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.