Feb. 2, 1888] 



NATURE 



325 



conceptual thought, language, which is nothing if not 

 conceptual, begins. Roots are afterwards localized, and 

 made the signs of our objects by means of local exponents, 

 whether suffixes, prefixes, or infixes. What hns been 

 scraped and sliaped again and again becomes as it were 

 ' shape-her',' i.e. a shaft ; what has been dug and hol- 

 lowed out by repeated blows becomes * dig-her',' i-c. a 

 hole. And from the concept of a hole dug, or of an empty 

 cave, there is an uninterrupted progress to the most 

 abstract concepts, such as empty space, or even nothing. 

 No doubt, when we hear the sound of cuckoo, we may by 

 one jump arrive at the word cuckoo. This may be called 

 a word, but it is not a conceptual word, and we deal with 

 conceptual words only. Before we can get at a single 

 conceptual word, we have to pass through at least five 

 stages : — 



" (i) Consciousness of our own repeated acts. 



" (2) Clamor concomitans of these acts. 



" (3) Consciousness of that clamor as concomitant of 

 the act. 



" (4) Repetition of that clamor to recall the act. 



" (5) Clamor (root) defined by prefixes, suffixes, &c., to 

 recall the act as localized in its results, its instruments, 

 its agents, &c. 



" You can see from my preface to the ' Science of 

 Thought ' that I was quite prepared for fierce attacks, 

 whether they came from theologians, from philosophers, 

 or from a certain class of scholars. So far from being 

 discouraged, I am really delighted by the opposition 

 which my book has roused, though you would be sur- 

 prised to hear what strong support also I have received 

 from quarters where I least expected it. I have never 

 felt called upon to write a book to which everybody should 

 say Amen. When I write a book, I expect the world 

 to say tamen, as I have always said tamen to the world 

 in writing my books. I have been called very audacious 

 for daring to interfere with philosophy, as if the study of 

 language, to which I have devoted the whole of my life, 

 could be separated from a study of philosophy. I have 

 listened very patiently for many years to the old story 

 that grammar is one thing and' logic another ; that the 

 former deals with such laws of thought as are observed, 

 the latter with such as ought to be observed. No, no. 

 True philosophy teaches us another lesson— namely, that 

 in the long run nothing is except what ought to be, and 

 that in the evolution of the mind, as well as in that of 

 Nature, natural selection is rational selection ; or, in reality, 

 the triumph of reason, the triumph of what is reasonable 

 and right ; or, as people now say, of what is fittest. We 

 must learn to recognize in language the true evolution of 

 reason. In that evolution nothing is real or remains 

 real except what is right ; nay, in it even the apparently 

 irrational and anomalous has its reason and justification. 

 Towards the end of the last century, what used to be 

 called Grammaire Generale formed a very favourite sub- 

 ject for academic discussions ; it has now been replaced 

 by what may be called Grammaire Historique. In the 

 same manner, Fortnal Logic, or the study of the general 

 laws of thought, will have to make room for Historical 

 Logic, or a study of the historical growth of thought. 

 Delbriick's essays on comparative syntax show what can 

 be done in this direction. For practical purposes, for 

 teaching the art of reasoning, formal logic will always 

 retain its separate existence ; but the best study of the 

 real laws of thought will be hereafter the study of the 

 real laws of language. If it was really so audacious to 

 make the identity of language and reason the foundation 

 of a new system of philosophy, may I make the modest 

 request that some philosopher by profession should give 

 us a definition of what language is without reason, or 

 reason without language ? " F. M. M." 



FERDINAND VANDEVEER HAYDEN. 



YYT'E reprint from the American journal Science 

 ^ * (January 6) the following article on Dr. Hayden, 

 whose death we lately announced : — Prof. Ferdinand 

 Vandeveer Hayden, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., who died in 

 Philadelphia on the morning of December 22, was born 

 in Westfield, Mass., September 7, 1829. Early in life he 

 went to Ohio. In 1850 he was graduated from Oberlin 

 College, and soon afterward read medicine at Albany, 

 N.Y., receiving his degree from the Albany Medical 

 College in 1853. He did not begin the practice of medi- 

 cine, but in the spring of the year of his graduation was 

 sent by Prof James Hall of Albany, with Mr. F. B. Meek, 

 to visit the Bad Lands of White River, to make collections 

 of the Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils of that region. 

 ^This was the beginning of his explorations of the West, 

 which continued with little interruption for more than 

 thirty years. 



In the spring of 1854, Dr. Hayden returned to the 

 Upper Missouri region, and spent two years in exploring 

 it, mainly at his own expense, although he was aided a 

 portion of the time by gentlemen connected with the 

 American Fur Company. During these two years he 

 traversed the Alissouri River to Fort Benton, and the 

 Yellowstone to the mouth of the Big Horn River, and 

 explored considerable portions of the Bad Lands of 

 White River and other districts not immediately 

 bordering upon the Missouri. The large collections of 

 fossils he made were given partly to the Academy of 

 Sciences in St. Louis, and partly to the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



As one of the members of the Geological Survey has 

 recently said, these collections and researches mark 

 the commencement of the epoch of true geologic in- 

 vestigation of the Great West. The collections at- 

 tracted the attention of the officers of the Smithsonian 

 Institution; and in February 1856, Dr. Hayden was 

 employed by Lieut. G, K. Warren, of the United States 

 Topographical Engineers, to make a report upon the 

 region he had explored ; so that the results of his 

 labours during the three previous years were utilized by 

 the Government. This report was made in March of 

 the same year, and in May following he was appointed 

 geologist on the staff of Lieut. Warren, who was then 

 engaged in making a reconnaissance of the North- 

 west. He continued in this position until 1859, when he 

 was appointed naturalist and surgeon to the Expedition 

 for the exploration of the Yellowstone and Missouri 

 Rivers, by Capt. William F. Raynolds of the Corps of 

 Engineers of the United States Army, with whom he 

 remained until 1862. The results of his work while with 

 Liutenant Warren were published in a preliminary report 

 of the War Department, and in several articles in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia for the Years 1857 and 1858, and more 

 fully in a memoir on the geology and natural history of 

 the Upper Missouri, published in the Transactions of 

 the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1862. 

 This paper also included chapters on the mammals, birds, 

 reptiles, fishes, and recent molluscaof the region in which 

 his geological investigations were carried on. During 

 this period also he found time to make notes upon the 

 languages and customs of the Indian tribes with which 

 he came in contact. These notes were embodied in 

 " Contributions to the Ethnography and Philology of the 

 Indian Tribes of the Missouri River," published in the 

 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 

 Philadelphia, 1862 ; in a" Sketch of the Mandan Indians, 

 with some Observations illustrating the Grammatical 

 Structure of their Language," published in the American 

 Journal of Science in 1862 ; and in " Brief Notes on the 

 Pawnee, Winnebago, and Omaha Languages," published 



