358 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



as the scope and clearness of mind increase, certain points 

 are successively reached at which quite new achievements 

 become possible. Those achievements, once possible, carry 

 with them a whole train of consequences. And thus the 

 species that has just succeeded in turning the corner finds 

 itself in a different world from that which has just failed. 



To understand then the rise of the specifically human 

 intelligence, we have to suppose a mind capable of holding 

 together more elements of experience than the highest 

 animal can cope with, and of noting each several element 

 more clearly. Where separate experiences are thus held 

 together, they have an effect which we have already noted 

 in the animal world upon the movements of attention. 

 Common qualities and differences rise into notice. In 

 proportion as the elements of each experience become 

 conspicuous, they react upon association, bringing to mind 

 other experiences, partially but not wholly identical. 

 Through their influence in turn the points of identity and 

 of difference are thrown into relief. In other words, acts 

 of comparison and analysis aid one another, extending the 

 scope of judgment, and adding to its precision. 



The first critical phase in this development, marking 

 the transition to human intelligence, is that in which the 

 common element obtains a firm enough hold over attention 

 to be responded to with a name or its own. How this 

 stage arose in the race we cannot tell, but it arises in the 

 individual as a rule between the tenth and fourteenth 

 month, by a process which seems to be at least in part 

 instinctive. At any rate, the instruction given by mother 

 or nurse has the instinctive babblement of the baby to work 

 upon, and as soon as a word is acquired, the child seems to 

 feel an instinctive satisfaction in its use. But this stage, 

 as we have seen, is only the rudiment of the Universal, 

 and the mere fact that a word is used after this fashion no 

 more proves intelligence than any other simple and 

 uniform reaction to stimulus. The importance of the word 

 lies in the part which it plays as mechanism in the further 

 stages. For just as the content first suggests the word, so 

 the word being learnt suggests the content ; and therefore 

 the combination of words the combination of contents. 



