THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON 



Although Mr. Romanes thus (p. 8 1) contends against 

 that identification of thought with language which Pro- 

 reveal itself before our eyes as the natural growth of language, 

 though at the same time as a constant struggle of old against new 

 language — in fact, as a dialectic process in the true sense of the 

 word. 



" The very tenet that language is identical with thought — what 

 is it but a correction of language, a repentance, a return of language 

 upon itself? 



" We have two words, and therefore it requires with us a strong 

 effort to perceive that behind these two words there is but one 

 essence. To a Greek this effort would be comparatively easy, 

 because his word logos continued to mean the undivided essence of 

 language and thought. In our modern languages we shall find it 

 difficult to coin a word that could take the place of logos. Neither 

 discours in French, nor Rede in German, which meant originally 

 the same as ratio^ will help us. We shall have to be satisfied with 

 such compounds as thought-word or word-thought. At least, I can 

 think of no better expedient. 



" You strongly object to my saying that there is no such thing 

 as reason. But let us see whether we came honestly by that word. 

 Because we reason — that is, because we reckon, because we add 

 and subtract — therefore we say that we have reason ; and thus it 

 has happened that reason was raised into something which we have 

 or possess, into a faculty, or power, or something, whatever it may 

 be, that deserves to be written with a capital R. And yet we have 

 only to look into the workshop of language in order to see that 

 there is nothing substantial corresponding to this substantive, and 

 that neither the heart nor the brain, neither the breath nor the 

 spirit, of man discloses its original whereabouts. It may sound 

 violent and revolutionary to you when I say that there is no such 

 thing as reason ; and yet no philosopher, not even Kant, has ever 

 in his definition of reason told us what it is really made of But 

 remember, I am far from saying that reason is a mere word. That 

 expression, 'a mere word,' seems to me the most objectionable 

 expression in the whole of our philosophical dictionary. 



"Reason is something — namely, language — not simply as we 

 now hear it and use it, but as it has been slowly elaborated by 

 man through all the ages of his existence on earth. Reason is the 

 growth of centuries, it is the work of man, and at the same time 

 an instrument brought to higher and higher perfection by the lead- 



