March i, 1888] 



NATURE 



413 



What I meant by'combination, or by addition and subtraction 

 being the true character of thinking, I explained very fully. 

 " Any book on logic," I said, "will teach that all our proposi- 

 tions are either affirmative or negative, and that in acquiring or 

 communicating knowledge we can do no more than to say that 

 A is B, or A is not B. Now, in saying A is B, we simply add 

 A to the sum already comprehended under B, and in saying A 

 is not B, we subtract A from the sum that can be comprehended 

 under B. And why should it be considered as lowering our high 

 status, if what we call thinking turns out to be no more than 

 adding or subtracting? Mathematics in the end consist of 

 nothing but addition and subtraction, and think of the wonder- 

 ful achievements of a Newton or a Gauss — achievements before 

 which ordinary mortals like myself stand simply aghast." 



Prof. Mivart holds that there are but two forms of intellectual 

 activity: (l) acts of intuition, by which we directly apprehend 

 certain truths, such as, e.g., our own activity, or that A is A ; and 

 (2) acts of inference, by which we indirectly apprehend others, 

 with the aid of the idea "therefore." 



There is a wide difference between our apprehending our own 

 activity and our apprehending that A is A. Apprehending our 

 own activity is inevitable, apprehending that A is A is voluntary. 

 Besides, the "therefore" on which Prof. Mivart insists as a dis- 

 tinguishing feature between the two forms of thought is present 

 in the simplest acts of cognition. In order to think and to 

 say " This is an orange," I must implicitly think and say, " This 

 is round, and yellow, has a peculiar skin, a sweet juice," &c. ; 

 therefore \i is an orange. The " therefore " represents in fact 

 the justification of our act of addition. We have by slow and 

 repeated addition formed the concept -name orange, and by saying 

 " This is an orange," we say no more than that we feel justified, 

 till the contrary is proved, in adding this object before us to the 

 sum of oranges already known to us. If the contrary is proved, 

 we subtract, and we add our pre=ent object either to the class and 

 name of lemons, citrons, &c., or to a more general class, such as 

 apples, fruit, round objects, &c. We ought really to distinguish, 

 as I have tried to show, not only two, bat four phases in every 

 act of cognition, viz. sensation, perception, conception, and 

 naming ; and I contend that these four phases, though dis- 

 tinguishable, are not separable, and that no act of cognition is 

 perfect without the last phase of naming. 



But how is it. Prof. Mivart continues, that different words in 

 our language have one meaning, and different meanings one 

 word ? Does not this show that thought and language cannot be 

 itlentical ? 



It has been the principal object of all my mythological studies 

 to account not only for the origin of polyonymy and homonymy, 

 but to discover in them the cause of much that has to be called 

 mythology, whether in ancient tradition, religion, philosophy, or 

 even in modern science. I must therefore refer Prof. Mivart to 

 my earlier writings, and can only mention here a few well-known 

 cases of mythology arising from polyonymy and homonymy. 



We can easily understand why people should have called the 

 planet Venus both the morning and the evening star ; but we 

 know that in consequence of these two names many people have 

 believed in two stars instead of one. The same mountain in 

 Switzerland is called by the people on the south side Blackhorn, 

 by the people on the north side Whitehorn, and many a traveller 

 has been misled when asking his way to the one or the other. 

 Because in German there are two words Verstand ^nA Vernunft, 

 originally meaning exactly the same thing, German meta- 

 physicians have changed them into two distinct faculties, and 

 English philosophers have tried to introduce the same distinction 

 between the understanding as the lower and reason as the higher 

 faculty. 



Nothing is really easier to understand, if only we consult the 

 ancient annals of language, than why the same object should 

 have had several names, and why several objects should have had 

 the same name. But this proves by no means that therefore the 

 name is one thing and the concept another. We can distinguish 

 name and concept as we distinguish between the concave and 

 convex sides of a lens, but we cannot separate them, and in that 

 sense we may call them inseparable, and, in one sense, identical. 



Lastly, Prof. Mivart starts the same objection to my system of 

 psychological analysis which was raised some time ago in these 

 columns with so much learning and eloquence by Mr. Francis 

 Gallon. He appeals to his own experience, and maintains that 

 certain intellectual processes take place without language. This 

 is generally supposed to put an end to any further argument, and 

 we are even told that it is a mistake to imagine that all men are 



alik?, so far as their psychological processes are concerned, and 

 th\ psychologists should study the peculiarities of individuals 

 rather than the general character of the human intellect. Now, 

 it seems to me that Vtm n'empkhepas i autre, but that in the end 

 the object of all scientific inquiry is the geieral, and not the 

 individual. The true life of language is in the dialects, yet the 

 grammarian aims at a general grammar. In the same way the 

 psychologist may pay any amount of attention to mere individual 

 peculiarities and idiosyncrasies ; only he ought never to forget 

 that in the end man is man. 



