The Evolution of General Ideas

CHAPTER I.. The Lower Forms of Abstraction.—Abstraction Prior to Speech.

THE LOWER FORMS OF ABSTRACTION.—ABSTRACTION PRIOR TO SPEECH.

Two forms of intellectual activity: association and dissociation.—Abstraction belongs to the second type. Its positive and negative conditions. It is a case of attention: psychical reinforcement.—It is in embryo in concrete operations: in perception, and the image. Its practical character.—Generalisation belongs to the first type. Problem of the primum cognitum; difference or resemblance?—Hierarchy of general ideas: need of a notation. Three great classes.—Lower forms of abstraction and generalisation or pre-linguistic period, characterised by absence of words 1

ANIMALS.

Different observations. Numeration in animals; what does it consist of?—Mode of formation and characteristics of generic images. Reasoning in animals.—Reasoning from particular to particular: how this differs from simple association.—Reasoning by analogy.—The logic of images: its two degrees; its characteristics. Does not admit of substitution; always has a practical aim.—Discussion of certain cases 11

CHILDREN.

Does intelligence start from the general or the particular? A badly-stated question. Intelligence proceeds from the indefinite to the definite.—Characteristics of generic images in children; examples.—Numeration; its narrow limits. Difference between real numeration and perception of a plurality 31

DEAF-MUTES.

These furnish the upper limit of the logic of images.—Their natural language. Vocabulary. All their signs are abstractions. Syntax of position; disposition of terms according to order of importance.—Intellectual level 39

ANALYTICAL GESTURES.

General classification of signs.—Gesture, an intellectual, not an emotional, instrument; its wide distribution. Syntax identical with that of deaf-mutes.—Comparison between phonetic language and language of analytical gesture.—Reason why speech has prevailed 48

CHAPTER II.. Speech.

SPEECH.

Language in animals.—The origin of speech; principal contemporaneous hypotheses; instinct, progressive evolution. The cry, vocalisation, articulation. Transitional forms: co-existence of speech and of the language of action; co-existence of speech and of inarticulate sounds.—The development of speech. Protoplasmic period without grammatical functions.—Roots; two theories: reality, and residue of analysis.—Did speech begin with words or with phrases?—Successive appearance of parts of speech. Adjectives or denominations of qualities. The substantive a contraction of the adjective. Verbs not a primitive phenomenon; the three degrees of abstraction.—Terms expressive of relations. Psychological nature of relation, may be reduced to change or movement. Function of analogy 54

CHAPTER III.. Intermediate Forms of Abstraction.

INTERMEDIATE FORMS OF ABSTRACTION.

Division into two classes according to the function of the word.—First class. Words not indispensable, and only in a limited degree the instrument of substitution.—Difference between generic images and lower concepts. Characteristics of these two classes. Is there continuity between the two? Nature of the lower forms of intermediate abstraction, according to languages, numeration, etc. Concrete-abstract period.—Second class. Words are indispensable and become an instrument of substitution.—Difficulty in finding examples.—History of zoölogical classification: pre-scientific period: Aristotle, Linnæus, Cuvier, etc., contemporary writers. Progress towards unity 86

CHAPTER IV.. Higher Forms of Abstraction. Their Nature.

HIGHER FORMS OF ABSTRACTION. THEIR NATURE.

Object of the chapter: What is there in consciousness, when we think by concepts?—The general idea as a psychical state may be reduced to varieties. Investigation of this point: the method pursued.—Reduction to three principal types. Concrete type the most widely distributed. Variation; reply by association of ideas. Visual typographic type: printed words seen and nothing further.—Auditory type; less common.—Interrogations by general propositions: same results. Investigation of cases in which words exist alone in consciousness. Is it possible to think with words only? Rôle of unconscious knowledge. General ideas are intellectual habits.—Natural antagonism between the image and the concept. Its causes.—Are there general ideas or merely general terms? 111

CHAPTER V.. Evolution of the Principal Concepts.

EVOLUTION OF THE PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS.

Section I.—The Concept of Number.

Return to lower phases: concrete and abstract.—Formation of idea of unity. Hypotheses as to its experimental origin: touch, sight, hearing, internal sensations, attention. Unity the result of decomposition, an abstract.—The series of numbers. Process of construction.—Function of signs: discussions of this subject 137

Section II.—The Concept of Space.

Extension as a concrete fact. Variable and relative characteristics.—Transition to concrete-abstract period.—Space (abstract): the current popular conception the result of imagination. Idle problems.—The true concept is the result of dissociation.—The notion of “function.”—Imagination of an infinite space.—Works on ideal geometry: constructive power of the mind; reinforcement of distinction between space as perceived and conceived 146

Section III.—The Concept of Time.

