CHAPTER VII.

ON THE MATTER OF THOUGHT.

WHAT is present in the mind when we think? Ideas. Granted; but the answer does not lead us far, since in this sense an Idea is merely any representative state of consciousness, as opposed to Sensations, Emotions, and Activities, which are the direct or primitive states which those ideas represent. Any of the immediate states of consciousness may give rise to or be the first step of a train of thought, but it is obvious that any further steps must be taken by means of ideas. Thought is usually at highest when sensation, emotion, and activity (other than that of thought itself) are at lowest. It is obvious then that these three cannot immediately and at the moment supply the fuel which supports the flame of thought. It remains that this fuel should be furnished by the only other material which can be present to the mind-to wit-the ideas or representations of past sensations, emotions, or activities which are stored up within it.

The true question before us is, Does the mind in

Does the Mind use all Ideas indifferently?

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thinking use all kinds of ideas indifferently, or is there any one class of ideas to which it accords a preference partial or exclusive? In all that we have said in the preceding chapters we have assumed no such exclusive preference, but have spoken as if any idea whatsoever might be and ordinarily was used by the mind, as first, second, third, and so on to last term of any process of reasoning or argument. In so doing we have followed the invariable custom of all writers on the subject; but if we shall discover that the human mind, that at least of man as we now know him, employs almost exclusively one class of ideas in thought, we shall have to this extent to modify our former statements. All that we have said will still be true as to the way in which mankind might reason, and still perhaps occasionally does reason; but in order duly to represent the ordinary process of thought we shall have to substitute for the word idea, some narrower name which belongs to the class of ideas habitually employed in thought, and to those only.

Ideas we have said are representations of emotions, activities, and sensations. Now in composing or thinking out the last few pages, what class of ideas have I used? I have obviously had present to my mind no representations of emotions or activities, since the subject is neither tragic nor comic, neither historical nor hortative. I have, as far as I can analyse my own conscious

ness, had present to that consciousness no representations of visible objects,* no notions of smell or touch, still less any of taste. There remain only one order of ideas those which represent sensations of sound. Of these, I have thought neither of notes of music, nor of beasts bellowing, nor of any irrational or non-human sound whatsoever. Words only have been represented in my consciousness, and my thought has flowed on from one of them to the other without stopping, except perhaps at rare intervals, at the beginning or end of an argument, to consider at all what are the ideas or mental images of direct states of consciousness (other than the sounds of human speech) which the words of which I have been thinking represent. When my thought has been most intense, I have at times been conscious of the fact that I was half-forming my mouth to the articulation of those sounds whose representations were passing along in review in my mind. Is my thought to be condemned as valueless by reason of this my confusion? Must it be said that the whole argument is 'Mere Words. I am confident that if I am cast on this charge, all the ordinary reasoning of any civilized man will fall under a like condemnation. Let any man ask himself honestly how many times in an hour's serious thought he forms or uses the representation or mental image of aught else than sounds of spoken speech,

* This I must perhaps qualify by what comes hereafter (p. 232, etc.).

Thought a String of Words.

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I am ready to wager that he will have no difficulty in counting those times on the fingers of one hand.

The fact is that except when our consciousness is so taken up with direct sensations that thought is almost excluded; or when, on the other hand we are sunk in one of those delicious reveries when thought is at slowest, and when we pass lazily and luxuriously from one lovely image to another, the whole of our waking consciousness is an almost unbroken passage of long strings of words through the mind. Not only is this the case, but it becomes ever more and more so as mankind advances in the scale of civilization. I shall first attempt to prove this apparent paradox, and to show that this substitution of ideas of words for other mental images as the material of thought is part of the great process of the advance of civilization and the fitting of man for his circumstances. I shall then answer the objections which seem to rise against the doctrine, both from the side of philosophy and that of plain common sense. I shall show that some very curious and interesting consequences can be drawn from it which explain facts that have already been observed, but seem as yet to lack elucidation, and I shall finish the subject with a Utopian extension of the progress historically observed, which the reader may if he pleases reject as absurd as a prophecy, but which will, as I hope, at least serve to render

more clearly understandable what I assert as to the past advance of the Human Race.

The savage lives much with nature and little with his fellow-men. He hunts or tends his flocks alone, or with but few companions, and with them exchanges in the day but few words. If he returns to his village in the evening he sits almost silent by the camp-fire, or takes part in monotonous songs unvaried from night to night, and full of refrains and repetitions. His language is limited perhaps to a hundred words, and those words are themselves for the most part not arbitrary and distinct signs whereof several must be conjoined to describe even the most simple experience, but complex word-sentences un-distinct into parts, each one of which, aided most commonly by gestures, is intended to imitate an experience. The sound is either a repetition of some natural noise actually heard, or it is such a sound as might usually be emitted by a person or thing performing the activity which he desires to describe (compare the child's puff-puff for train, gee-gee for horse). It has neither verb nor noun, neither grammar nor arrangement. It is simply a representation (as nearly as may be an imitation) of some sensation, emotion, or activity, or of some sound which usually accompanies such.

Meanwhile at all times when his consciousness is not taken up by direct sensation or emotion, the savage