Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/159

 H. STELN'THAL'S ABRISS I'EL Xl'KAL'Hlt'IXXEXSL-HAFT, I. 147 were applied logic, how, having regard to the uwty of logic, shall we account for the car My of languages? Logic, true science, requires us to think concepts and not words. What is right from the logical standpoint may be wrong from the grammatical, and . For instance, the proposition ' The circle is quad- rangular ' is grammatically unimpeachable, but, from a logical standpoint, altogether false. On the other hand, the sentence ' Circulus est rotunda ' is logically right but grammatically wrong. And, as regards subject and predicate, not only is their order to a great extent conventional, but the very idea of the dis- tinction between subject and predicate is purely linguistic and has no foundation in the mind itself. Again, most logicians would deny that the modality of a judgment belongs to the copula, and yet it seems highly probable that in savage idioms, and notably the SekVana, the copula does express certainty, probability, and possibility at times past and present. Of course it is possible to make a distinction between abstract and concrete logic by saying that every language has its own logic, its psycho- logic. But, as Steinthal well says : " it is thoroughly logical and organic that language is not logical ". Ve have seen, then, that language is not so much a product as rather a function in mental production, that it forms a psycho- logical category and that, hence, the general consideration of its essence forms an essential subject of psychology. In considering the psychical content and its forms, the Her- bartians find themselves unable to accept the definition of psychology so common amongst ourselves, namely, the science of consciousness, because the very fact of the ' narrowness of consciousness ' implies a vast number of dim co-vibrating elements in any given psychical act. That is to say, in all psychical life the unconscious plays a most important part. Hence, as it embraces both the conscious and the unconscious, the designation soul as the subject of psychology is in every sense preferable. It is true that Herbart based his theory of the If- - .rime upon a doctrine of the soul's unity, but, in this respect, his disciples do not follow him. And, as regards the categories, it will hardly surprise us to find Prof. Steinthal asserting that they arise unconsciously in the history of man. " As the first animal-cell, so also every category or idea arose at a definite time : the cell at a certain time in the earth's history, the category at a given period in human history." Moreover, since intuition and concept only live in the process, the cate- gories of the concept are the forms and valuation of its content, and at the same time the forms of the process of its formation. V. e may notice, too, a certain parallelism of the grammatical, logical, and metaphysical categories. Nominative, subject, thing (substance) ; verb (adjective), predicate, quality (accident) ; &c. The question Prof. Steinthal then asks himself is : Is it pos-