Of the people who, though inheriting a rich vernacular like the English, spend their lives in the routine of a farm, a trade, or a store, very few have an adequate conception of the labor-saving instruments and appliances which modern civilization places at the disposal of the thinker. The machinery by which one man does as much as a thousand hands formerly did is not a whit more wonderful than the modern appliances for reaching results in the domain of thought. Reference might be made to the machines for adding used in counting-houses, to the tables of interest used by bankers, to the tables of logarithms by which it is as easy to find the one-hundredth power as the square of a number. The last named have, so to speak, multiplied the lives of astronomers by enabling them to make in a short time calculations that formerly occupied months, and even years. It is not necessary to discuss these; their value is apparent at a glance. But the value of a rich vocabulary, the function of the symbols and formulas of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and other sciences, and the advantages derived from the use of the technical terms peculiar to every domain of thought are not so easily seen. The teacher who fails at the right time to put the pupils in possession of these instruments of thought cripples their thinking, wastes their time and effort, and seriously mars their progress. Hence it is worth while to devote a chapter or two to the consideration of instruments of thought, for the purpose of showing how, by means of them, thinking is made easier and more effective. Let some one write the amounts in a ledger column by the Roman notation, then endeavor to add them without using any figures of the Arabic notation, either in his mind or in any other way, and he will soon realize what a labor-saving device our ten digits are. Then let him face the problem of squaring the circle as it confronted Archimedes, using the obvious truth that the perimeter of an inscribed polygon is less, while the perimeter of the circumscribed polygon is greater than the circumference of the circle, and long before his calculations reach the regular polygon of ninety-six sides (which is as far as Archimedes carried it), he will realize how the great Syracusan was hampered by the lack of the arithmetical notation now in use. Next, supposing himself in possession of the Arabic method of notation, let him conceive the labor of Rudolph von Ceulen, who, before logarithms were known, computed the ratio of the circumference to the diameter to thirty-five decimal places,—an achievement considered so great that the result was inscribed upon his tombstone,—and then, turning to the calculus, let him examine the formulas by which Clausen and Dase, of Germany, computing independently of each other, carried out the value to two hundred decimal places, their results agreeing to the last figure; this will give him a conception of the superior instruments of thought invented by those who developed the calculus. His idea of the labor-saving devices introduced by the calculus will be heightened still more on learning that Mr. Shanks, of Durham, England, carried the calculation to six hundred and seven decimal places,—a result so nearly accurate that if it were correctly used in calculating the circumference of the visible universe, the possible error would be inappreciable in the most powerful microscope. On further learning that in 1882 Lindeman, of Königsberg, rigorously proved this ratio, commonly represented by the symbol π, to be incapable of representation as the root of any algebraic equation whatever with rational coefficients, he will not only refrain from joining the common herd of squarers of the circle, but no further argument will be needed to show the nature and value of the labor-saving devices introduced into the domain of thought by modern mathematics.
Since it is unreasonable to expect that every reader shall be familiar with higher mathematics, the duty of using simpler illustrations cannot be evaded. Fortunately for the purpose in hand, the book of experience furnishes these with an abundance that is almost bewildering.
A professor of chemistry was lecturing to an audience of teachers on agriculture. When he began to write upon the black-board they smiled at his spelling. Iron he wrote Fe. Water he spelled H₂O. They soon saw that he was using the instruments of thought furnished by a science with which, unfortunately, few of them were familiar. He had found that the use of these chemical symbols made his thinking as much superior to that of the ordinary man as the work of the youth upon a self-binder is superior to that of the giant working with no better instrument than the sickle of our forefathers.
