242 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



He quotes Schelling as saying, " Die Sprache ist 

 nicht stiickweis oder atomistisch ; sie ist gleich in alien 

 ihren Theilen als Ganzes und demnach organisch ents- 

 tanden," adding, " This highly general and most im- 

 portant fact is usually stated as it was, I believe, first 

 stated by the anthropologist Waitz, namely, that 'the 

 unit of language is not the word, but the sentence ; ' 

 and, therefore, that historically the sentence preceded 

 the word. Or, otherwise and less ambiguously ex- 

 pressed, every word was originally itself a proposition, 

 in the sense that of and by itself it conveyed a 

 statement." 



Now, here, in the first place, we would remark that 

 on Mr. Romanes's Nominalist principles, if a thought 

 is nothing but a word, and if the earliest and " simplest 

 element of language " is a statement or judgment, then 

 obviously the simplest element of thought must be a 

 judgment. It is surely, then, somewhat unreasonable to 

 reproach us with having been guilty of gross and "un- 

 pardonable" negligence, for asserting what Mr. Romanes 

 himself not only asserts, but so places it at the root 

 and foundation of his whole system, that to remove it 

 necessarily brings down his own unstable intellectual 

 edifice in utter ruin ! 



Our position is as follows : — 



(i) Thought is the root of and primary to language, 

 oral or other. 



(2) Language is the external expression of the 

 verbum mentale, 



(3) The simplest element of thought is an implicit 

 judgment. 



