Jtdy 14, 1887] 



NATURE 



251 



expect many such readers, but one feels all the more 

 grateful if one does find them. Mr. Romanes was at 

 home in the whole subject, and with him what I endea- 

 voured to prove by linguistic evidence — namely, that con- 

 cepts are altogether impossible without names — formed 

 part of the very A B C of his psychological creed. He is 

 indeed almost too sanguine when he says that concerning 

 this truth no difference of opinion is likely to arise. The 

 columns of Nature and the opinions quoted in my book 

 tell a different tale. But for all that, I am as strongly 

 ' convinced as he can be that no one who has once under- 

 stood the true nature of words and concepts can possibly 

 hold a different opinion from that which he holds as well 

 as I. 



It seems, therefore, all the more strange to me that 

 Mr. Romanes should have suspected me of holding the 

 opinion that we cannot think without pronouncing or 

 silently rehearsing our thought-words. It is difficult to 

 guard against misapprehensions which one can hardly 

 realize. Without appealing, as he does, to sudden 

 aphasia, how could I hold pronunciation necessary for 

 thought when I am perfectly silent while I am writing 

 and while I am reading ? How could I believe in the 

 necessity of a silent rehearsing of words when one such 

 word as " therefore " may imply hundreds of words or 

 pages, the rehearsing of which would require hours 

 and days? Surely, as our memory enables us to 

 see without eyes and to hear without ears, the same per- 

 sistence of force allows us to speak without uttering 

 words. Only, as we cannot remember or imagine with- 

 out having first seen or heard something to remember, 

 neither can we inwardly speak without having first named 

 something that we can remember. There is an algebra of 

 language far more wonderful than the algebra of mathe- 

 matics. Mr. Romanes calls that algebra "ideation,'' a 

 dangerous word, unless we first define its meaning and 

 lay bare its substance. I call the same process addition 

 and subtraction of half-vanished words, or, to use Hegel's 

 terminology, anfgehobene Worte ; and I still hold, as I 

 said in my book, that it would be difficult to invent a 

 better expression for thinking than that of the lowest 

 barbarians, " speaking in the stomach." Thinking is 

 nothing but speaking minus words. We do not begin 

 with thinking or ideation, and then proceed to speaking, 

 but we begin with naming, and then by a constant pro- 

 cess of addition and subtraction, of widening and abbre- 

 viating, we arrive at what I call thought. Everybody 

 admits that we cannot count — that is to say, add and 

 ubtract — unless we have first framed our numerals. Why 

 should people hesitate to admit that we cannot possibly 

 think, unless we have first framed our words 1 Did the 

 Duke of Argyll mean this when he said that language 

 seemed to him necessary for th: progress ofihoug/it, but not 

 at all for the mere act of thinking ? How words are framed, 

 the science of language has taught us ; how they are re- 

 -duced to mere shidows, to signs of signs, apparently to 

 mere nothings, the science of thought will have to explain 

 far more fully than I have been able to do. Mr. Romanes 

 remarks that it is a pity that I should attempt to defend 

 such a position as that chess cannot be played unless the 

 player '' deals all the time with thought-words and word- 

 thoughts." I pity myself indeed that my language should 

 be liable to such misapprehension. I thought that to 

 move a " castle " according to the character and the rules 

 originally assigned to it was to deal with a word-thought 

 or thought-word. What is "castle" in chess, if not a 

 word-thought or thought-word ? I did not use the verb 

 "to deal " in the sense of pronouncing, or rehearsing, or 

 defining, but of handling or moving according to under- 

 stood rules. That this dealing might become a mere 

 habit I pointed out myself, and tried to illustrate by the 

 even more wonderful playing of music. But, however 

 automatic and almost unconscious such habits may 

 become, we have only to make a wrong move with the 



" castle " and at once our antagonist will appeal to the 

 original meaning of that thought- word, and remind as that 

 we can move it in one direction only, but not in another. 

 In the same manner, when Mr. Romanes takes me to task 

 because I said that " no one truly thinks who does not 

 speak, and that no one truly speaks who does not think," 

 he had only to lay the accent on truly, and he would have 

 understood what I meant — namely, that in the true sense 

 of these words, as defined by myself, no one thinks who 

 does not directly or indirectly speak, and that no one 

 can be said, to speak who does not at the same time 

 think. We cannot be too charitable in the interpretation 

 of language, and I often feel that I must claim that 

 charity more than most writers in English. Still, I am 

 always glad if such opponents as Mr. Romanes or Mr. 

 F. Galton give me an opportunity of explaining more 

 fully what I mean. We shall thus, I believe, arrive at 

 the conviction that men who honestly care for truth, and 

 for the progress of truth, must in the end arrive at the 

 same conclusions, though they may express them each 

 in his own dialect. That is the true meaning of the 

 old dialectic process, to reason out things by words 

 more and more adequate to their purpose. In that sense 

 it is true also that no truth is entirely new, and that all 

 we can aim at in philosophy is to find new and better 

 expressions for old truths. The poet, as Mr. A. Grenfell 

 has pointed out in his letter to Nature (June 23, p. 173), 

 often perceives and imagines what others have not yet 

 conceived or named. In that sense I gladly call myself 

 the interpreter of Wordsworth's prophecy, that "the 

 word is not the dress of thought, but its very incar- 

 nation." F. Max Muller. 

 The Molt, Salcombe, July 4. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF BACTERIA IN THE 

 L YMPH, ETC., OF LIVING FISH AND OTHER 

 VERTEBRATES} 



T FIRST noticed bacteria in the blood of a roach 

 ■^ {Lcuciscus rutilus). This roach, for some hours 

 before it was removed from the water, had been occasion- 

 ally swimming on its side at the surface — an indication 

 that it was in an exhausted condition. Immediately after 

 the fish was killed, a drop of blood was taken from the 

 heart by a sterilized pipette (with all the necessary pre- 

 cautions) and examined. The blood was found to contain 

 a considerable number of slender motionless bacilli, mea- 

 suring from o'oo3-o"oo8 micromillimetres in length. On 

 an average, four bacilli were visible in the field at a time, 

 with Zeiss's F objective and No. i eye-piece. The peri- 

 toneal fluid which was next examined contained so many 

 bacilli that it was impossible to count them ; the bacilli 

 were usually lying amongst large granular lymph-cells, 

 and they were longer and more slender than those in the 

 blood. Similar bacilli were found in the lymphatics, 

 spleen, liver, and kidney, and they were abundant in the 

 muscles in contact with the peritoneum, while very few 

 were found in the muscles under the skin of the trunk, 

 and still fewer in the muscles near the tail. The intestine 

 was crowded with similar bacilli to those found in the 

 body-cavity, and, in addition, there were a number of 

 large and small bacteria and micrococci. Bacilli also 

 were found in the walls of the intestine and in the bile- 

 duct. Believing that there was some relation between the 

 diminished vitality of the above roach and the numerous 

 bacilli in the tissues, I examined a considerable number 

 of healthy roach in the same way, and also other fresh- 

 water fish, e.g. trout {Saltno levenensis), perch {Perca 

 Jluviatilis), carp {Cyprifius auratus), and eels {Anouilla 

 vulgaris). In all the healthy specimens examined, with 

 the exception of the trout, bacilli were found in the 



' Abstract of Paper by Prof. J. C. Ewart, read before the Edinburgh 

 Royal Society on June 6. 