The school furnishes numerous examples to illustrate this point. When the teachers of a well-known city began the use of objects to impart the ideas of number and of the fundamental rules in arithmetic, the interest of the pupils and their facility in calculation grew wonderfully. The teaching was in accordance with the laws of mental growth. For fear the pupils would manipulate the Arabic figures without corresponding ideas, collections and equal parts of objects were drawn upon the slate to illustrate addition and subtraction of integers and fractions. The plan was followed for years and carried upward through the grades. Finally the pupils were examined for admission into the high school. A problem involving the four fundamental rules in combinations which could not be illustrated by pictures of objects, or the objects themselves, was set for solution. Out of fifty-nine applicants, only ten succeeded in giving the correct answer. The same kind of problem was given three times by three different persons, and with practically the same outcome. The teachers realized that they had kept up for too long a time the thinking in things, instead of drilling the pupils upon the process of thinking in the symbols of the Arabic notation. It is, of course, possible to think number without using the Arabic digits. The Romans did so by means of their counting-boards, and the Chinese do so by devices of their own. The characters which were brought into Western Europe through Arabic influences are derived, according to Max Mueller, from the first letters of the Sanskrit words for the first ten numerals. Their use facilitated calculation to such an extent that arithmetic gradually ceased to be the prerogative of slaves and ecclesiastics; its operations began to be understood by freemen and by the nobility. If children are denied the use of objects in their early lessons in number, they resort to counting on their fingers. If they are not led from this thinking on their fingers to thinking in figures, they will never become expert in arithmetic. Sometimes the fingers no longer move, but the mind conceives pictures of the hand, and the mind’s eye runs along the fingers of hands not visible to the corporeal eye. It is equally bad if the pupils never think number except by mental pictures of blocks, sticks, balls, and the like. When the pupil sees 7 × 9, he should not conceive seven heaps of nine shoe-pegs each, and then a rearrangement into six groups of ten shoe-pegs, and three stray ones alongside of these groups; but instantaneously the symbols 7 × 9 should suggest, with unerring accuracy, the result,—63.
In the schools of another district the principal proposed concrete work in fractions. The teachers and pupils began to divide things into halves, and thirds, and fourths, and sixths. They added and subtracted by subdividing these into fractions that denoted equal parts of a unit. Whilst the charm of novelty still clung to the process, a stranger who visited the schools asked one of the teachers how the pupils and parents liked the change. “Everybody is delighted,” was the exclamation. A year later the same teacher was asked by the visitor, “How are you succeeding with your concrete work in fractions?” With a dejected air she replied, “We are disappointed with the results.” “Just as I expected,” exclaimed the visitor; “for you were making the children think on the level of barbarism, instead of teaching them to use the tools and labor-saving machinery of modern civilization.”
Still another incident, taken from actual life, will serve to throw light upon the subject under discussion. In the booming days of the iron industry a laborer had saved and put out at interest twelve hundred dollars. The rate was six per cent., and no interest had been paid for one year and four months. Unable to reckon interest with figures, the toiler asked the principal of the schools to tell him the amount of interest due. Next day he greeted the principal by asking, “Did you not make a mistake in your calculation?” The reply was, “In my hurry to avoid being late at school I may have made a mistake.” He found that the man was right, and curiosity led him to ask how the error had been detected. “I reckoned it,” said the man. This aroused still greater curiosity; for the principal knew that, beyond the ability to count, the man had no knowledge of arithmetic. By agreement they met on Saturday afternoon, so that the man might show his method of reckoning interest. At the appointed hour the man laid six pennies on the floor to denote a year’s interest on one dollar, and then laid two pennies alongside of these as the additional interest on a dollar for four months. The supply of pennies being exhausted, he made strokes with chalk, and proceeded to do this twelve hundred times, and then to count them for the purpose of ascertaining the interest. It was thinking in things with a vengeance. And yet the making of strokes with chalk was a step in symbolic representation, and shows the innate tendency of the human mind to use symbols in thinking.
