400 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



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 distinc- 

 tion 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, idea- 

 tion 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-con- 

 sciousness, and thus is able, not only to name, but to know 

 that he nmnes — 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 concep- 

 tual kind. When a parrot calls a dog "Bow-wow" (as a 



