Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

3. The highest class of ideas, which psychologists are unanimous in denying to brutes, and which, therefore, we are justified in regarding as the unique prerogative of man. These are the General, Abstract, and Notional ideas of Locke, or the Concepts just mentioned in the last paragraph. As we have there seen, they differ from recepts—and, a fortiori, from percepts, in that they are themselves the objects of thought. In other words, it is a peculiarity of the human mind that it is able to think about its own ideas as such, consciously to combine and elaborate them, intentionally to develop higher products out of less highly developed constituents. This remarkable power we found—also by common consent—to depend on the faculty of self-consciousness, whereby the mind is able, as it were, to stand apart from itself, to render one of its states objective to others, and thus to contemplate its own ideas as such. Now, we are not concerned with the philosophy of this fact, but only with its history. How it is that such a faculty as self-consciousness is possible; what it is that can thus be simultaneously the subject and the object of thought; whether or not it is conceivable that the great abyss of personality can ever be fathomed; these and all such questions are quite alien to the scope of the present work. All that we have here to do is to analyze the psychological conditions out of which, as a matter of observable fact, this unique peculiarity emerges—to trace the history of the process, and tabulate the results. Well, we have seen that here, again, every one agrees in regarding the possibility of self-consciousness to be given in the faculty of language. Whether or not we suppose that these two faculties are one—that neither could exist without the other, and, therefore, that we may follow the Greeks in assigning to them the single name of Logos,—at least it is as certain as the science of psychology can make it, that within the four corners of human experience a self-conscious personality cannot be led up to in any other way than through the medium of language. For it is by language alone that, so far as we have any means of knowing, a mind is rendered capable of so far fixing—or rendering definite to itself—its own ideas, as to admit of any subsequent contemplation of them as ideas. It is only by means of marking ideas by names that the faculty of conceptual thought is rendered possible, as we saw at considerable length in Chapter IV.

Such, then, was my classification of ideas. And it is a classification over which no dispute is likely to arise, seeing that it merely sets in some kind of systematic order a body of observable facts with regard to which writers of every school are nowadays in substantial agreement. Now, if this classification be accepted, it follows that the question before us is thrown back upon the faculty of language. This faculty, therefore, I considered in a series of chapters. First it was pointed out that, in its widest signification, “language” means the faculty of making signs. Next, I adopted Mr. Mivart’s “Categories of Language,” which, when slightly added to, serve to give at once an accurate and exhaustive classification of every bodily or mental act with reference to which the term can possibly be applied. In all there were found to be seven of these categories, of which the first six are admittedly common to animals and mankind. The seventh, however, is alleged by my opponents to be wholly peculiar to the human species. In other words, it is conceded that animals do present what may be termed the germ of the sign-making faculty; but it is denied that they be able, even in the lowest degree, to make signs of an intellectual kind—i.e. of a kind which consists in the bestowing of names as marks of ideas. Brutes are admittedly able to make signs to one another—and also to man—with the intentional purpose of conveying such ideas as they possess; but, it is alleged, no brute is able to name these ideas, either by gestures, tones, or words. Now, in order to test this allegation, I began by giving a number of illustrations which were intended to show the level that is reached by the sign-making faculty in brutes; next I considered the language of tone and gesture as this is exhibited by man; then I proceeded to investigate the phenomena of articulation, the relation of tone and gesture to words; and, lastly, the psychology of speech. Not to overburden the present summary, I will neglect all the subordinate results of this analysis. The main results, however, were that the natural language of tone and gesture is identical wherever it occurs; but that even when it becomes conventional (as it may up to a certain point in brutes), it is much less efficient than articulate language as an agency in the construction of ideas; and, therefore, that the psychological line between brute and man must be drawn, not at language, or sign-making in general, but at that particular kind of sign-making which we understand by “speech.” Nevertheless, the real distinction resides in the intellectual powers; not in the symbols thereof. So that a man means, it matters not by what system of signs he expresses his meaning. In other words, although I endeavoured to prove that articulation must have been of unique service in developing these intellectual powers, I was emphatic in representing that, when once these powers are present, it is psychologically immaterial whether they find expression in gesture or in speech. In any case the psychological distinction between a brute and a man consists in the latter being able to mean a proposition; and the kind of mental act which this involves is technically termed a “judgment.” Predication, or the making of a proposition—whether by gesture, tone, speech, or writing,—is nothing more nor less than the expression of a judgment; and a judgment is nothing more nor less than the apprehension of whatever meaning it may be that a proposition serves to set forth.