But it does not even seem to me that intellectual processes 

 without language, as described by Mr. Gallon and Prof. Mivart, 

 are at all peculiar and exceptional. I have described similar 

 cases, and tried to account for them, in different parts of my 

 book. If Prof. Mivart says that " a slight movement of a finger 

 may give expression to a meaning which could only be thought 

 in words by a much slower process," I went much further by 

 saying that "silence might be more eloquent than words." 



Mr. Gallon asked me to read a book by Alfred Binet, La 

 Psychologie du Raisonnement, as showing by experiments how 

 many intellectual acts could lake place without language. I 

 read the book with deep interest, but great was my surprise 

 when I found that M. Binet's observations confirmed in the very 

 strongest way my own position. I had shown how percepts — 

 that is, images — could exist with a mere shadow of language, and 

 that nothing was more wonderful than what Leibniz called the 

 algebra of thought. Now, what do M. Binet's experiments 

 prove ? That there are two kinds of images, the consecutive, re- 

 produced spontaneously and suddenly, and the memorial, 

 connected with an association of ideas. The consecutive image, 

 a kind of impression avant la lettre, may reappear long after the 

 existing sensation has ceased to act, and it reappears without 

 any rhyme or reason. But how are the memorial images re- 

 called, seen by people, such as M. Binet describes, in a state of 

 hypnotism ? Entirely by the word. Show a hypnotized patient 

 her portrait, and she may or may not recognize it. But tell her, 

 in so many words, " This is your portrait," and she will see her 

 likeness in a landscape of the Pyrenees (pp. 56-57). M. Binet 

 is fully aware of what is implied by this. Thus, on p. 58, he 

 writes: ^^ L' hallucination hypnotique est formie d'un image 

 suggJree par \a parole." So, again, when describing the simplest 

 acts of perception, M. Binet explains how much is added by 

 ourselves to the mere impressions received through the senses by 

 " ce qu'on croit voir," by ^' ce qtioncroit sentir," and by "/tf 

 notn qiCon croit entendre prononcer. " The facts and experiments, 

 therefore, contained in M. Binet's charming volume seem to me 

 entirely on my side, nor do I see that that thoughtful observer 

 has ever denied the necessity of language or signs of some sort 

 for the purpose of reasoning, nay even of imagination. 



I find it difficult to answer all the questions which the Pro- 

 fessor has asked, because it would seem like writing roy own 

 book over again. However, I shall confess that I have laid 

 myself open to some just criticism in not renouncing altogether 

 the metaphorical poetry of language. I ought not to have 

 spoken of Truth as a kind of personal being, nor cf Reason as a 

 power that governs the universe. But no astronomer is blamed 

 when he uses the old terminology of sunrise and sunset ; no 

 biologist is misunderstood when he speaks of mankind ; and no 

 philosopher is denounced when he continues to use the big I 

 instead of " succession of states of consciousness." If, therefore, 

 I said that I recognized in evolution the triumph of reason, I 

 meant no more than that I could not recognize in it the triumph of 

 mere chance. Prof. Mivart imagines that I misunderstood what the 

 biologist means by the survival of the fittest. Far from it, I under- 

 stand that phrase, and decidedly reject it. For, either the survival 

 of the fittest means no more than that that survives which is able 

 to survive, — this would be mere truism and a patent tautology, — 

 or, if we take in the whole circumstance of Nature, the survival 

 of the fittest implies some kind of inherent fitness and reason- 

 ableness. Prof. Mivart writes : "What there is less reasonable 

 and right in a Rhytina than in a Dugong, or in a Dinomis than in 

 an Apteryx, would, I think, puzzle most of our zoologists to 

 determine ; nor is it easy to see a triumph of reason in the exter- 

 mination of the unique flora of St. Helena by the introduction of 

 goats and rabbits." No doubt, it is not easy to see this. But 

 need I remind Prof. Mivart that many things may be true, though 

 it is not easy to see them? We often do what we think is 

 reasonable and right, though we seem to see nothing but mischief 

 to ourse'ves and others arising from our acts. Why do we 

 do this ? Because we believe in the ultimate triumph of reason 