Real (concrete) duration: the present, its reality; its experimental determination: maximum and minimum. Reproduction of duration; experiments; indifferent point.—Variable and relative characteristics.—Origin of concrete notion of time: different hypotheses: external and internal sensations: presumption in favor of the latter.—Abstract duration (time). First stage, depends on memory and imagination only: corresponds (1) to generic images (representation of duration among the higher animals), and (2) to the concrete-abstract period (intermediate forms of abstraction). Primitive races. Why has time (and not space) been personified.—Second stage depends upon abstraction. Function of the astronomers: measure of time.—Infinite time.—Current hypotheses as to the psychologic process which constitutes the notion of time: sensations and consecutive images: sensations which are feelings of tension, of effort. “Temporal signs.”—Full and empty time 159

Section IV.—The Concept of Cause.

Psychical elements constituting the concept.—Experiential origin of the idea of cause: different solutions have all a common basis.—Its primitive individual character. Its extension.—Subjective and anthropomorphic period of generic images.—Period of reflexion, partial elimination of its subjective character, reduction to an invariable relation.—The notion of universal causality is acquired and remains a postulate.—Two ideas have hindered the development of this last notion: that of miracles and that of chance.—Transformation of the notion of cause. Rule of scientific research: its position is exterior. Identity of cause and effect.—Present form of the principle of universal causality.—Two quite distinct notions of cause (force, invariable relation), one of which is alone a concept 180

Section V.—The Concept of Law.

Objective value of general ideas. Two contrary theories. Mere approximations to the psychologist.—Three periods in the development of the notion of law.—Period of generic images. Primitive sense of the word law.—Period of empirical laws, corresponding with the intermediate forms of abstraction. Characteristics: identity of fact and law; complexity.—Period of theoretical or ideal laws, corresponding to medium forms of abstraction. Its features: simplicity, quantitative determination, ideal formula 194

Section VI.—The Concept of Species.

Its value: contemporaneous discussion of this subject. Component elements of the concept of species: resemblance, filiation. Difficulties resulting from polymorphism, from alternate generation.—Races, varieties.—Temporary and provisional objectivity.—Genera. Theories of Linnæus and Agassiz.—Shifting character of the classifications above the species.—One common point between transformists and their opponents: practical value of concepts. Not realities, nor fictions, but approximations.—Laws and species dependent on conditions of existence and varying with them 203

CHAPTER VI.. Conclusion.

CONCLUSION.

How was the faculty of abstracting and of generalising constituted? Two principal causes: utility, appearance of inventors.—How has it developed? Three principal directions: practical, speculative, scientific.—Résumé: necessary co-operation of two factors: the one conscious, the other unconscious 216

CHAPTER I.. The Lower Forms of Abstraction.

THE LOWER FORMS OF ABSTRACTION.

ABSTRACTION PRIOR TO SPEECH.

Save in extremely rare cases,—supposing such to occur at all, as perhaps in the instant of surprise, and in states approximating to pure sensation,—save in such extremely rare cases, where the mind, like a mirror, passively reflects external impressions, intellectual activity may always be reduced to one of the two following types: associating, combining, unifying, or dissociating, isolating, and separating. These cardinal operations underlie all forms of cognition, from the lowest to the highest, and constitute its unity of composition.

Abstraction belongs to the second type. It is a normal and necessary process of the mind, dependent on attention, i. e., on the limitation, willed or spontaneous, of the field of consciousness. The act of abstraction implies in its genesis both negative and positive conditions, and is the result of these.

The negative conditions consist essentially in the fact that we cannot apprehend more than one quality or one aspect, varying according to the circumstances, in any complex whole,—because consciousness, like the retina, is restricted to a narrow region of clear perception.

The positive condition is a state which has been appropriately termed a “psychical reinforcement” of that which is being abstracted, and it is naturally accompanied by a weakening of that which is abstracted from. The true characteristic of abstraction is this partial increment of intensity. While involving elimination, it is actually a positive mental process. The elements or qualities of a percept, or a representation, which we omit do not necessarily involve such suppression. We leave them out of account simply because they do not suit our ends for the moment, and are complementary.

Abstraction being, then, in spite of negative appearances, a positive operation, how are we to conceive it? Attention is necessary to it, but it is more than attention. It is an augmentation of intensity, but it is more than an augmentation of intensity. Suppose a group of representations a + b + c = d. To abstract from b and c in favor of a, would ostensibly give a = d - (b + c). If this were so, b and c would be retained unaltered in consciousness; there would be no abstraction. On the other hand, since it is impossible for the whole representation d to be suppressed outright, b and c cannot be totally obliterated. They subsist, accordingly, in a residual state which may be termed x, and the abstract representation is hence not a but a + x or A. Thus the elements of abstract representations are the same as those of concrete representations; only some are strengthened, others weakened: whence arise new groupings. Abstraction, accordingly, consists in the formation of new groups of representations which, while strengthening certain elements of the concrete representations, weaken other elements of the same.

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