Even the words used in counting are symbols. In fact, every word that signifies anything is a symbol used by the mind to indicate an idea more or less complex, as well as the thing or things or relation of things in the external world which corresponds to the idea. In advanced thinking the words denote ideas more and more complex as the problems grow in difficulty or involve more of the abstract and general concepts under which the mind classifies the objects of which it takes cognizance. This is more largely true of the words in a developed language than it is of a dialect with little or no literature. A reference to the writer’s early home will be pardoned in this connection. His father, a plain farmer in Eastern Pennsylvania, sent four sons through college and gave each of them a professional or university education. When they gather under the parental roof they use the dialect of their early days in discussing life on the farm and in rehearsing the funny experiences of their boyhood; but when they discuss a question in science or mathematics, in law, medicine, or theology, they drop the dialect of their boyhood and use the instruments of thought furnished by languages having a literature. Some one has facetiously said of one town in the Lehigh Valley that the people pray in seven languages and swear in eight. It is a witty statement of an actual fact. The Welshman can pray as well as swear in his native tongue. The Pennsylvania German can vent his feelings fully in his own dialect when he grows profane. As soon as he says his prayers he reverts to the language of the pulpit and of Luther’s Bible because he there finds the words which express the deepest wants and emotions of the human soul.
When Melanchthon prepared the Saxony school plan he insisted that pupils should read Latin, write Latin, and speak Latin to the exclusion of the mother tongue. If an educator of to-day should advocate this policy in the fatherland, he would be banished. Melanchthon, surnamed preceptor Germaniæ, knew what he was about. He taught at a time when teachers of the humanities lamented that children were born in the homes of parents speaking German. He lectured at a time when Luther and his colleagues were visiting market-places to talk with the peasants for the purpose of gathering words and phrases by which the New Testament might be adequately rendered in the vernacular of the common people. A development extending over one hundred and fifty years was required before the lecturers at the universities found in it enough words and phrases to serve as instruments of thought for purposes of advanced investigation and ratiocination. So rich and flexible has the German become that Voss succeeded in translating Homer into German, using the same metre, the same number of lines, without adding to or subtracting from the ideas of the original. Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare is equally famous and equally successful. Both of these masterpieces show how essential a rich vocabulary is in rendering or in reproducing the best thoughts of the best minds; they show the importance of linguistic development and linguistic teaching. For purposes of thought and culture a rich mother tongue is of untold advantage. It is a great blessing to be born and raised in a home presided over by a well-educated mother. It is an invaluable help to be trained in schools whose teachers speak and write the languages which have felt the touch of the genius of Shakespeare and of Goethe. Next to furnishing ideas or something to think about, the thing of most importance in teaching a pupil to think is to enrich his vocabulary, to train him in language. Dr. Whewell has well remarked that “language is the atmosphere in which thought lives, for there is hardly a subject we can think about without the aid of language. Consequently, without knowledge of the language of a science all thinking with regard to that science is impossible; for although we conceive the world by means of our senses, we comprehend it only in and through the form of language.” In this connection one cannot do better than listen to the conclusions of men who have attained eminence as scholars, thinkers, and writers. Speaking from experience, they can throw light upon the art of correct and efficient thinking.
“Language, we must remember,” says Dr. Morrell, “is not constructed afresh by every individual mind which uses it. It is a world already created for us,—one into which we have simply to be introduced, and in which the process of human development, up to any given period, is more or less perfectly preserved and registered. Recollection, accordingly, by enabling us to appropriate to ourselves a whole system of signs, with the ideas attached to them, initiates us insensibly into the intellectual world of the present, puts us upon the vantage-ground of the latest degree of civilization, and enables us to grasp the ideas of the age without the labor of thinking them out consecutively by our own individual effort.”[11]
