THE WITXESS OF PHILOLOGY. 50I 



source of these highly ancient " pronominal " or " demonstrative 

 elements," it is easy to imagine that they may have arisen in 

 the same apparently spontaneous way as very young children 

 will now devise arbitrary sounds, both as proper names and 

 as adverbs of position. That we should not err in thus 

 comparing the grade of mental evolution exhibited by the 

 earliest framers of spoken language with that of a young 

 child, is rendered apparent by the additional and highly 

 interesting fact, that, just as a young child begins by speaking 

 of the Ego in the third person, so it was with early man in 

 his use of personal pronouns. " Man regarded himself as an 

 object before he learnt to regard himself as a subject ; and 

 hence ' the objective cases of the personal as well as of the 

 other pronouns are always older than the subjective ; ' and 

 the Sanskrit mam, ma (Greek /^f, Latin me) is earlier than 

 ahain (Ijmv and ego)." * 



Lest it should be thought that I am assuming too much 

 in thus referring the origin of pronominal elements to gesture- 

 signs, I will here quote the opinion of Professor Max Miillcr, 

 who of all philologists is least open to suspicion of bias 



* Farrar, Origin of Laitgiiage, p. 99. The passage continues, "We might 

 have conjectured this from the fact aheady noticed, that children learn to speak 

 of themselves in the third person — i.e. regard themselves as objects — long belore 

 they acquire the power of representing their material selves as the instrument of 

 an abstract entity." He also alludes to "some admirable remarks to this effect 

 in Mr. F. Whalley Harper's excellent book on the Po-wer of Greek lenses ;" and 

 recurs to the subject in his more recently published Chapfers on Language, p. 62. 

 I could quote other authorities who have commented upon thi^ philological 

 peculiarity of early pronouns ; but will only add the following in order to show 

 how the peculiarity in question may continue to survive even in languages still 

 spoken. "The Malay tt/itn, 'I,' is still 'a man' in Lampong, and the Kawi 

 ug~u!ang, ' I,' cannot be separated from nwang, 'a man'" (Sayce, lntroduitio)t, 

 ii. 26). Lastly, Wundt has pointed out that this impersonal form of speech is 

 distinctive, not only of early pronominal elements, but also of early forms of 

 predication. For instance, ''Die ersten Urtheile, die in das Bewusstsein 

 iiereinbrechen, suhjektlose Urtheile sind, und dass die Pradikate derselbcn stets 

 cine sinnliche Vorstcllung ausdriicken. ' Es leuchtet es glanzt, es lont,' — soldier 

 Art sind die Urtheile, die der Mcnsch zuerst denkt und zuerst ausspricht. Jcncs 

 I'riidikat, dass sogleich bei der Wahrnehniung eines Gegenstandcs sich aufdriingt, 

 wird zur Bezcichnung des Gegenstandcs selber, 'Das Leuchtende, Gian/.ende, 

 Tfinende,' — solcher Art find die Wiirter, die urspriinglich in der .Spraclie gebiUlct 

 werden " {he. cit., ii. 377). 



