are, so to speak, floated off from the immediate objects of sense into the higher regions of abstract thought. Furthermore, by recombining our isolates in new modes and under new relations, we reach the splendid results of constructive imagination.

In the brief description which I have now given of our mental processes, I have for the most part avoided certain terms which are current in the science of psychology. It will be well here to say a few words concerning these words and their use. The process of sensation is sometimes defined as the mere reception of a sense-stimulus. But it is more convenient, and more in accordance with common usage, to call the simple result of a stimulus an impression, and to apply the term "sensation" to the discrimination and recognition of the impressions as of such and such a quality. Sensation, then, is the reception and discrimination of impressions which result from certain modes of influence (stimuli) brought to bear on our organization. Viewed in this way, therefore, even sensation involves a distinct reaction of the mind; it implies the first stage of mental activity. But when the sensations are given objective significance, when they suggest the existence of an object-world without us, they enter the field of perception. Here the discriminated sense-impression is, to use the words of Mr. Sully, "supplemented by an accompaniment or escort of revived sensations, the whole aggregate of actual and revived sensations being solidified or integrated into the form of a percept; that is, an apparently immediate apprehension or cognition of an object now present in a particular locality or region of space."[FV] Throughout the whole process of the formation of constructs by immediate association, and their definition by examination, we were dealing with perception and percepts. But when we reach the stage when particular qualities were isolated, then we enter the field of conception. The isolates are concepts. Class-names, reached through processes involving isolation, stand for concepts. And completed constructions, involving synthesis of the results of analysis, contain conceptual elements. The word "concept," however, is used in different senses by different authors. Mr. Sully says,[FW] for example, "A concept, otherwise called a general notion, or a general idea, is the representation in our minds answering to a general name, such as 'soldier,' 'man,' 'animal.'... Thus the concept 'soldier' is connected in my mind with the representations of various individual soldiers known to me. When I use the word 'soldier,' ... what is in my mind is a kind of composite image formed by the fusion or coalescence of many images of single objects, in which individual differences are blurred, and only the common features stand out distinctly.... This may be called a typical or generic image." But Noiré, quoted by Professor Max Müller,[FX] taking another illustration, says, "All trees hitherto seen by me leave in my imagination a mixed image, a kind of ideal presentation of a tree. Quite different from this is my concept, which is never an image." I follow Noiré; and I hold that the image, in so far as it is an image, whether simple or composite,[FY] is a percept; but that, in so far as there enter into the idea of the soldier or the tree elements which have been isolated by analysis, just in so far does the word "soldier" or "tree" stand for a concept. How far a word stands for a percept, and how far there enter conceptual elements, depends to a large extent on the level of intelligence of the hearer. The moment educated and intellectual folk begin to think about their words, or the objects for which they stand, conceptual elements are sure to crowd in.

There is one more feature of these mental processes in man, and that by no means the least important, that remains for brief consideration. I began by saying that the primary end and object of the reception of the influences of the external world, or environment, is to enable the organism to answer to them in activity. We saw that the sight of an orange suggests, through association, its taste; and that the validity of the association could be verified by going to the orange and tasting it. We saw, too, that when I heard a dog howl in the street, and, going to the window, saw a small boy with a stone in his hand, I concluded that he was going to throw it at the dog. What I wish now to elicit is that out of perceptions through association there arise certain expectations, and that the activities of organisms are moulded in accordance with these expectations.

It is clear that these expectations or anticipations belong partly to the presentative or constructive order, and partly to the reconstructive or representative order. They are in some cases directly suggested by the presentations of sense; they are also built up out of representations which have become associated with the constructs in memory and through experience. But what we have here especially to notice about them is that, in the latter case, they involve more or less distinctly the element which we, in the language of our developed thought, call causation. There is a sequence of events, and the perception of certain of these gives rise, through association and experience, to an expectation of certain succeeding phenomena. Expectations are, therefore, the outcome of the linked nature of phenomena. And when we come eventually to think about the phenomena, and how they are linked together into a chain (successional) or web (coexistent), we reach the conception of causation as the connecting thread. In early stages of the mental process, such a conception does not emerge. Nevertheless, the phenomena are perceived as linked or woven. And the mental process by which we pass from any perceived event or existence to other preceding, concomitant, or subsequent events or existences linked or woven with it in the chain or web of phenomena, we call inference.[FZ] When, for example, I find a footprint in the sand, I infer that a man has passed that way; and when the clouds are heaped up heavy and black, I infer that a storm is about to burst upon us.

Concerning inference, of which I shall have more to say in the next chapter, I have now to note that it is of two kinds: first, perceptual inference, or inference from direct experience; secondly, conceptual inference, or inference based on experience, but reached through the exercise of the reasoning faculties. The latter involves the process of analysis or isolation; the former does not. There is a marked difference between the two. Perceptual inferences are the outcome of practical experience, but do not go beyond such practical experience. Conceptual inferences are also based on experience, but they predict occurrences never before experienced. Perceptual inferences, again, deal with matters practically; but conceptual thought explains them.

The expectation of a storm when the thunder-clouds are heavy is a case of perceptual inference. It is the outcome of a long-established association, and is not reached by a process of reasoning involving an analysis of the phenomena. But if, though the sky is clear, a west wind and a rapidly falling barometer lead me to predict rain, the inference is conceptual, and gained by me or for me by a process of reasoning; for the barometer was the outcome of the analysis of phenomena. In the mind of the rough sailor-lad, however, the fall of the mercury and the succeeding storm may be connected by mere perceptual inference, the phenomena being simply associated together. If, however, there is any attempt at explanation, correct or incorrect, there is so far a conceptual element. In a little fishing-village on our south coast, a benevolent lady presented the fishermen with a Fitzroy barometer. I happened shortly after to remark to one of the men that the summer had been unusually stormy. "Yes, sir," he said, "it has. But then, you see, the weather hasn't no chance against that new glass." Here there was an attempted explanation of the phenomena. The falling glass was conceived as somehow causing bad weather.