236 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



" Now, of course, if any vestige of real evidence could 

 be adduced to show that this ' must have been ' the case, 

 most of the foregoing chapters of the present work would 

 not have been written. For the whole object of these 

 chapters has been to show, that on psychological grounds 

 it is abundantly intelligible how the conceptual stage of 

 ideation may have been gradually evolved from the 

 receptual — the power of forming general, or truly con- 

 ceptual ideas, from the power of forming particular and 

 generic ideas. But if it could be shown — or even 

 rendered in any degree presumable — that this distinctly 

 human power of forming truly general ideas arose de 

 novo with the first birth of articulate speech,* assuredly 

 my whole analysis would be destroyed : the human 

 mind would be shown to present a quality different in 

 origin — and, therefore, in kind — from all the lower orders 

 of intelligence : the law of continuity would be inter- 

 rupted at the terminal phase : an impassable gulf would 

 be fixed between the brute and the man." 



This is most true, but of course Mr. Romanes regards 

 it as being so much evidence on his side. 



He tries to weaken Prof Max Muller's position by 

 affirming t that the 121 Sanskrit roots are not "the 

 aboriginal elements of language as first spoken by 

 man." But there is not the least need for us to 

 suppose they were. He is, however, unwarranted in 

 making the assertion: "The 121 concepts themselves 

 yield overwhelming evidence of belonging to a time 



* We do not say this. What we affirm is that with the origin 

 of the intellectual faculty, external expression by sound or gesture, 

 or both, arose also. 



t P- 277- 



