THE TRANSITIOX IN THE RACE. Z^J 



so soon was there uttered the virtual statement of a virtual 

 judgment, even though the mind which formed it was very 

 far indeed from being able either to think about its judgment 

 as a judgment, or to state a truth as true. 



Thus we perceive that two different principles were 

 presumably concerned in the genesis of what I have called 

 pre-conceptual predication. The first consists in the natural 

 and inevitable extension of denotative into connotative terms, 

 through the force of merely receptual association. The 

 second consists in the no less natural and inevitable apposi- 

 tion of denotative terms themselves, whereby a receptuall)- 

 perceived relation is virtually — though not conceptually — 

 predicated as subsisting between the objects, qualities, states, 

 actions, or relations which are denoted. Of course it is 

 evident that these two modes of development must have 

 mutually assisted one another: the more that denotative signs 

 underwent connotative extension, the greater must have been 

 their predicative value when used in apposition ; and the more 

 frequently denotative signs were used in apposition, the greater 

 must have become the extension of their connotative value. 



Lastly, it is desirable throughout all this hypothetical 

 discussion to remember that we have the positive evidence of 

 philology touching two points of considerable importance. 

 The first point is that, as in the aboriginal sentence-words 

 there was no differentiation of, or distinction between, subject 

 and predicate ; so, until very late in the evolution of predica- 

 tive utterance, there was— and in very many languages still 

 continues to be— an absence of the copula. Nay, even the 

 substantive verb, which has been unwittingly conlounded with 

 the copula by some of my opponents, was also very late in 

 making its appearance. 



The second point is that, although " pronominal elements " 

 — or verbal equivalents of gesture-signs indicative of space- 

 relations — were among the earliest of verbal differentiations, 

 it was not until after a^ons of ages had ela[)sed that any 

 pronouns arose as specially indicative of the first person.* 



* Sec abovf, i)[). 30U, 301. 



