In fact, before articulate speech, for which man was adapted by his
organs and physiological conditions, was formulated into words for
things and words for shape, man like animals thought in images; he
associated and dissociated, he composed and decomposed, he moved and
removed images, which sufficed for all individual and immediate
operations of his mind. The relations of things were felt, or rather
seen through his inward representation of them as in a picture,
expressing in a material form the respective positions of figures and
objects which, since they are remote from him, can only be expressed by
such words as _nearer, lower_ or _higher, faint_ or _clear_, by more
vivid or paler tints, such as we see in a running stream, in the forms
of clouds, in the reciprocal relations of all objects represented in
painting.
In order to understand the primeval process of thought by means of
images, it is necessary to conceive such a picture as living and mobile,
and constantly forming a fresh combination of parts. Animals have not,
and primeval man had not, the phonetic signs or words which give an
individual character to the images, and so represent them that by
combining these images in an articulate form, thought may be
represented by signs; and in and through these a universal and objective
mode of exercising the intellectual faculty of reasoning has been
created.
Speech can, by means of reflex memory, produce at will the particular
images already classified in the mind, and this makes the process of
reasoning possible; since such a process becomes more easy by the use of
signs to which the attention can revert. The relative size of objects,
and the like qualities, which are at first regarded as so many different
intuitions in space, are defined by words or gestures, and are thus
subjected to comparative analogy; but in the early stages of language
these relations were presented in an extrinsic form by phonetic signs,
and became images which in some sort represented one particular state of
consciousness with respect to the two things compared. Galton, speaking
of the Damaras, tells us that they find great difficulty in counting
more than five, since they have not another hand with which to grasp the
fingers which represent the units. When they lose any of their cattle,
they do not discover the loss by the diminution of the number, but by
missing a familiar object. If two packets of tobacco are given to them
as the regulation price of a sheep, they will be altogether at a loss to
understand the receipt of four packets in exchange for two sheep. Such
examples might be multiplied to any extent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account