ON THE ORIGIN OF REASON. 



549 



color of the poppy, separated from everything 

 else, particularly after it has been strengthened 

 by the red color of other flowers, of birds, of 

 blood, or of the sunset, becomes in the fullest 

 sense of the word a concept. But while we can 

 point to the flower, the bird, and the red sky, we 

 never can point to the red as such, apart from 

 the things to which it belongs. Unless, there- 

 fore, we have signs to assist our memory in the 

 retention of concepts, they would vanish almost 

 as soon as they have risen. This is not a merely 

 theoretic difficulty, but it must have been felt as 

 a very serious practical difficulty, from the first 

 beginnings of civilized life. How to distinguish 

 blood from water, except through the concept of 

 red, and through some sign for red ? 



It is the object of Prof. Noire's last book to 

 give an answer to this question, " How are con- 

 cepts framed and named ? " That language does 

 not begin with mere sensation, that man never 

 attempted to name a single subject in its com- 

 pleteness, he takes for granted, for the single 

 reason that it is a superhuman task. Try to 

 name a whole oak, and you will find that lan- 

 guage cannot even get near it. All names are 

 made from roots, all roots are signs of concepts. 

 Bring the oak under a concept, under the con- 

 cept of eating, for instance, and you can name it, 

 as it was named <pr\y6s, the eaten tree, the food- 

 tree, par excellence ; but not otherwise. I be- 

 lieve, however, that one class of roots has here 

 been overlooked, and must indeed be ascribed to 

 the purely perceptive phase of the human mind, 

 viz., the demonstrative or pronominal as opposed 

 to the predicative roots. Those sounds which 

 simply point to an object — this, that, I, thou, he, 

 etc. — are in their most primitive form purely 

 sensational. They are few in number, but they 

 are made to render the greatest service in the 

 later formation of words. 



With the exception of this small class of 

 roots, however, Prof. Noire is certainly right that 

 all roots are signs of concepts. We may take 

 any word we choose, it will invariably lead us 

 back in the beginning, not to a single sensation, 

 but to a concept. A book is originally what was 

 made of beech. The English beech, the Latin 

 fagus, the Greek (pt)y6s, oak, were all so called 

 from the root <pay, to feed, to eat ; that is to say, 

 the tree was conceived as giving food to cattle, 

 whether acorns or beech-nuts. But even <pay, to 

 eat, is a secondary root, and may be traced back 

 to the Sanskrit root bhag, which has preserved 

 the more general meaning of dividing. 



Wool, vellus, Zp-wv, Sanskrit urna, all come 



from a root var, to cover. A horse was called 

 equus, Sanskrit asva, the swift, from a root a*, to 

 be sharp and quick ; while the cow, in contradis- 

 tinction to the runner or the horse, was called 

 fiovs, Sanskrit gaus, from a root bd or gd, to go, 

 to move slowly. We may tap language wherever 

 we like, the sap that runs from its veins is always 

 conceptual. 



We saw before how concepts arose ; we also 

 saw why it was necessary that concepts should 

 have signs. They would have vanished without 

 signs, and it was desirable that they should not 

 vanish. The question that remains to be answered 

 is, how concepts were expressed in sounds. 



THE INTERACTIONAL AND MIMETIC THEORIES. 



The most common theories hitherto advocated 

 on that point have been the inter jectional and the 

 mimetic, or, as they have also been called, when 

 misapplied to etymological purposes, the Pooh- 

 pooh and Bow-wow theories. According to the 

 former, roots are derived from involuntary excla- 

 mations forced out by powerful impressions. 

 According to the latter, they are formed from 

 imitations of natural sounds, such as the barking 

 of dogs, the lowing of cows, etc. In my lectures 

 on Mr. Darwin's "Philosophy of Language," I 

 tried to explain how, with certain modifications, 

 both of these theories could be defended, not in- 

 deed as supplying actual roots, still less actual 

 words, but as furnishing the materials out of 

 which roots might be formed. Yet the arguments 

 against this theory of mine are powerful. It is 

 perfectly true, as Prof. Noire points out, that the 

 simplest sensations which, we should think, might 

 be expressed by interjections, are never so ex- 

 pressed, but are reached by language in the most 

 circuitous way. To hunger and to thirst are two 

 very primitive sensations ; but have they been 

 expressed interjectionally ? 



The word hunger is as yet without any ety. 

 mology ; it may possibly be connected with San- 

 skrit kars, to dwindle away ; krisa, lean, lank ; 

 the German hager. The Latin esurio, derived 

 from edo, means I wish to eat. The same mean- 

 ing we find in the Sanskrit asanayati, to desire 

 food. The Greek ireiva, hunger, is connected 

 with ir6vos, labor, irei/opai, I labor, I strive, I 

 reach after food ; the original conception being 

 most likely what we find in airda, to draw out, 

 the German spannen, to stretch. 



To thirst, Gothic thaursja, Sanskrit trtsh- 

 yami, shows its original conception in Greek, 

 rtpffoixai, I am dry ; Latin, torreo ; Gothic, thaur- 

 sus, dry. The same root supplied material for 



