170 MENTAL EVOLUTION LN MAN. 



because, whenever "names given to objects convey any infor- 

 mation," the information thus conveyed is virtually predicated : 

 the "meaning" connoted by the name is affirmed in the mere 

 act of bestowing the name, which thus in itself becomes a con- 

 densed proposition. "It is a truism of psychology that the 

 terms of a proposition, when closely interrogated, turn out to 

 be nothing but abbreviated judgments." * 



This view of the matter, then, is the only one that can be 

 countenanced by psychology. It is likewise the only one 

 that can be countenanced by philology, or the study of 

 language in the making. Of this fact I will adduce abundant 

 evidence in a subsequent chapter, where it will be shown, as 

 Professor Max Mliller says, that " every name was originally 

 a proposition." But at present I am only concerned with one 

 of the most elementary points of purely psychological analysis, 

 and will therefore postpone the independent illumination of 

 the whole philosophy of predication which of late years has 

 been so splendidly furnished by the comparative study of 

 languages. 



From whatever point of view, therefore, we look at the 

 matter, we are bound to conclude, either that the term "judg- 

 ment " must be applied indifferently to the act of denominating 

 and to the act of predicating, or else, if it be restricted to the 

 latter, that it must not be regarded as " the simplest element 

 of thought." And thus we are led back to the position 

 previously gained while treating of the Logic of Concepts. 

 For we then found that names are the steps of the intellectual 

 ladder whereby we climb into higher and higher regions of 

 ideation ; and although our progress is assisted by formal 

 predication, or discursive thought, this is but the muscular 

 energy, so to speak, which would in itself be useless but for 

 the rungs already supplied, and on which alone that energy 

 can be expended. Or, to vary the metaphor, conceptual 

 names are the ingredients out of which is formed the structure 

 of propositions ; and, in order that this formation should take 

 place, there must already be in the ingredients that element 



* Sayce, Tutrod7ictic)i to the Srieuce of Language, \., 115. 



