Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

In answer to this question I must begin by reminding the reader, that during the course of the present chapter I have endeavoured to make good the following positions. First, that in the absence of articulation, or of the power of forming verbal signs, the faculty of language is not likely to have made much advance in the animal kingdom. Second, seeing that words are essentially less ideographic, as well as more precise than gestures—and, therefore, more available for the purpose both of expressing and constructing abstract ideas,—I do not think it is probable that in the absence of articulation the human race would have made much psychological advance upon the anthropoid apes. Third, that although gesture language is not so efficient a means of developing abstract ideation as is articulate language, it must nevertheless have been of much service in assisting the growth of the latter; so that where the power of articulation was present, both systems of sign-making would have co-operated in the development of abstract thought: in the presence of articulation, gestures would themselves gain additional influence in this respect.

From these data there follows the important consequence that only from some species of ape which possessed the requisite anatomical conditions could the human mind have taken its origin. In other words, the above considerations are adduced to show the futility of arguing that, if the human mind has been developed in virtue of the sign-making faculty as this is exemplified in speech, we might therefore have expected that from the same starting-point (namely, the anthropoid apes) some comparably well-elaborated mind should have been developed in virtue of the sign-making faculty as this is exemplified in gesture. I maintain that we can see very good reason why (even if we suppose all the other conditions parallel) the branch of the Primates which presented the power—or the potentiality—of articulation should have been able to rise in the psychological scale, as we evolutionists believe that it has risen; while all the companion branches, being restricted in their language to gesture, should have remained in their original condition.

To this it may be answered that the talking birds might be looked to as the possible—or even probable—rivals of articulating mammals in respect of potential intelligence; and, therefore, that according to the views which I am advocating, it might have been expected that there should now be existing upon the earth some race of bird-like creatures ready to dispute the supremacy of man.

This, however, would be a very shallow criticism. The veriest tyro in natural science is aware that, if there is any truth at all in the general theory of descent, we are everywhere compelled to see that the conditions which determine the development of a species in any direction are always of a complex character. Why one species should remain constant through inconceivably enormous lapses of geological time, while others pass through a rich and varied history of upward change—why this should be so in any case we cannot say. We can only say, in general terms, that the conditions which in any case determine upward growth or stationary type are too numerous and complex to admit of our unravelling them in detail. Now, if this is the case even as between the structures of allied types—where there may be nothing to indicate the difference of the conditions which have led to the difference of results,—much more must it be the case between animals so unlike as a parrot and an ape. I think he would be a bold man who would affirm that even if the orang-outang had been able to articulate, this ape would necessarily, or probably, have become the progenitor of another human race. Absurd, then, it is to argue that, if the human race sprang from some other species of man-like creature, and became human in virtue of the power of articulation plus all the other conditions external and internal, therefore the talking birds ought to have developed some similar progeny, merely because they happen to satisfy one of these conditions.

Take a fair analogy. Flying is no doubt a very useful faculty to all animals which present it, and it is shown to be mechanically possible in animals so unlike one another as Insects, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals. We might therefore suppose that, from the fact of bats being able to fly, many other mammals should have acquired the art. But, as they have not done so, we can only say that the reason is because the complex conditions leading to the growth of this faculty have been satisfied in the bats alone. Similarly “the flight of thought” is a most useful faculty, and it has only been developed in man. One of the conditions required for its development—power of articulation—occurs also in a few birds. But to argue from this that these birds ought to have developed the faculty of thought, would be just as unwarrantable as to argue that some other mammals ought to have developed the faculty of flight, seeing that they all present the most important of the needful conditions—to wit, bones and muscles actuated by nerves. Indeed, the argument would be even more unwarranted than this; for we can see plainly enough that the most important conditions required for the development of thought are of a psychological and social kind—those which are merely anatomical being but of secondary value, even though, as I have endeavoured to indicate, they are none the less indispensable.

In short, I am not endeavouring to argue that the influence of articulation on the development of thought is in any way magical. Therefore, the mere fact that certain birds are able to make articulate sounds in itself furnishes no more difficulty to my argument than the fact that they are able to imitate a variety of other sounds. For the psychological use of articulate sounds can only be developed in the presence of many other and highly complex conditions, few if any of which can be shown to obtain among birds. If any existing species of anthropoid ape had proved itself capable of imitating articulate sounds, there might have been a little more force in the apparent difficulty; though even in that case the argument would not have been so strong as in the above parallel with regard to the great exception furnished by bats in the matter of flight.

So far, then, as we have yet gone, I do not anticipate that opponents wall find it prudent to take a stand. Seeing that monkeys use their voices more freely than any other animals in the way of intentionally expressive intonation; that all the higher animals make use of gesture signs; that denotative words are (psychologically considered) nothing more than vocal gestures; that, if there is any psychological interval between simple gesticulation and denotative articulation, the interval is demonstrably bridged in the case alike of talking birds, infants, and idiots;—seeing all these things, it is evident that opponents of the doctrine of mental evolution must take their stand, not on the faculty of articulation, but on that of speech. They must maintain that the mere power of using denotative words implies no real advance upon the power of using denotative gestures; that it therefore establishes nothing to prove the possibility, or even the probability, of articulation arising out of gesticulation; that their position can only be attacked by showing how a sign-making faculty, whether expressed in gesticulation or in articulation, can have become developed into the faculty of predication; that, in short, the fortress of their argument consists, not in the power which man displays of using denotative words, but in his power of constructing predicative propositions. This central position, therefore, we must next attack. But, before doing so, I will close the present chapter by clearly defining the exact meanings of certain terms as they will afterwards be used by me.

