MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES, 99 



without it, why may it not have done so earlier? 

 Surely experience points to the origin of thought from a 

 direction opposite to that indicated by Mr. Romanes. 

 If, as he affirms, Friedrich Miiller is right in affirming 

 the plain truth, " Sprechen ist nicht Denken, sondern es 

 ist nur Ausdruck des Denkens," then Herr Geiger's dic- 

 tum : *' So ist denn iiberall die Sprache primar, der 

 Begriff entsteht durch das Wort " must be a dictum not 

 only untenable, but absurd, as we have already endea- 

 voured * to show. 



* See " On Truth," pp. 230-234. Mr. Romanes refers (in a 

 note on p. 83) to a brief correspondence which took place between 

 ourselves and Prof. Max Miiller in this connection. Therefore we 

 think it may as well be reproduced here. It was as follows : — 



[^Nature, February 2, 1888.] 

 Letter froin Prof. F. Max Miiller to an American Friend. 



" Oxford, January 22. 

 " You tell me that my book on the * Science of Thought ' is 

 thoroughly revolutionary, and that I have all recognized authorities 

 in philosophy against me. I doubt it. My book is, if you like, 

 evolutionary, but not revolutionary ; I mean it is the natural out- 

 come of that philosophical and historical study of language which 

 began with Leibnitz, and which during our century has so widely 

 spread and ramified as to overshadow nearly all sciences, not 

 excepting what I call the science of thought. 



" If you mean by revolutionary a violent breaking with the 

 past, I hold, on the contrary, that a full appreciation of the true 

 nature of language and a recognition of its inseparableness from 

 thought will prove the best means of recovering that unbroken 

 thread which binds our modern schools of thought most closely 

 together with those of the Middle Ages and of Ancient Greece. 

 It alone will help us to reconcile systems of philosophy hitherto 

 supposed to be entirely antagonistic. If I am right — and I must 

 confess that with regard to the fundamental principle of the iden- 

 tity of reason and language I share the common weakness of all 

 philosophers, that I cannot doubt its truth — then what we call the 

 history of philosophy will assume a totally new aspect. It will 



