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 _verbum mentale_ of scholasticism) is denied by several writers of good standing—notably, for instance, by Professor Max Müller, who seeks with much elaboration to prove that “not only to a considerable extent, but always and altogether, we think by means of names.”[55] 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 Müller quotes as showing what he calls “hesitation” in accepting a doctrine which in his opinion is the inevitable conclusion of Nominalism. For to me it appears evident that within the region of concepts, the 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 coordinated 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 mechanical. So in the case of purely mental operations, even of the highest order. 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 reasoning requires to be taken on the solid basis of a proposition. But by frequent habit the thinking faculty ceases to be thus restricted: it passes, so to speak, from one end of the chain to the other without requiring to pause at every link: for its original stepping-stones it has substituted a bridge, over which it can pass almost at a bound. Or, again, to change the metaphor, there arises a method of short-hand thinking, wherein even the symbols of ideas (concepts) need no longer appear in consciousness: judgment follows judgment in logical sequence, yet without any articulate expression by the _verbum mentale_. This, I say, is a matter of fact which it appears to me a very small amount of introspection is enough to verify. On reading a letter, for instance, we may instantaneously decide upon our answer, and yet have to pause