Now, this is admitted by all my opponents who understand the psychology of the subject. Moreover, they allow that if once this chasm of predication were bridged, there would be no further chasm to cross. For it is universally acknowledged that, from the simplest judgment which it is possible to make—and, therefore, from the simplest proposition which it is possible to construct—human intelligence displays an otherwise uninterrupted ascent through all the grades of excellence which it afterwards presents. Here, therefore, we had carefully to consider the psychology of predication. And the result of our analysis was to show that the distinctively human faculty in question really occurs further back than at the place where a mind is first able to construct the formal proposition “A is B.” It occurs at the place where a mind is first able to bestow a name, known as such,—to call A A, and B B, with a cognizance that in so doing it is performing an act of conceptual classification. Therefore, unless we extend the term “judgment” so as to embrace such an act of conceptual naming (as well as the act of expressing a relation between things conceptually named), we must conclude that “the simplest element of thought” is not a judgment, but a concept. It is needless again to go over the ground of this proof; for, although in the course of it I had to point out certain inexcusable errors in psychological analysis on the part of some of my opponents, the proof itself is too complete to admit of any question.

Thus, then, we were brought back to our original distinction between a concept and a recept. But now we were in a position to show that, just as in the matter of conducting “inferences,” so in the matter of making signs, there is an order of ideation that is receptual as well as one that is conceptual. And, more particularly, even in that kind of sign-making which consists in the bestowing of names, ideation of the receptual order may be concerned without any assistance at all from ideation of the conceptual order. In other words, there are names and names. Not every name that is bestowed need necessarily be expressive of a concept, any more than every “inference” that is conducted need necessarily be the result of self-conscious thought. Not only young children before they attain to self-conscious thought, but even talking birds habitually name objects, qualities, actions, and states. Nevertheless, while giving abundant evidence of this fact, I was careful to point out that thus far no argumentative implications of any importance were involved. That a young child and a talking bird should be able thus to learn the names of objects, qualities, &c., by imitation—or even to invent arbitrary names of their own—is psychologically of no more significance than the fact that both the child and the bird will similarly employ gesture-signs or vocal tones whereby to express the simple logic of their recepts. Nevertheless, it is needful in some way to distinguish this non-conceptual kind of naming from that kind which is peculiar to man after he has attained self-consciousness, and thus is able, not only to name, but to know that he names—not only to call A A, but to think A as his symbol of A. Now, in order to mark this distinction, I have assigned the term denotation to naming of the receptual kind, and applied the term denomination to naming of the conceptual kind. When a parrot calls a dog “Bow-wow” (as a parrot, like a child, can easily be taught to do), it may be said in a sense to be naming the dog; but obviously it is not predicating any characters as belonging to a dog, or performing any act of judgment with regard to a dog—as is the case, for example, with a naturalist who, by means of his name Canis, conceptually assigns that animal to a particular zoological genus. Although the parrot may never utter the name “Bow-wow” save when it sees a dog, this fact is attributable to the laws of association acting only in the receptual sphere: it furnishes no shadow of a reason for supposing that the bird ever thinks about the dog as a dog, or sets the concept Dog before its mind as a separate object of thought. Therefore, none of my opponents can afford to deny that in one sense of the word there may be names without concepts: whether as gestures or as words (“vocal gestures”), there may be signs of things without these signs presenting any vestige of predicative value. Now, it is in order not to prejudice the case of my opponents, and thus clearly to mark out the field of discussion, that I have instituted the distinction between names as receptual and conceptual, or denotative and denominative.

