ON THE ORIGIN OF REASON. 



535 



of analysis and synthesis which I tried to rep- 

 resent as clearly as possible in my " Lectures 

 on the Science of Language," first published in 

 1861. 



ROOTS OR PHONETIC TYPES. 



Those who have read those lectures will re- 

 member how strongly I opposed any attempt on 

 the part of the students of language to go beyond 

 roots, such as we actually find them as the result 

 of the most careful phonetic analysis. It was 

 thought at the time that my protests against all 

 attempts to ignore or skip those roots, and to 

 derive any word or any grammatical form straight 

 from mere cries or from imitations of natural 

 sounds, were too vehement. But I believe it is 

 now generally admitted, even by some of my 

 former opponents, that the slightest concession 

 to what, not ironically, but simply descriptively, 

 I called the bow-wow and pooh-pooh theories in 

 the practical analysis of words, would have been 

 utter ruin to the character of the science of lan- 

 guage. 



But to show that a certain road, and the only 

 safe road, leads us to a mountain-wall, which 

 from our side can never be scaled, is very differ- 

 ent from saying that there is or that there can 

 be nothing behind that mountain-wall. To judge 

 from the manner in which some comparative 

 philologists speak of roots, one would imagine 

 that they were not only indiscernibilia, but Palla- 

 dia fallen straight from the sky, utterly incom- 

 prehensible in their nature and origin. It was in 

 order to guard against such a view that, at the 

 end of my lectures, I felt induced to add a few 

 lines, just as a painter, when he has finished a 

 landscape, dots in a few lines in the background 

 to show that there is a world beyond. The sci- 

 ence of language, I felt, had done its work when 

 it had reduced the vague problem of the origin 

 of language to a more definite form, viz., " What 

 is the origin of roots ? " How much has been 

 gained by that change of front those will best be 

 able to appreciate who have studied the history 

 of the innumerable attempts at discovering the 

 origin of language during the last century. 



Beyond that point, however, where the stu- 

 dent of language is able to lay the primary ele- 

 ments of language at the feet of philosophers, the 

 science of language alone, apart from the science 

 of thought, will not carry us. We must start 

 afresh, and in a different direction ; and it was in 

 order to indicate that direction, in order to show 

 to what quarter I looked for a solution of the 

 last problem, the origin of roots, that I appealed 



to the fact that everything in Nature, when set in 

 motion or struck, reacts; that it vibrates, and 

 causes vibrations. This seemed to me the highest 

 generalization and at the same time the lowest 

 beginning of what is meant by language. The two 

 problems, how mere cries, whether interjectional 

 or imitative, could develop into phonetic types, 

 and how mere sensations could develop into ra- 

 tional concepts, I left untouched, trusting that 

 philosophers by profession would quickly per- 

 ceive how some of the darkest points of psychol- 

 ogy might be illuminated by the electric light of 

 the science of language, and fully convinced that 

 they would eagerly avail themselves of the mate- 

 rials placed before them and ready for use to build 

 up at last a sound and solid system of mental 

 philosophy. 



SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



Prof. Noire seems to me the first philosopher 

 who has clearly perceived that in the direction 

 indicated by the Science of Language there was 

 a new world to discover, and who discovered it. 

 Already in his earlier works there are repeated in- 

 dications that the teaching of comparative phi- 

 lology had not been lost on him. 



I confess I have often wondered at the apathy, 

 particularly of the students of psychology, with 

 regard to the complete revolution that has been 

 worked before their eyes in the realm of language. 

 They simply looked on, as if it did not concern 

 them. Why, if language were only the outward 

 form of thought, is it not clear that no philoso- 

 phy, wishing to gain an insight into the nature of 

 thought, and particularly into its origin, could 

 dispense with a careful study of language ? What 

 would Hobbes or Locke have given for Bopp's 

 " Comparative Grammar ? " What should we say 

 if biologists were to attempt to discover the na- 

 ture and laws of organic life without ever looking 

 at a living body? And where are we to find the 

 living body of thought, if not in language ? What 

 are the two problems left unsettled at the end of 

 the Science of Language — " How do mere cries 

 become phonetic types ? " and " How can sensa- 

 tions be changed into concepts ? " — what are 

 these two, if taken together, but the highest prob- 

 lem of all philosophy, viz., What is the origin of 

 reason ? 



PROFESSOR NOIRE'S WORKS. 



It is impossible to do justice to Prof. Noire's 

 last book, "On the Origin of Language," without 

 going back to his earlier works. His last work 

 is the last stone that finishes the arch of his phil- 

 osophical system, but it is held in its place by 



