250 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



some individual objects, we require, and consequently 

 have, separate distinguishing names ; there is a name 

 for every person, and for every remarkable place. 

 Other objects, of which we have not occasion to speak 

 so frequently, we do not designate by a name of their 

 own ; but when the necessity arises for naming them, 

 we do so by putting together several words, each of 

 which by itself, might be, and is, used for an in 

 definite number of other objects; as when I say this 

 stone, this and stone being each of them names 

 that may be used of many other objects besides the 

 particular one meant, though the only object of 

 which they can both be used at the given moment, 

 consistently with their signification, may be the one 

 of which I wish to speak.&quot; 1 The sign which expresses 

 thought is very different from the sound which is the 

 expulsive utterance of strong animal feeling. Hence, 

 in the activity of the rational life, marks and signs 

 are employed even more widely than vocables. If a 

 stone-hewer chisel out a stone on the hillside, and 

 mark it with a stroke of blue paint, in token of 

 property in the stone, thought and purpose are 

 expressed by the paint; so it is when the forester 

 marks with red the trees not to be cut, while others 

 are being felled ; so it is when sound takes the place 

 of colour, the only difference being that in the one 

 case appeal to the understanding is made through 

 the eye, in the other case through the ear. If we 

 regard such signs as testimony to the existence of 

 rational power, we are correct; if we adduce them 

 as causes of the appearance of thought, we err. 

 Explanation of the appearance of rational life can 



1 Mill s Logic, Bk. i. chap. ii. 3. 