“Language,” says Dr. Whewell, “is often called an instrument of thought; but it is also the nutriment of thought; or, rather, it is the atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium essential to the activity of our speculative power, although invisible and imperceptible in its operation; and an element modifying, by its qualities and changes, the growth and complexion of the faculties which it feeds. In this way the influence of preceding discoveries upon subsequent ones, of the past upon the present, is most penetrating and universal, though most subtle and difficult to trace. The most familiar words and phrases are connected by imperceptible ties with the reasonings and discoveries of former men and most distant times. Their knowledge is an inseparable part of ours; the present generation inherits and uses the scientific wealth of all the past. And this is the fortune not only of the great and rich in the intellectual world, of those who have the key to the ancient storehouses and who have accumulated treasures of their own, but the humblest inquirer, while he puts his reasoning into words, benefits by the labors of the greatest discoverers. When he counts his little wealth, he finds he has in his hands coins which bear the image and superscription of ancient and modern intellectual dynasties; and that, in virtue of this possession, acquisitions are in his power, solid knowledge within his reach, which none could ever have attained to if it were not that the gold of truth, once dug out of the mine, circulates more and more widely among mankind.”[12]
“The word ‘vernacular,’” says Hinsdale, “is derived from vernaculus, which comes from verna, a slave born in his master’s house; and it means the speech to which one is born and in which he is reared,—the patrius sermo of the Roman, the Mutter-sprache of the German, the mother tongue of the Englishman. Command of a noble vernacular involves the most valuable discipline and culture that a man is capable of receiving. It conditions all other discipline and culture.... The greatest mental inheritance to which a German, a Frenchman, or an Englishman is born is his native tongue, rich in the knowledge and wisdom, the ideas and thoughts, the wit and fancy, the sentiment and feeling, of a thousand years. Nay, of more than a thousand years; for these languages, in their modern forms, were enriched by still earlier centuries. To come back to the old thought, such a speech as one of these only flows out from such a life as it expresses, and is in turn essential to the existence of that life.”[13]
Parents who wish their children to possess the best instruments of thought cannot be too careful in the selection of teachers for them. Children whose mother tongue is a dialect should be trained in one or more of the languages that have been enriched by centuries of development and literary culture. The best that the people of Pennsylvania-German extraction can do for future generations is to make the transition as speedily as possible from their vernacular—so poverty-stricken in its vocabulary—to the English, with its abundant vocabulary and its unsurpassed literary treasures. In the English they will find the instruments of thought fitted to develop native powers that have been inherited from an ancestry of sturdy husbandmen, and strengthened through heredity by centuries of contact with the soil, even as the giant Antæus, in wrestling with Hercules, is fabled to have gained new strength as often as he came in contact with mother earth. The same advice will apply to the other nationalities who have come to live on American soil, even though they have brought with them a more developed vernacular. The English dictionary contains one hundred and twenty thousand words; but besides these words in common use, the dictionaries of the specialists contain several hundred thousand more, which may be called technical terms, and which serve as instruments of thought in scientific discussions and investigations. To these we next turn our attention.
VI
TECHNICAL TERMS AS INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT
It is the power of thinking by means of symbols which demarcates men from animals, and gives one man or nation the superiority over others.
Lewes.
Hardly any original thoughts on mental or social subjects ever make their way among mankind or assume their proper importance in the minds even of their inventors until aptly selected words or phrases have, as it were, nailed them down and held them fast.
J. S. Mill.
Though most readers, probably, entertain, at first, a persuasion that a writer ought to content himself with the use of common words in their common sense, and feel a repugnance to technical terms and arbitrary rules of phraseology, as pedantic and troublesome, it is soon found by the student of any branch of science that, without technical terms and fixed rules, there can be no certain or progressive knowledge. The loose and infantine grasp of common language cannot hold objects steadily enough for scientific examination, or lift them from one stage of generalization to another. They must be secured by the rigid mechanism of a scientific phraseology. This necessity has been felt in all the sciences, from the earliest periods of their progress.
Whewell.
Ideas and existences are represented by terms and phrases; and as terms and phrases are representative of thoughts and things, and are the means which enable us to speak about them, the definitions, descriptions, and explanations of terms form a very necessary part of science; and he who would understand science must learn the meaning of the special terms employed in it.
Gore.
