Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/529

Rh. And this suggests first of all that naming, properly so called, only begins when things come to be apprehended as such, that is to say, as wholes or unities. And here the question occurs whether an animal, say a dog, that is just coming on to understand a name or two, as that of the baby of the house, can be said to have an organized percept precisely analogous to our own percepts? Dr. Romanes does not raise the question, but, in view of the light thrown by modern psychology on the complexity of the process of perception, it might not have been redundant. But waiving this point as possibly smacking of the frivolous, we have to ask whether an animal at the stage of mental development at which it appears to begin to understand names, and even to make use of them, is capable of carrying out the processes that go along with, and in fact constitute, naming in its true and complete sense. These processes have already been referred to in connection with the subject of general ideas. To name an object appears to mean to apprehend that object as a complex of qualities, to make mental separation of these, and so to relate it to other objects both by way of similarity (classification) and dissimilarity (individuation). To use a name intelligently at all would seem to imply that these processes have been carried out in a rough fashion at least. This being so, we must be prepared when we endow an animal with the power of naming, whether under the form of understanding or that of using names, to say that it is carrying out in a rudimentary way at least these thought-processes. How, it may be asked, does Dr. Romanes deal with this point?

The answer to this question will be found by turning to new distinctions or "stepping-stones" in the movement of thought-evolution. Our author attaches importance to the distinction between higher and lower forms of the concept. Not only is there the generic image to carry us on smoothly from image to concept, but within the limits of the concept itself there are higher and lower forms. Since, according to our author, a concept is any named idea, a proper understanding of these conceptual grades can only be obtained by a glance at his scheme of names.

There are, according to Dr. Romanes, four stadia in the evolution of the complete logical sign or general name. Of these the first is (a) the indicative sign—that is, a significant tone or gesture intentionally expressive of a mental state, as the characteristic tones by which animals express their emotions. These are not names at all. Next to these in the order of evolution come (b) denotative signs. These, whether used by children or animals, e. g., talking birds, simply mark "particular objects, qualities, and actions." They are learned by association, and are not consciously employed as names. By the use of such a sign the talking bird merely fixes a vocal mark to a particular object, quality,