Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

But not only may talking birds attach appropriate significations to nouns, adjectives, and verbs; they may even use short sentences in a way serving to show that they appreciate—not, indeed, their grammatical structure—but their applicability as a whole to particular circumstances.[84] But this again is not a matter to excite surprise. For all such instances of the apposite use of words or phrases by talking birds are found on inquiry to be due, as antecedently we should expect that they must, to the principle of association. The bird hears a proper name applied to a person, and so, on learning to say the name, henceforth associates it with that person. And similarly with phrases. These with talking birds are mere vocal gestures, which in themselves present but little more psychological significance than muscular gestures. The verbal petition, “Scratch poor poll,” does not in itself display any further psychological development than the significant gesture already alluded to of depressing the head against the bars of the cage; and similarly with all cases of the appropriate use of longer phrases. Thus, supposing it to be due to association alone, a verbal sign of any kind is not much more remarkable, or indicative of intelligence, than is a gesture sign, or a vocal sign of any other kind. The only respect in which it differs from such other signs is in the fact that it is wholly arbitrary or conventional; and although, as I have previously said, I do consider this an important point of difference, I am not at all surprised that even the intelligence of a bird admits of such special associations being formed, or that a wholly arbitrary sign of any kind should here be acquired by this means, and afterwards used as a sign.

And that the verbal signs used by talking birds are due to association, and association only, all the evidence I have met with goes to prove. As showing how association acts in this case, I may quote the following remarks of Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.S., on his own parrot, which he carefully observed. He says that when alone this bird used to “utter a long catalogue of its sayings, more especially if it heard talking at a distance, as if wishing to join in the conversation, but at other times a particular word or phrase is only spoken when suggested by a person or object. Thus, certain friends who have addressed the bird frequently by some peculiar expression, or the whistling of an air, will always be welcomed by the same words or tune, and as regards myself, when I enter the house—for my footstep is recognized—the bird will repeat one of my sayings. If the servants enter the room Poll will be ready with one of their expressions, and in their own tone of voice. It is clear that there is a close association in the bird’s mind between certain phrases and certain persons or objects, for their presence or voice at once suggests some special word. For instance, my coachman, when coming for orders, has so often been told half-past two, that no sooner does he come to the door than Poll exclaims, ‘Half-past two.’ Again, having at night found her awake, and having said, ‘Go to sleep,’ if I have approached the cage after dark the same words have been repeated. Then, as regards objects, if certain words have been spoken in connection with them, these are ever afterwards associated together. For example, at dinner time the parrot, having been accustomed to have savory morsels given to her, I taught her to say, ‘Give me a bit.’ This she now constantly repeats, but only and appropriately at dinner-time. The bird associates the expression with something to eat, but, of course, knows no more than the infant the derivation of the words she is using. Again, being very fond of cheese, she easily picked up the word, and always asks for cheese towards the end of the dinner course, and at no other time. Whether the bird attaches the word to the true substance or not I cannot say, but the time of asking for it is always correct. She is also fond of nuts, and when these are on the table she utters a peculiar squeak; this she has not been taught, but it is Poll’s own name for nuts, for the sound is never heard until the fruit is in sight. Some noises which she utters have been obtained from the objects themselves, as that of a cork-screw at the sight of a bottle of wine, or the noise of water poured into a tumbler on seeing a bottle of water. The passage of the servant down the hall to open the front door suggests a noise of moving hinges, followed by a loud whistle for a cab.”[85]

Concerning the accuracy of these observations I have no doubt, and I could corroborate most of them were it necessary. It appears, then, first, that talking birds may learn to associate certain words with certain objects and qualities, certain other words or phrases with the satisfaction of particular desires and the observation of particular actions; words so used we may term vocal-gestures. Second, that they may invent sounds of their own contriving, to be used in the same way; and that these sounds may be either imitative of the objects designated, as the sound of running fluid for “Water,” or arbitrary, as the “particular squeak” that designated “Nuts.” Third, but that in a much greater number of cases the sounds (verbal or otherwise) uttered by talking birds are imitative only, without the animals attaching to them any particular meaning. The third division, therefore, we may neglect as presenting no psychological import; but the first and second divisions require closer consideration.

In designating as “vocal gestures”[86] the correct use (acquired by direct association) of proper names, noun-substantives, adjectives, verbs, and short phrases, I do not mean to disparage the faculty which is displayed. On the contrary, I think this faculty is precisely the same as that whereby children first learn to talk; for, like the parrot, the infant learns by direct association the meanings of certain words (or sounds) as denotative of certain objects, connotative of certain qualities, expressive of certain desires, actions, and so on. The only difference is that, in a few months after its first commencement in the child, this faculty develops into proportions far surpassing those which it presents in the bird, so that the vocabulary becomes much larger and more discriminative. But the important thing to attend to is that at first, and for several months after its commencement, the vocabulary of a child is always designative of particular objects, qualities, actions, or desires, and is acquired by direct association. The distinctive peculiarity of human speech, which elevates it above the region of animal gesticulation, is of later growth—the peculiarity, I mean, of using words, no longer as stereotyped in the framework of special and direct association, but as movable types to be arranged in any order that the meaning before the mind may dictate. When this stage is reached, we have the faculty of predication, or of the grammatical formation of sentences which are no longer of the nature of vocal gestures, designative of particular objects, qualities, actions, or states of mind: but vehicles for the conveyance of ever-changing thoughts.