VI
TECHNICAL TERMS AS INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT
Some teachers are very much afraid of technical terms. They teach their pupils to say name-word instead of noun, action-word instead of verb, and bring over instead of transpose. There is no end to the phrases they invent for the sake of avoiding technical terms. Acting on the maxim that a pupil shall never be allowed to use a word without comprehending its meaning, they prefer to use compound words and phrases to denote the fundamental ideas of the various branches of study. This fear of technical terms is a natural result of the reaction against rote teaching. So much has been said and written against the teaching of mere words, especially big words, against parrot-like recitations of definitions, rules, principles, and forms of statement given in the text-book or wrought out by the teacher, that many people fail to see the value of technical terms as instruments of thought. A separate chapter is necessary to point out their function in scientific thinking and instruction. In common parlance the use of technical terms should be avoided. Do we say that Nebuchadnezzar had a long noun or a long name? Noun is a technical term; name is the word in ordinary use. Do we say that a man broke his femur or his leg? The doctors who set the limb will probably use the technical term in their conferences. In talking with the common people they use the common names, unless they wish to awe the multitudes by a show of learning. Often, indeed, men use big words to hide their ignorance. In physiology the investigations are carried as far as possible, and then a term is coined to cover the unknown. Often high-sounding words are strung together to cover a lack of ideas or to establish a reputation for erudition. These are tricks to which a genuine teacher has no occasion to resort. It is his duty to ascertain the educational value of the technical terms of science, and to use these terms for the purpose of fixing scientific ideas in the mind and of causing the pupil to think clearly and exactly.
At the basis of every science, as we have seen, there are certain ideas which cannot be conveyed to other minds by the use of the corresponding technical terms. These basal concepts must be built up in the learner’s mind by skilful teaching, sometimes by the very process by which the race acquired or discovered them. It may require a trip to the field, to the museum, or to the mine; or an experiment in the laboratory may be necessary. Perhaps a development lesson is needed to enable the pupil to grasp the idea clearly and fully. It is very certain that if the idea is hazy and ill-defined, the subsequent thinking will be loose, obscure, and unsatisfactory. The glib use of technical terms may often hide from the teacher the defects of the pupil’s thinking, and it may require an examination to reveal the points wherein the teacher has failed. Questions which require a pupil to look at his knowledge from a new point of view are helpful; an examination abounding in such questions may be an intellectual blessing to both teacher and pupil. The examiner should, of course, avoid puzzling catch-questions, for these are calculated to embarrass the pupil and confuse his thinking.
A clear thinker can always make his ideas intelligible to those who have acquired the basal concepts of the things, principles, and laws with which he deals. Lecturers on popular science avoid the abstruse questions of advanced science and the technical terms which do not convey a definite meaning to the average hearer. They select topics which can be discussed in the language of common life, and often state the results of scientific research without leading the audience through the successive steps by which these results are obtained. The popular lecture requires special gifts that are not in the possession of every scientist. Huxley was one of the most gifted men of the century; yet he says of himself,—
“I have not been one of those fortunate persons who are able to regard a popular lecture as a mere hors d’œuvre unworthy of being ranked among the serious efforts of a philosopher, and who keep their fame as scientific hierophants unsullied by attempts—at least of the successful sort—to be understanded by the people. On the contrary, I have found that the task of putting the truths learned in the field, the laboratory, and the museum into language which, without bating a jot of scientific accuracy, shall be generally intelligible, taxed such scientific and literary faculty as I possessed to the uttermost; indeed, my experience has furnished me with no better corrective of the tendency to scholastic pedantry, which besets all those who are absorbed in pursuits remote from the common ways of men, and become habituated to think and speak in the technical dialect of their own little world, as if there were no other.”
There is an error, on the other hand, into which practical men fall when they object to the technical language of the scientist. There are many things in science which cannot be made plain to the non-scientific mind. The difficulty lies not in the terminology employed, but in the lack of the basal concepts necessary for the advanced thinking which must be employed. Says Robert Galloway, “Words when employed in science, unlike their employment in common use, have a meaning steadily fixed and precisely determined; this precision in the meaning of scientific terms necessarily requires on the part of those who can make proper use of them accurate habits of thought; this is an indispensable qualification for attainment in any science; there is no dispensing with it, consequently one who does not know the language of a science, and who has not been taught to think accurately with respect to it, cannot understand properly what may be told or shown him about the facts or principles of that science.”
