246 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



is good, the connection of the three is clear in their 

 order, and the dependence of the third on the two 

 first is manifest. Recepts presuppose concepts/ 

 The mind is only taking again/ what it had secured 

 first, by its own effort in constructing the concept. 

 As concepts are thus presupposed, the waking of a 

 faculty of discernment is already implied. Nothing 

 is in this case contributed by action of memory at 

 all helpful to an argument for evolution, when the 

 express aim is to give a natural history of thought. 

 The power of discernment does not grow out of 

 memory. In course of its own working, discernment 

 shows also the action of a higher memory, to which 

 it assigns a new order of work. 



Nor is it possible that Language should account 

 for the appearance of rational power in the world. 

 Language is an instrument of thought ; an evidence 

 of the presence of thought ; a subsequent and conse 

 quent of the exercise of rational powers. The fact of 

 the higher apes not using their vocal organs for 

 speech, no doubt depends on their intelligence not 

 having been sufficiently advanced/ l To appeal to 

 language is to cross the natural history line at a 

 point too late to find causes at work capable of 

 producing rational power. It is only to record as a 

 fact under observation, that whose appearance we 

 have to account for. The language which expresses 

 first our general concepts, and thereafter the re 

 lations of thought to thought, presupposes thought. 

 Language is external to thought, an outward product 

 having no meaning, if there were not first thinking 

 power to construct both the thoughts and the language. 



1 Darwin s Descent of Man, p. 89. 