By the indicative stage of language, or sign-making, I will understand the earliest stage that is exhibited by intentional sign-making. This stage corresponds to the divisions marked four and six in my representative scheme (p. 88), and, as we have now so fully seen, is common to animals and human beings. Indicative signs, then, whether in the form of gestures, tones, or words, are intentionally significant. For the most part they are expressive of emotional states, and simple desires. When, for example, an infant holds out its arms to be taken by the nurse, or points to objects in order to be taken to them, it cannot be said to be naming anything; yet it is clearly indicating its wants. Infants also cry intentionally, or as a partly conventional sign to show discomfort, whether bodily or mental.[92] They will likewise at an early age learn wholly conventional signs whereby to indicate—though not yet to name—particular feelings, objects, qualities, and actions. My son, for instance, was taught by his nurse to shake his head for “No,” nod it for “Yes,” and wave his hand for “Ta-ta,” or leave-taking: all these indicative gestures he performed well and appropriately when eight and a half months old. This indicative stage of language, or sign-making, is universally exhibited by all the more intelligent animals, although not to so great an extent as in infants. The parrot which depresses its head to invite a scratching, the dog which begs before a wash-stand, the cat which pulls one’s clothes to solicit help for her kittens in distress—all these animals are making what I call indicative signs.

Following upon the indicative stage of language there is what I have called denotative (7 A in the scheme on p. 88). This likewise occurs both in animals and in children when first beginning to speak—talking birds, for instance, being able to learn and correctly use names as notæ, or marks, of particular objects, qualities, and actions. Yet such notæ—be they verbal or otherwise—thus learned by special association, are not, strictly speaking, names. By the use of such a sign the talking bird merely affixes a vocal mark to a particular object, quality, or action: it does not extend the sign to any other similar objects, qualities, or actions of the same class; and, therefore, by its use of that sign does not really connote anything of the particular object, quality, or action which it denotes.

So much, then, for signs as denotative. By signs as connotative, I mean signs which are in any measure attributive. If we call a dog Jack, that is a denotative name: it does not attribute any quality as belonging to that dog. But if we call the animal “Smut,” or “Swift,” or by any other word serving to imply some quality which is distinctive of that dog, we are thereby connoting of the dog the fact of his presenting such a quality. Connotative names, therefore, differ from denotative, in that they are not merely notæ or marks of the things named, but also imply some character, or characters, as belonging to those things. And the character, or characters, which they thus imply, by the mere fact of implication, assign the things named to a group: hence these connotative names are con-notæ, or the marking of one thing along with another—i.e. express an act of nominative classification. This is an important fact to remember, because, as we shall afterwards find, all connotative terms arise from the need which we experience of thus verbally classifying our perceptions of likeness or analogy. Moreover, it is of even still more importance to note that such verbal classification may be either receptual or conceptual. For instance, the first word (after Mamma, Papa, &c.) that one of my children learnt to say was the word Star. Soon after having acquired this word, she extended its signification to other brightly shining objects, such as candles, gas-lights, &c. Here there was plainly a perception of likeness or analogy, and hence the term Star, from having been originally denotative, began to be also connotative. But this connotative extension of the term must evidently have been what I term receptual. For it is impossible to suppose that at that tender age the child was capable of thinking about the term as a term, or of setting the term before the mind as an object of thought, distinct from the object which it served to name. Therefore, we can only suppose that the extension of this originally denotative name (whereby it began to be connotative) resembled the case of a similar extension mentioned in the last chapter, where my parrot raised its originally denotative sign for a particular dog to an incipiently connotative value, by applying that sign to all other dogs. That is to say, both in the case of the child and the bird, connotation within these moderate limits was rendered possible by means of receptual ideation alone. But, with advancing age and developing powers, the human mind attains to conceptual ideation; and it is then in a position to constitute the names which it uses themselves objects of thought. The consequence is that connotation may then no longer represent the merely spontaneous expression of likeness receptually perceived: it may become the intentional expression of likeness conceptually thought out. In the mind of an astronomer the word Star presents a very different mass of connotative meaning from that which it presented to the child, who first extended it from a bright point in the sky to a candle shining in a room. And the reason of this great difference is, that the conceptual thought of the astronomer, besides having greatly added to the connotation, has also greatly improved it. The only common quality which the name served to connote when used by the child was that of brightness; but, although the astronomer is not blind to this point of resemblance between a star and a candle, he disregards it in the presence of fuller knowledge, and will not apply the term even to objects so much more closely resembling a star as a comet or a meteor. Now, this greater accuracy of connotation, quite as much as the greater mass of it, has been reached by the astronomer in virtue of his powers of conceptual thought. It is because he has thought about his names as names that he has thus been able with so much accuracy to define their meanings—i.e. to limit their connotations in some directions, as well as to extend them in others.