REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 233 



thought or reason is as much, or more, due to speech 

 as speech to it. 



Mr. Romanes remarks, after Prof. Max M tiller, 

 that the list of Sanskrit roots is composed exclusively 

 of verbs. This is just what we should expect. For 

 that of which all men are most immediately, constantly, 

 and unreflectingly conscious, is their own activity or 

 passivity.* We do not refer to feelings related to such 

 states, but to direct, intellectual cognizance of them. 

 This we think a noteworthy fact, however far these 

 Sanskrit roots may be from being really primitive. 

 Whatever may be their true date, they are, at any rate, 

 the oldest we can, as yet, get at in language, and it is 

 fair in the first instance to presume that the sort of 

 words which are primitive in one or two languages are 

 the sort of words which are primitive in all languages. 



Mr. Romanes says,t " Words which were expressive 

 of actions, would have stood a better chance of surviving 

 as roots . . . because . . . more frequently employed, 

 and because many of them must have lent themselves 

 more readily to metaphorical extension — especially under 

 a system of animistic thought!^ " Metaphorical exten- 

 sion " ! But what is metaphor^ and what sort of being 

 must have first employed it ? 



Had not the intellect the power of apprehending 

 through sense, and expressing by sensible signs, what 

 is beyond sense, metaphor would not exist. Neither 

 would it exist if thought arose from language and 

 followed it, instead of the opposite. It is precisely 

 because speech is too narrow for thought, that words 

 * See " On Truth," pp. 16-27. t p. 275. 



