xiv THE CONCEPT 321 



Our present point, however, is that whatever ideas we 

 attribute to an animal, they are ideas of the concrete, the 

 particular object of desire, the relation impressed by past 

 experience. Thus, the chimpanzee may have an idea of 

 the key and the door, and the fruit that he will steal if he 

 can escape. Our difficulty in representing, or at any rate 

 in trying to set forth his presumed state of mind in words, 

 is precisely that in clothing it in words we do what he 

 cannot do. We put it into general terms rendering the 

 content of a consciousness which is concrete and particular 

 in terms of its elements, which are general and common 

 to many experiences. If the chimpanzee could so break 

 up his perception, analysing it into elements common to 

 the experience of other monkeys which knew nothing of 

 keys, if he could re-combine the several elements as* we 

 put general terms together to form the unique meaning of 

 a sentence, and if his companions could follow such a com- 

 bination then he would be able to communicate to them 

 the precise nature of an operation which they had never 

 witnessed. He would be able to speak. 



3. Language rests on the combination of general terms, 1 x 

 and its use therefore implies at least two things. First, w 

 the general content, idea, meaning, or whatever we may 

 call it, which the term expresses, must be analysed out of 

 the perceptions of experience ; and secondly, it must be 

 capable of combination, performed apart from the compul- 

 sion of perception, with other and similar ideas. In his 

 dealings with the key we have attributed to the monkey 

 a clear consciousness of distinct elements the key, the hole, 

 the opening of the door, and so forth. These elements and 

 their relations he recognises clearly in the particular case. 

 He has seen them, and in some form he retains the im- 

 pression. But to be able to communicate the impression, 

 he would have to do something more first. He would 

 have to be able to single out the elements and identify 

 each of them with its class. This could only be done if 



1 More strictly, of terms expressing elements common to the experience 

 of speaker and listener. The same individual object may present itself 

 in many experiences and in the experience of many people. The proper 

 name which denotes it is then intelligible to them. But it is not a general 

 term since it refers to a single object, not to a character common to many. 



