MENTAL STATES AND PROCESSES. 105 



cussion of centuries has fully cleared the philosophical 

 atmosphere so far as this matter is concerned " 1 



extension ? In order to understand clearly the passage quoted, we 

 should learn what Prof. Max Miiller really means by the term 

 ' spirit,' which here figures as one species of a genus also comprising 

 the breath, the brain, and the heart. Reason, however, is not 

 represented as being simply language ' as we now hear it and use 

 it,' but * as it has been slowly elaborated by man through all the 

 ages of his existence upon earth.' Thus understood, the Professor 

 ' cannot doubt ' ' the identity of reason and language.' Never- 

 theless he immediately proceeds to point out a striking want of 

 identity between them. He says, quite truly, ' 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 ' — namely, that 

 denoted by the Greek word, logos — ' the undivided essence of 

 language and thought.' Now, the intimate connection of lan- 

 guage (whether of speech or gesture) with thought, is unquestion- 

 able ; but intimate connection is not ' identity.' If thought and 

 language are ' identical^ how came two words not to have two 

 meanings, or two thoughts to be expressed by one word .? The 

 plain fact that we have different words with one meaning, and dif- 

 ferent meanings with one word, seems to demonstrate that thought 

 and language cannot be ' identical.' 



" ' No reason without language — no language without reason,' is 

 a statement true in a certain sense, but a statement which cannot 

 be affirmed absolutely. Language (meaning by that term only 

 intellectual expression by voice or gesture) cannot manifestly exist 

 without reason ; but no person who thinks it even possible that an 

 intelligence may exist of which ours is but a feeble copy, can 

 venture dogmatically to affirm that there is no reason without lan- 

 guage, unless he means by reason mere 'reasoning,' which is 

 evidently the makeshift of an inferior order of intellect unable to 

 attain certain truths save by the roundabout process of inference. 



" But I demur to the assertion that truly intellectual processes 

 cannot take place in us apart from language. In such matters our 

 ultimate appeal must be to our own reflective consciousness. Mine 

 plainly tells me that I have every now and then apprehensions 

 which flash into my mind far too rapidly to clothe themselves even 

 in mental words, which latter require to be sought in order to ex- 

 press such apprehensions. I also find myself sometimes express- 

 ing a voluminous perception by a sudden gesture far too rapid even 