This distinction having been clearly understood, the next point was that both kinds of names admit of connotative extension—denotative names within the receptual sphere, and denominative within the conceptual. That is to say, when a name has been applied to one thing, its use may be extended to another thing, which is seen to belong to the same class or kind. The degree to which such connotative extension of a name may take place depends, of course, on the degree in which the mind is able to take cognizance of resemblances or analogies. Hence the process can go much further in the conceptual sphere than it does in the receptual. But the important point is that it unquestionably takes place in the latter within certain limits. Nor is this anything more than we should antecedently expect. For in the lengthy account and from the numerous facts which I gave of the receptual intelligence of brutes, it was abundantly proved that long before the differential engine of conception has come to the assistance of mind, mind is able to reach a high level in the distinguishing of resemblances or analogies by means of receptual discrimination alone. Consequently, it is inevitable that non-conceptual or denotative names should undergo a connotative extension, within whatever limits these powers of merely receptual discrimination impose. And, as a matter of fact, we found that such is the case. A talking bird will extend its denotative name from one dog in particular to any other dog which it may happen to see; and a young child, after having done this, will extend the denotative name still further, so as to include images, and eventually pictures, of dogs. Hence, if the receptual intelligence of a parrot were somewhat more advanced than it happens to be, we can have no doubt that it would do the same: the only reason why in this matter it parts company with a child so soon as it does, is because its receptual intelligence is not sufficiently developed to perceive the resemblance of images and pictures to the objects which they are intended to represent. But the receptual intelligence of a dog is higher than that of a parrot, and some dogs are able to perceive resemblances of this kind. Therefore if dogs, like parrots, had happened to be able to articulate, and so to learn the use of denotative names, there can be no doubt that they would have accompanied the growing child through a somewhat further reach of connotative utterance than is the case with the only animals which present the anatomical conditions required for the imitation of articulate sounds. Both dogs and monkeys are able, in an extraordinary degree, to understand these sounds: that is to say, they can learn the meanings of an astonishing number of denotative names, and also be taught to apprehend a surprisingly large extension of connotative significance. Consequently, if they could but imitate these sounds, after the manner of a parrot, it is certain that they would greatly distance the parrot in this matter of receptual connotation.

But, lastly, we are not shut up to any such hypothetical case. For the growing child itself furnishes us with evidence upon the point, which is no less cogent than would be the case if dogs and monkeys were able to talk. For, without argumentative suicide, none of my opponents can afford to suggest that, up to the age when self-consciousness dawns, the young child is capable of conceptual connotation; yet it is unquestionable that up to that age a continuous growth of connotation has been taking place, which, beginning with the level that it shares with a parrot, is eventually able to construct what I have called “receptual propositions,” the precise nature of which I will summarise in a subsequent paragraph. The evidence which I have given of this connotative extension of denotative names by children before the age at which self-consciousness supervenes—and, therefore, prior to the very condition which is required for conceptual ideation—is, I think, overwhelming. And I do not see how its place in my argument can be gainsaid by any opponent, except at the cost of ignoring my distinction between connotation as receptual and conceptual. Yet to do this would be to surrender his whole case. Either there is a distinction, or else there is not a distinction, between connotation that is receptual, and connotation that is conceptual. If there is no distinction, all argument is at an end: the brute and the man are one in kind. But I allow that there is a distinction, and I acknowledge that the distinction resides where it is alleged to reside by my opponents—namely, in the presence or absence of self-consciousness on the part of a mind which bestows a name. Or, to revert to my own terminology, it is the distinction between denotation and denomination.

Now, in order to analyze this distinction, it became needful further to distinguish between the highest level of receptual ideation that is attained by any existing brute, and those further developments of receptual ideation which are presented by the growing child, after it parts company with all existing brutes, but before it assumes even the lowest stage of conceptual ideation—i.e. prior to the dawn of self-consciousness. This subordinate distinction I characterized by the terms “lower recepts” and “higher recepts.” Already I had instituted a distinction between “lower concepts” and “higher concepts,” meaning by the former the conceptual naming of recepts, and by the latter a similar naming of other concepts. So that altogether four large and consecutive territories were thus marked out: (1) Lower Recepts, which are co-extensive with the psychology of existing animals, including a very young child; (2) Higher Recepts, which occupy a psychological area between the recepts of animals and the first appearance of self-consciousness in man; (3) Lower Concepts, which are concerned only with the self-conscious naming of recepts; (4) Higher Concepts, which have to do with the self-conscious classification of other concepts known as such, and the self-conscious naming of such ideal integrations as may result therefrom.

