July 24, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



67 



counters by which the exchange of our idens is facilitated, 

 and by which we are enabled to store in the mind a 

 much larger number of thoughts than would otherwise 

 be possible, and to pass with much greater rapidity from 

 one to another. Hence, we habitually think in words 

 (suppressed sounds), a habit based upon convenience ; but 

 we also think to a large extent in visual images and 

 imaginary movements ; and this mode of thought is par- 

 ticularly noticeable in our dreams. This is the mode 

 in which the lower animals think, and when a dog 

 starts up in his sleep with bristling hair and barks, 

 the inference is not unjustifiable that he is dream- 

 ing of combat with some imaginary enemy. There is 

 such a thing as abstraction by way of visual or generic 

 image — that is to say, simple concepts may be formed by 

 visualisation of similarities, and there is every reason to 

 believe that animals possess this power of abstraction, as 

 I have already shown. They abstract qualities common 

 to various individuals ; the dog has an abstract idea cat, 

 as something possessing certain qualities which are ob- 

 noxious to him, and render the possessor a fit subject for 

 him to persecute ; and so with other animals whose ideas 

 embrace not only individuals but also classes, they per- 

 ceive resemblances and differences, and are thus enabled 

 to recognise individuals as belonging to this or that class. 

 Like the deaf-mute, the ordinary child begins thinking 

 by this visual representation, and it is in this way that 

 the deaf make their imitative signs. The visual images 

 of these signs afterwards take their place in the mind 

 as convenient representatives of thoughts, just as the 

 audible images of words do in the minds of hearing 

 people. 



" There is nothing in mind which was not previously 

 in sense," and the first thoughts are imaginary sensations. 

 These sensations are grouped together, and form what 

 the psychologists call percepts. Afterwards the percepts 

 are associated with the expressions or symbols used to 

 communicate them. Thus, hearing people, who are 

 accustomed to express themselves in words, think gene- 

 rally in sounds, but frequently in visual images ; while 

 the deaf-mute generally thinks in visual images ; and 

 those who are both deaf and blind, in touches, tastes, and 

 smells. As thought is primarily carried on in terms of 

 sense, when one sense is cut ofE the others attain propor- 

 tionately-increased activity. 



Kjruse, who was himself deaf and dumb, writing* 

 about the mental development of his companions in afflic- 

 tion, says that the qualities which in his mind constitute 

 the difEerence between things when he imitates objects 

 and actions for the purposes of communication, become 

 suitable marks which serve to fix them in his mind, so 

 that he can memorise and recall them, and the signs thus 

 become the means of thought. 



On this point I have questioned several young peojile 

 educated on the oral system, who, being perfectly dtaf, 

 have no idea whatever of anything like sound. At first 

 my questions were misunderstood, and all asserted that 

 they thought in words as we do. The hearing tciicbers 

 also affirmed this of their pupils, and it was only with 

 difficulty that I could make clear to them that, since cur 

 mode of thinking in words is simply thinking in scuiids, 

 it was impossible that the congenitally deaf could think 

 in this way. After minute questioning, a fairly intelli- 

 gent girl, 18 years old, mainttdiud that slir ,.i-,Ilnaril_v 

 thinks in signs or imaginary actiun.s. Thai when shr 

 thinks of anything in reference fn the ihaf ami iliimh, 

 she thinks in actions; but tliut wluu kIic thinks cf 



• " TJeber die Tanbstummen." 



hearing people, she thinks in words — that is to say, 

 in certain groups of movements of the vocal organs, 

 not in words as written or printed, although she 

 reads and writes extremely well. A bright deaf boy 

 of fourteen, taught on the oral system, told me that he 

 thinks in words as spoken by himself, which means, of 

 course, in certain groups of movements by which he is 

 accustomed to express himself, but which we interpret 

 by the sounds produced. Several others agreed that they 

 think in the same way, but th.it the thought appears some- 

 times as written, sometimes as spoken by them or by 

 other people. When they think of words as spoken by 

 the mouth of another that person is the one with whom 

 they chiefly converse, generally the teacher, which again 

 illustrates the force of habit in regulating the mode of 

 thought. 



The form of dreams is important in illustrating the 

 habitual mode of thought : thus it is believed that 

 animals think and dream in visual images. In the 

 dreams of those deaf and dumb who are taught 

 on the old system of dactylology finger-twists play 

 a large part. When Laura Bridgeman was asleep 

 her fingers were frequentlj' seen moving as in 

 animated conversation, and deaf children taught on the 

 oral system speak in their dreams. Thoughts are not 

 bound down to any one set of signs, whether verbal or 

 otherwise ; but certain signs, which to the thinker are 

 marks, mental shorthand notes, so to speak, are adopted 

 in preference to others, owing to custom and conveni- 

 ence. A man cannot be said to know a foreign language 

 thoroughly until he comes to think in its forms, instead 

 of merely translating into them his thoughts from his 

 native tongue. When he has accomplished the former, 

 he will have so thoroughly assimilated the foreign tongue 

 that he will dream in it. A French gentleman resident 

 in England tells me that, for the first twenty years of his 

 residence, he always dreamed in French, but that he now 

 habitually dreams in English, the habit of thought of his 

 later life having overcome that of his youth. 



Although thought in its higher phases is to a great 

 extent dependent upon language by means of which it is 

 chiefly developed, thought must historically be anterior 

 to language. Generals and particulars are apprehended, 

 comparisons, distinctions, and inferences, made remem- 

 bered, and applied without the use of language both by 

 the lower animals and by men. 



The case is clearly and humorously stated by Professor 

 Whitney, who says : " To maintain that the idea waits 

 for its generation until the sign is ready, or that the 

 generation of .the idea and of the sign is a simple and 

 indivisible process, is much the same thing as to hold, 

 since infants cannot thrive in this climate without cloth- 

 ing and shelter, that no eliihl is or can be born until a 

 li'^.Jtc aiv\ nur>ei'. are reinly f-r its use, or that along 

 with each cliihl a'le h. in iis swaddling-clothes and its 

 cradle."* Heceniinues: ■' The mental act is momen- 

 tary, its f.ivniulation in words occupies time; we have 

 our tiiouirht to start with and then go on to give it 

 deliberate expression. The operation of thinking in 

 words is a double one ; it consists of thinking and of 

 jiutting the thought into words; we conceive the thought 

 and conceive also its expression. That when we turn our 

 attintion full upon our own minds, we read there the 



* ^Vhitney'a " Language and the Study of Language," p. 412. 