We shall presently see that this distinction between the naming and the predicating phases of language is of the highest importance in relation to the subject of the present treatise; but meanwhile all we have to note is that the naming phase of spoken language occurs—in a rudimentary form, indeed, but still unquestionably—in the animal kingdom; and that the fact of its doing so is not surprising, if we remember that in this stage language is nothing more than vocal gesticulation. Psychologically considered, there is nothing more remarkable in the fact that a bird which is able to utter an articulate sound should learn by association to use that sound as a conventional sign, than there is that it should learn by association similarly to use a muscular action, as it does in the act of depressing its head as a sign to have it scratched. Therefore we may now, I think, take the position as established a posteriori as well as a priori, that it is, so to speak, a mere accident of anatomy that all the higher animals are not able thus far to talk; and that, if dogs or monkeys were able to do so, we have no reason to doubt that their use of words and phrases would be even more extensive and striking than that which occurs in birds. Or as Professor Huxley observes, “a race of dumb men, deprived of all communication with those who could speak, would be little indeed removed from the brutes. The moral and intellectual differences between them and ourselves would be practically infinite, though the naturalist should not be able to find a single shadow even of specific structural difference.[87]

We must next briefly consider the remaining feature in the psychology of talking birds to which Dr. Wilks has drawn attention, namely, that of inventing sounds of their own contrivance to be used as designative of objects and qualities, or expressive of desires—sounds which may be either imitative of the things designated, or wholly arbitrary. And this, I think, is a most important feature; for it serves still more closely to connect the faculty of vocal sign-making in animals with the faculty of speech in man. Thus, turning first to the case of a child beginning to speak, as Dr. Wilks points out—and nearly all writers on the philosophy of language have noticed—“baby talk” is to a large extent onomatopoetic. And although this is in part due to an inheritance of “nursery language,” the very fact that nursery language has come to contain so large an element of onomatopœia is additional proof, were any required, that this kind of word-invention appeals with ready ease to the infant understanding. But, on the other hand, no one can have attended to the early vocabulary of any child without having observed a fertile tendency to the invention of words wholly arbitrary. As this spontaneous invention of arbitrary words by young children will be found of importance in later stages of my exposition, I will conclude the present chapter by presenting evidence to show the extent to which, under favourable circumstances, it may proceed. Meanwhile, however, I desire to point out that all such cases of the invention of arbitrary vocal signs by young children differ from the analogous cases furnished by parrots only in that the former are usually articulate, while the latter are usually not so. But this difference is easily explained when we remember that hereditary tendency makes as strongly in the direction of inarticulate sounds in the case of the bird, as in the case of the infant it makes in the direction of articulate.

There still remains one feature in the psychology of talking birds to which I must now draw prominent attention. So far as I can ascertain it has not been mentioned by any previous writer, although I should think it is one that can scarcely have escaped the notice of any attentive observer of these animals. I allude to the aptitude which intelligent parrots display of extending their articulate signs from one object, quality, or action, to another which happens to be strikingly similar in kind. For example, one of the parrots which I kept under observation in my own house learnt to imitate the barking of a terrier, which also lived in the house. After a time this barking was used by the parrot as a denotative sound, or proper name, for the terrier—i.e. whenever the bird saw the dog it used to bark, whether or not the dog did so. Next, the parrot ceased to apply this denotative name to that particular dog, but invariably did so to any other, or unfamiliar, dog which visited the house. Now, the fact that the parrot ceased to bark when it saw my terrier after it had begun to bark when it saw other dogs, clearly showed that it distinguished between individual dogs, while receptually perceiving their class resemblance. In other words, the parrot’s name for an individual dog became extended into a generic name for all dogs. Observations of this kind might no doubt have been largely multiplied, if observers had thought it worth while to record such apparently trivial facts.

In this general survey of articulate language, then, we have reached these conclusions, all of which I take to be established by the evidence of direct and adequate observation.

There are four divisions of the faculty of articulate sign-making to be distinguished:—namely, meaningless imitation, instinctive articulation, understanding words irrespective of tones, and intentional use of words as signs. Cases falling under the first division do not require consideration. Cases belonging to the second, being due to hereditary influence, occur only in infants, uneducated deaf-mutes and idiots. Understanding of words is shown by animals and idiots as well as by infants, and implies, per se, a higher development of the sign-making faculty than does the understanding of tones, or gestures—unless, of course, the latter happen to be of as purely conventional a character as words. And, lastly, concerning the intentional use of words as signs, we have noticed the following facts.