Now, if all this is true of naming, clearly it must also be true of judging. If there is a stage of pre-conceptual naming (denotation), there must also be a stage of pre-conceptual judgment, of which such naming is the expression. No doubt, in strictness, the term judgment should be reserved for conceptual thought (denomination); but, in order to avoid an undue multiplication of terms, I prefer thus to qualify the existing word “judgment.” Such, indeed, has already been the practice among psychologists, who speak of “intuitive judgments” as occurring even in acts of perception. All, therefore, that I propose to do is to institute two additional classes of non-conceptual judgment—namely, lower receptual and higher receptual, or, more briefly, receptual and pre-conceptual. If one may speak of an “intuitive,” “unconscious,” or “perceptual” judgment (as when we mistake a hollow bowl for a sphere), much more may we speak of a receptual judgment (as when a sea-bird dives from a height into water, but will not do so upon land), or a pre-conceptual judgment (as when a young child will extend the use of a denotative name without any denominative conception). In all, then, we have four phases of ideation to which the term judgment may be thus either literally or metaphorically applied—namely, the perceptual, receptual, pre-conceptual, and conceptual. Of these the last only is judgment, properly so called. Therefore I do not say that a brute really judges when, without any self-conscious thought, it brings together certain reminiscences of its past experience in the form of recepts, and translates for us the result of its ideation by the performance of what Mr. Mivart calls “practical inferences.” Neither do I say that a brute really judges when, still without self-conscious thought, it learns correctly to employ denotative names. Nay, I should deny that a brute really judges even if, after it is able to denotate separately two different recepts (as is done by a talking bird), it were to name these two recepts simultaneously when thus combined in an act of “practical inference.” Although there would then be the outward semblance of a proposition, we should not be strictly right in calling it a proposition. It would, indeed, be the statement of a truth perceived; but not the statement of a truth perceived as true.

Now, if all this be admitted in the case of a brute—as it must be by any one who takes his stand on the faculty of true or conceptual judgment,—obviously it must also be admitted in the case of the growing child. In other words, if it can be proved that a child is able to state a truth before it is able to state a truth as true, it is thereby proved that in the psychological history of every human being there is first the kind of predication which is required for dealing with receptual knowledge, or for the stating of truths perceived; and next the completed judgment which is required for dealing with conceptual knowledge, or of stating truths perceived as true. Of course the condition required for the raising of this lower kind of judgment and this lower kind of predication (if, for the sake of convenience, we agree to use these terms) into the higher or only true kind of judgment and predication, is the advent of self-consciousness. Or, in other words, the place where a mere statement of truth first passes into a real predication of truth, is determined by the place at which there first supervenes the faculty of introspective reflection. The whole issue is thus reduced to an analysis of self-consciousness. To this analysis, therefore, we next addressed ourselves.

Seeing that the faculty in question only occurs in man, obviously it is only in the case of man that any material is supplied for the analysis of it. Moreover, as previously remarked, so far as this our analysis is concerned, we have only to deal with the psychology of self-consciousness: we are not concerned with its philosophy. Now, as a matter of psychology, no one can possibly dispute that the faculty in question is one of gradual development; that during the first two or three years of the growing intelligence of man there is no vestige of any such faculty at all; that when it does begin to dawn, the human mind is already much in advance of the mind of any brute; but that, even so, it is much less highly developed than it is afterwards destined to become; and that the same remark applies to the faculty of self-consciousness itself. Furthermore, it will be granted that self-consciousness consists in paying the same kind of attention to internal, or psychical processes, as is habitually paid to external, or physical processes—although, of course, the degrees in which such attention may be yielded are as various in the one case as in the other. Lastly, it will be further granted that in the minds of brutes, as in the minds of men, there is a world of images, or recepts; and that the only reason why in the former case these images are not attended to unless called up by the sensuous association of their corresponding objects, is because the mind of a brute is not able to leave the ground of such merely sensuous association, so as to move through the higher and more tenuous region of introspective thought. Nevertheless, I have proved that this image-world, even in brutes, displays a certain amount of internal activity, which is not wholly dependent on sensuous associations supplied from without. For the phenomena of “home-sickness,” pining for absent friends, dreaming, hallucination, &c., amply demonstrate the fact that in our more intelligent domesticated animals there may be an internal (though unintentional) play of ideation, wherein one image suggests another, this another, and so on, without the need of any immediate associations supplied from present objects of sense. Furthermore, I have pointed out that receptual ideation of this kind is not restricted to the images of sense-perception; but is largely concerned with the mental states of other animals. That is to say, the logic of recepts, even in brutes, is sufficient to enable the mind to establish true analogies between subjective states and the corresponding states of other intelligences: animals habitually and accurately interpret the mental states of other animals, while also well knowing that other animals are able similarly to interpret theirs. Hence, it must be further conceded that intelligent animals recognize a world of ejects, as well as a world of objects: mental existence is known to them ejectively, though, as I allow, never thought upon subjectively. At this stage of mental evolution the individual—whether an animal or an infant—so far realizes its own individuality as to be informed by the logic of recepts that it is one of a kind, although of course it does not recognize either its own or any other individuality as such.