CHAP, vi THE EMPIRICAL ORDER 91 



The movement has many aspects and, though at bottom 

 a unity, its essence can only be intelligibly explained by 

 following each aspect separately. We shall deal with it 

 first on the side of thought or cognition as such, then on 

 the side of purpose, and lastly on the side of those social 

 relations in which thought and purpose may be said to be 

 embodied. In each case we shall follow the process as a 

 whole from the evolution of general ideas to their critical 

 reconstruction. 



(i) The Empirical Order. 



We have taken language as the distinctive mark of 

 human intelligence because it reflects the conceptions by 

 which empirical data are brought into relation. It not 

 only reflects them, it is the condition of their effective 

 use. Resemblances of quality are expressed by general 

 terms, continuity of existence by individual names, the 

 relation of ideas and the order of connection in thought 

 by the arrangement of words in the sentence. As the work 

 of correlation is social it cannot proceed effectively unless 

 by means of expression, and the expression which is in the 

 first instance an effect thus becomes in substance a most 

 important determining condition of the further develop- 

 ment of thought. Language and its early accompaniment, 

 gesture, forms along with art the two principal vehicles 

 of expression, and if we had a complete record of language 

 and of art, we might reconstruct with fair completeness 

 the earlier stages of the growth of the human mind. This, 

 as the evidence stands, we cannot do, but we are able to 

 distinguish certain phases of growth sufficiently to see that 

 the general ideas which form our ordinary mental furniture 

 have a history, that the process of forming them is one 

 that only came to maturity by degrees, and that it reaches 

 maturity only to give occasion for the higher processes of 

 * Reconstruction. 5 



Let us begin by considering the character of the process 

 as a whole. As the work of correlation advances a certain 

 order emerges within the chaos of perception. This order 

 does not in its earlier stages amount to a system, still less 

 is its formation guided by conscious and deliberate method. 



