THE TRANSITION IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 235 



by adult man is a predication in this sense : the vast majority 

 of our verbal propositions are made for the practical 

 purposes of communication, or without the mind pausing to 

 contemplate the propositions as such in the light of self-con- 

 sciousness. When I say " A negro is black," I do not require- 

 to think all the formidable array of things that Mr. Mivart 

 says I affirm * ; and, on the other hand, when I perform an act 

 of conscious introspection, I do not always require to perform 

 an act of mental predication. No doubt in many cases, or 

 in those where highly abstract ideation is concerned, this 

 independence of the two faculties arises from each having 

 undergone so much elaboration by the assistance which it has 

 derived from the other, that both are now, so to speak, in 

 possession of a large body of organized material on which to 

 operate, without requiring, whensoever they are exercised, to 

 build up the structure of this material ab initio. Thus, to take 

 an example, when I say " Heat is a mode of motion," I am 

 using what is now to me a merely verbal sign which expresses 

 an external fact : I do not require to examine my own ideas 

 upon the abstract terms in the abstract relation which the 

 proposition sets forth. But for the origijial attainment of 

 these ideas I had to exercise many and complex efforts of 

 conceptual thought, without the previous occurrence of which 

 I should not now have been able to use, with full understand- 

 ing of its import, this verbal sign. Thus all such predications, 

 however habitual and mechanical they may become, must at 

 some time have required the mind to examine the ideas which 

 they announce. And, similarly, all acts of such mental 

 examination — i.e. all acts of introspection, — however super- 

 fluous they may now appear when their known product is 

 used for further acts of mental examination, must originally 

 have required the mind to pause before them and make to 

 itself a definite statement or predication of their meaning, f 



• See p. 166. 



t Thus far, it will be observed, the case of predication is precisely analogous 

 to that of denomination, alluded to in the foot-note on page 226. Just as instincts 

 may arise by way of ** lapsed intelligence," so may originally conceptual names, 

 and even originally conceptual propositions, become worn down by frequent use. 