From this point of view it is easy to see the use which the teacher should make of technical terms. Circumlocutions and explanatory phrases may be helpful in developing fundamental ideas, but the corresponding technical terms should be associated with the ideas as soon as these assume clear, definite shape. Language is the atmosphere in which thinking lives; technical language is as necessary to the scientific thought as the air we breathe is to the physical life. In one of his letters to a young man whose education had been neglected, De Quincey renders an important service to the science of teaching. “In assigning to the complex notion X the name transcendental, Kant was not simply transferring a word which had previously been used by the school-men to a more useful office; he was bringing into the service of the intellect a new birth; that is, drawing into a synthesis, which had not existed before as a synthesis, parts or elements which exist and come forward hourly in every man’s mind. I urge this upon your attention, because you will often hear such challenges thrown out as this (or others involving the same error): ‘Now, if there be any sense in this Mr. Kant’s writings, let us have it in good old mother English.’ That is, in other words, transfer into the unscientific language of life scientific notions which it is not fitted to express. The challenger proceeds upon the common error of supposing all ideas fully developed to exist in esse in all understandings, ergo, his own; and all that are in his own he thinks we can express in English. Thus the challenger, in his own notions, has you in a dilemma, at any rate; for, if you do not translate it, then it confirms his belief that the whole is jargon; if you do (as, doubtless, with the help of much periphrasis, that will be intelligible to a man who already understands the philosophy), then where was the use of the terminology? But the way to deal with this fellow is as follows: My good sir, I shall do what you ask; but before I do it I beg you will oblige me by (1) translating this mathematics into the language of chemistry; (2) translating this chemistry into the language of mathematics; (3) both into the language of cookery, and, finally, solve me the Cambridge problem, Given the captain’s name, the year of our Lord, to determine the longitude of the ship? This is the way to deal with such fellows.”
Technical terms are very helpful in dealing with that which cannot be imaged or visualized. When Francis Galton began his inquiries into the power possessed by different minds to conceive the breakfast table, to recall vividly the various dishes and the way in which they are placed upon the table, many men of scientific habits of thought declared that there is no such human faculty. On the other hand, the educational reformer whose early training did not make him familiar with the thought-processes of higher mathematics may honestly declare that he cannot conceive an abstract number, and, as a matter of course, he can have no adequate conception of the value of the higher forms of thinking in symbols. Dr. W. T. Harris has well said that the mind can think ideas which cannot be pictorially conceived or made to stand before the mind in thought-images. In thinking this class of ideas, technical terms are indispensable as instruments of thought.
The value of technical terms as instruments of thought is seen in a still clearer light if we try to classify the various uses of the signs and symbols which are employed as aids in thinking. Many of these have no office beyond that of suggesting the things or ideas for which they stand. To this class belong the marks which suggest to the tramp a cross dog or a good meal. As soon as he has seen them, they could be erased; the train of thought which they started in his mind can go on without them. Of a similar character are the devices by which the merchant marks the buying and the selling prices of goods, the red and blue lights used on railways and ocean steamers, the secret signs and signals employed by the signal corps of an army, and the steps, grips, signs, countersigns, and passwords employed by secret societies as a means of identification. Very many of the artificial devices used in systems of mnemonics have no higher function than that of suggesting what otherwise might be forgotten.
Very different are the signs and symbols which mathematics employs as substitutes for the quantities to be considered. In adding a column in the ledger or in a statistical table the mind thinks the figures without reference to the concrete objects which they denote. In the solution of a problem in algebra the unknown quantities are represented by symbols like x and y, the known quantities by the first letters of the alphabet or by numerical expressions; the relations between the quantities are indicated by equations; there is no thought of the quantities themselves while the mind is engaged in manipulating the symbols according to well-defined rules of operation, and only when the result is to be interpreted do the quantities reappear in the field of consciousness. The substitute symbol is a device for temporarily dropping an idea until it is needed for interpretation; the suggestive symbol is a means of bringing an idea or thought into the domain of consciousness. The latter furnishes or recalls material for the mind to act upon; the former lightens the burden which the mind would otherwise have to carry. The arithmetical solution of an age question in which the mind constantly carries the thought of A’s age and his wife’s age as compared with the algebraic solution of the same question in which A and his wife, as well as their ages, sink temporarily out of sight, shows the value of substitute signs and symbols in mathematical thinking, and explains why algebraic methods are so far superior to the clumsy and involved methods of arithmetical analysis.
