542 . SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



living creation which is capable of an unlimited develop- 

 ment and an external realisation of its inner life from 

 that which has no mental history or development : it is 

 the point of discontinuity in the physical development. 

 The study of language in its physical and mental aspects 

 i.e., in phonetics and in sematology affords, accord- 

 ing to this view, the only means of penetrating from 

 outside into the inner world of thought : it is the 

 psycho-physical problem par excellence the " Science of 

 Thought." 



Inasmuch as in this latest development of psycho- 

 physics the whole of the accumulated material and 

 most of the arguments have been drawn from the his- 

 torical and philological researches of such thinkers as 

 Schlegel, "W. von Humboldt, Bopp, Grimm, and their 

 followers, who were without exception trained, not in 

 the mathematical but in the philosophical schools of 

 Thought which ruled in the earlier part of our century, 

 the further consideration of their ideas belongs properly 

 to that portion of this work which will deal specially 

 with philosophical thought and its application in such 

 separate branches as are presented, inter alia, by the 

 historical sciences. 



admirer of Darwin, observed oiice language as it was felt by Prof. 



jokingly, but not without a deep 

 irony, ' If a pig were ever to say to 

 me, " I am a pig," it would ipso 

 facto cease to be a pig. ' This shows 

 how strongly he felt that language 

 was out of the reach of any animal, 

 and constituted the exclusive or 

 specific property of man. I do not 

 wonder that Darwin and other 

 philosophers belonging to his school 

 should not feel the difficulty of 



Schleicher, who, though a Dar- 

 winian, was also one of our best 

 students of the science of language. 

 But those who know best what 

 language is, and still more, what 

 it presupposes, cannot, however 

 Darwinian they may be on other 

 points, ignore the veto which, as 

 yet, that science enters against the 

 last step in Darwin's philosophy." 



