LOGIC OF CONCEPTS, 8 1 



It appears to me an obvious feature of our introspective 

 life that we are able to carry on elaborate processes of 

 ideation without the aid of words — or, to put it paradoxically, 

 that we are able to conceive without concepts. I am, of 

 course, aware that this apparently obvious power of being 

 able to think without any mental rehearsal of verbal signs 

 (the vcrbum mtutale of scholasticism) is denied by several 

 writers of good standing — notably, for instance, by Professor 

 Max Mliller, who seeks with much elaboration to prove that 

 " not only to a considerable extent, but always and altogether, 

 we think by means of names." * Now this statement appears 

 to me either a truism or untrue : it is either tautological in 

 expression, or erroneous in fact. If we restrict the term 

 " thought " to the operation of naming, it is merely a truism 

 to say that there can be no thought without language ; for 

 this is merely to say that there can be no naming without 

 names. But if the term "thought" is taken to cover all 

 processes of ideation which we do not share with brutes, I 

 hold that the statement is opposed to obvious fact ; and, 

 therefore, I agree with the long array of logicians and 

 philosophers whom Professor Max Mliller quotes as showing 

 what he calls " hesitation " in accepting a doctrine which in 

 his opinion is the inevitable conclusion of Nominalism. For 

 to mc it appears evident that within the region of concepts, 

 tlie frequent handling of those with which the mind is 

 familiar enables the mind to deal with them in somewhat 

 the same automatic manner as, on a lower plane of co- 

 ordinated action, the pianist deals with his chords and phrases. 

 Whereas at first it required intentional and laborious effort 

 to perform these many varied and complex adjustments, by 

 practice their performance passes more and more out of the 

 range of conscious effort, until they come to be executed in a 

 manner well-nigh mechatiical. So in the case of purely mental 

 operations, even of the highest ordvT. At first every link in 

 the chain of ideation requires to be separately fastened to 

 attention by means of a word : every step in a process of 



• Science of Thought, p. 35. For his whole argument, sec pp. 30-64. 