Different from either of these is the class of symbols used in expressing ideas. This class includes not only the words of written and spoken language, but also the natural signs of gesture language and the conventional signs of manual language taught to deaf mutes. The language is full of faded metaphors indicating the office of common words. They are said to express meaning, to convey thought, to embody ideas, to enshrine content. They may be likened to window-panes through which one sees what is back of them. Sometimes the window-panes, like spectacles when first worn, attract more attention from the person looking than the objects seen through them,—a parallel to what occurs when the articulate speech, or its rhetorical adornment, attracts more attention than the thought expressed. But if that which is seen through the window-pane is on the order of a Santa Claus loaded with toys and Christmas-gifts, then no notice is taken of the medium through which the object is seen. Hence the very best teaching—that which rivets attention upon the thought conveyed—always fails to teach the spelling of words incidentally. Furthermore, the instruction which frequently stops to draw attention to the grammar of the sentences, the spelling of the words or their mode of utterance, interferes with the formation of logical habits of thinking and divests the words of their function as expressive signs. When the word itself becomes an object of thought the mind is not thinking by means of that word. It has been well said that we may fail to apprehend the meaning of what a person is saying because the tone of his voice arrests our attention through its resemblance to that of some one else in whom we feel an interest; that so far as signs thus attract notice on their own account, they fail to fulfil their function as a means of attending to something other than themselves. For this very pertinent observation credit is due to Mr. G. F. Stout, who (“Mind,” lxii. page 18) has very clearly drawn the distinction between the three classes of signs or symbols used as helps in thinking. He says,—
“Suggestive signs serve only to bring something to mind; they are not a means of minding it when once recalled. An expressive sign, on the contrary, is a means of attending to its signification.... Expressive signs differ from substitutes in a manner exactly the inverse of that in which they differ from suggestive signs. A suggestive sign has fulfilled its purpose and becomes of no further avail so soon as it has suggested its meaning. A substitute sign is a counter which takes the place of its meaning; so long as it fulfils its representative function it renders useless all reference to that which it represents. The counters are manipulated according to certain rules of operation until a certain result is reached, which is then interpreted. The operator may be actually unable to interpret the intermediate steps. Algebraical and arithmetical symbols are to a great extent used as mere substitute signs. The same is true of the symbols employed in formal logic. It is possible to use signs of this kind whenever fixed and definite rules of operation can be derived from the nature of the things symbolized, so as to be applied in manipulating the signs without further reference to their signification. A word is an instrument for thinking about the meaning which it expresses; a substitute sign is a means of not thinking about the meaning which it symbolizes.”
In addition to these three purposes the technical term may serve still another important end. It helps to fix the new concept or notion after it has been developed by skilful instruction. Its association therewith makes it a suggestive sign whenever occasion requires the recurrence of the concept or thought for which it stands. The train of thought is facilitated and made possible by the use of technical terms as expressive signs. And if the idea denoted by it can be accurately defined, so that the definition becomes a triumph of intellect, or if it can be quantified, so as to become a unit of measure like the volts, ohms, ampères, and watts in applied electricity, the technical term may even serve a purpose analogous to the substitute signs in sciences like formal logic and mathematics.
The foregoing analysis indicates the proper method of teaching technical terms. First, the basal concept should be carefully developed and clearly presented; it should then be fixed in the mind by association with the corresponding technical term; finally, the union should be made permanent by frequently causing the two to appear together in the domain of thought, by treating them as welcome guests when they appear together in the citadel of mind. Divorce of one from the other should be as impossible as in the case of the two parties to a suitable marriage. On the fête days of science they should appear together, each suggesting the presence of the other, the technical term serving as a helpmeet to the idea, and as its representative when, in the charmed circle of scientific investigation, the presence of the idea is not absolutely required. Circumlocutions, like name-word for noun, quality-word for adjective, and relation-word for preposition, may be helpful in presenting the idea or in introducing the technical term; they may be tolerated, like a third party in the making of a match; but when the match has been made, and the wedding has been solemnized, they should drop out of sight as of no further use. The figure of speech could easily be pressed too far; for many objects known to science have a common as well as a technical designation. Each has its proper place in the realm of thought,—the common name in ordinary conversation, the technical term when scientific precision is required.
