In sum—to confine ourselves to what is least contestable: given the cerebral and psychological conditions for speech (not for articulate language alone), and application of words to qualities and attributes raised little by little into independent entities,—and the decisive step has been taken. Such is intellectual progress, and we may remark in passing that the process which creates the true concept, leads fatally by the same issue to faith in idols, in the entities realised.
Without for the moment pausing at this last point, let us under a more positive form, and strictly on the lines of experimental psychology, examine the nature of the lower forms of intermediate abstraction, determining it by examples. At the same time we shall fix the intellectual level that corresponds to the moment of transition between generic images (animal form), and the higher abstracts which have still to be studied in detail. The best method is to take as a type such human races as have remained in the savage or half-civilised state: these are more instructive than childhood, because they represent fixed and permanent conditions. We can draw on two principal sources: their languages, and their systems of numeration. Their religious beliefs might also be studied, with the same results, but this would take too long, and would moreover be less definite.[73]
1. The languages, considered under their most general characteristics, reveal a notable impotence for transcending the simplest resemblances, an incurable incapacity for extended generalisations; they hardly rise above the concrete. Words play a very indistinct part; they are the most incomplete substitute—hardly more than a mark, a sign, like gestures—differing from the latter only in the future they carry within them. The study of the ascending progress of generalisation is in effect the study of the successive phases of the emancipation of speech up to the time when it becomes preponderant and dominating. At the actual stage, which might be termed concrete-abstract, it is not yet emancipated; it is a minor, under tutelage.
Let us take in turn substantives, adjectives, and verbs.
The indigenes of Hawaii, says Max Müller (Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, II., p. 19), have but one word, “aloba,” to express love, friendship, esteem, gratitude, benevolence, etc.; on the other hand, words to express variations in the direction of the force of the wind are very numerous, proving once more how at its origin abstraction or dissociation is governed by practical causes. In savage languages there are terms to express not merely each species of dog, but their age, the color of their hair, good or bad qualities, etc. So, too, for the horse; there are special words to designate its varieties, and all its movements; to indicate if it is mounted, not mounted, frightened, running away, and the like. The North American Indians have special words for the black oak, the white oak, and the red oak, but none for the oak in general,—still less for tree in general. The indigenes of Brazil can point out the different parts of the body, but not the body as a whole (Lubbock). Among several tribes of Oceania, a special word is employed for the tail of a dog, another for the sheep’s tail, and so on, but they have no designation for tail in general. Again, there is no common term for the cow, but there are distinct words for red, white, or brown cows (Sayce).
There are, however, cases of very clear progress in generalisation; the significance of a word extends itself; from specific it becomes generic. This metamorphosis exists in vivo among the Finns and Laplanders. The former have a name for the smallest stream, and none for river; originally again there was a term for each finger, none for finger in general; but latterly the term used for thumb alone has come to designate the fingers collectively. Among the second race, certain tribes who had a special denomination for each kind of bay, have now adopted one that serves for all kinds (Max Müller).
The same holds good of the poverty of the adjective, the abstract term proper. The case of the Tasmanians has often been quoted, how they could only express qualities by concrete representations: hard = like a stone; long = legs; round = like a ball, like the moon, etc. (Lubbock). A less familiar case, termed by linguists “concretism,” is met with even in certain more developed idioms, like a survival of the time when the mind was unable to detach itself from the concrete, or to forego a complete and detailed qualification. Instead of saying ten merchants, five hens, the idiom is merchants ten men, hens five birds, and so on for similar cases.
The verb is able to express all degrees of abstraction and of generalisation as well as the adjective and substantive. At this period, it exactly repeats the type (as described above) of the substantive with its burdensome multiplicity,—for want of a generalisation simple enough, according to our judgment. The North American Indians have special words for saying: to wash one’s face, another person’s face, the linen, utensils, etc.: in all, thirty words, but none for washing in general. So, too, for eating bread, fruits, meat, etc., striking with the hand, foot, axe, etc., for cutting wood, meat, or any other objects: for all these there are special terms, but none for saying simply, to eat, to knock, to cut (Sayce, Hovelacque.) On the other hand, we note a case of transition, analogous to that of the Lapps and Finlanders. Certain tribes in Brazil have a few verbs of general, simple significance: eat, drink, dance, see, etc., even love, thank, etc. (Lubbock).
We need not multiply examples; these will suffice to throw into relief the extreme impotence in generalising, so soon as the mind loses its hold on the concrete. We might also recall the difficulty so often experienced by missionaries. They find it almost impossible, even by creating new words, or by changing the meaning of others, to translate the sacred books into these idioms, from their paucity of concrete terms.