Читать книгу The Origin of Thought and Speech онлайн

68 страница из 72

Man’s capabilities of introducing intermediaries between the intention and the fulfilment of his object witness to his wideness of mind, his experience of the past and prevision of the future; all those things that he owes to his power of imagination and conception even in the case of things having no real existence, or which do not exist as yet; he reproduces at will the outward likeness of what is not at the moment before him. Thus man who names an object, thinks it; but the animal from not possessing language cannot think it and cannot reproduce it when out of its sight.

The use or non-use of tools creates a great gulf between man and the brutes. The most intelligent animal, a monkey of a high order, never uses a tool—even the most primitive—to accomplish his will; no one can ascribe to the animal creative actions, that is, it does not fashion an implement that it may attain another end; it has never been known to carry an object from one spot to another that it might act as a ladder to bring the animal nearer to the fruit it desired to reach.

Правообладателям