VII
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE
It seems to me quite certain that we can and do think things without thinking of any sound or words. Language seems to me to be necessary to the progress of thought, but not at all necessary to the mere act of thinking. It is a product of thought: a vehicle for the communication of it, a channel for the conveyance of it, and an embodiment which is essential to its growth and continuity. But it seems to be altogether erroneous to represent it as an inseparable part of cogitation. Donkeys and dogs are without true thought, not because they are speechless, but they are speechless because they have no abstract ideas, and no true reasoning powers. In parrots the power of mere articulation exists sometimes in wonderful perfection. But parrots are not so clever as many other birds which have no such power.
Man’s vocal organs are correlated with his brain. Both are equally mysterious, because they are co-operative, and yet separable, parts of “one plan.”
Argyll.
That the language may be fitted for its purpose, not only should every word perfectly express its meaning, but there should be no important meaning without its word. Whatever we have occasion to think of often, and for scientific purposes, ought to have a name appropriated to it.
J. S. Mill.
VII
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE
In the development of intellectual life three contingencies are possible.
1. The growth of the vocabulary may be more rapid than the acquisition of ideas.
2. The accumulation and development of ideas may exceed the ability to express them in language.
3. The acquisition of ideas and words, of thought and language, may be simultaneous.
Without doubt, these possibilities in mental growth exist for wise and beneficent purposes.
The tendency to acquire words without the corresponding ideas is, in at least one direction, a source of gain rather than loss. The pert phrases, profane words, and other objectionable language which the child accidentally hears from the lips of older persons, and at times uses to the unspeakable annoyance of parents and teachers, would be an occasion for far more serious alarm if the meaning were fully understood. Were it a law of our mental life that the hearing and learning of a profane or obscene word necessarily carried with it a clear grasp of the meaning, the resulting harm to the inner life of the soul would be immeasurably greater, and the stain upon the character would be vastly more difficult to remove. The objectionable language may mirror the habits of thought and speech into which those in charge of the child have fallen, awaken in them a new sense of their responsibility, and cause them to be more careful of what they say; or it may prove an index to the kind of company into which the child is drifting, and thus serve as a danger-signal to parent and teacher. When the mind has not learned to think the thought expressed, a simple warning against the use of such ugly words generally suffices to eradicate them from the child’s vocabulary; and in such instances it is a blessing in disguise that the learning of the words was not accompanied by the acquisition of their meaning. The loss to the intellectual life is more than balanced by the gain in moral training.
Is thinking possible without language? If by language is meant oral speech and written words, the sign-language of deaf mutes is sufficient to compel an affirmative answer to the question. Moreover, there are modes of thinking and of expressing thought other than by the use of words. Of the means of expressing thought without words, symbols like the ten digits and the sigma of the new psychology are well-known examples. The player in a game of chess, croquet, or billiards thinks movements in advance of making them, and generally without describing the same in words. The drawings and plans by means of which the architect designs a new building, the mental images of mechanical contrivances which precede the invention and construction of machines, the mental pictures used in designing, engineering, and sketching, in original geological thought, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that thinking may go forward without words and sentences, and may find expression in ways better adapted to the needs of the artisan. The graphic method of presenting to the eye the results of an investigation is less cumbersome than any description in words. Some men depend so much upon mental pictures in their thinking that they assert they cannot think at all without them. In some kinds of gymnastic drill the movement is described in words, then conceived by the mind, and finally executed. This exercise has a different educational value from the exercise in which the student simply imitates the movements of the teacher, the latter being an instance of thinking and expressing thought without the help of words. The speed with which many movements must be executed, as in fencing, legerdemain, athletic sports, the manipulation of the lever in the hands of the engineer, requires thinking without the intermediate agency of words and sentences. The time it takes for an idea to pass into words, and through them into actions, is measurably greater than the time required for the direct translation of thought into action. Although the difference in specific instances is measured by the fraction of a second, it would involve serious loss of time as well as energy in the handicrafts if thoughts could only pass into action through speech or written language.