246 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



He affirms, and quotes others who agree with him 

 in deeming, that man originally spoke of himself in the 

 third person, Sayce telling us that "the Malay ulun, 

 *I,' is still *a man' in Lampong, and the Kawi ugwang, 

 * I,' cannot be separated from nwang, ' a man.' " But 

 it would not be of the slightest consequence to our 

 argument if we Englishmen, here and now, never spoke 

 of ourselves but as " this man," or " this one here." By 

 such expressions we should mean " I " not a bit the 

 less, and, as Mr. Romanes has truly said, the only 

 really important thing in the question is what a man 

 means. 



If, again, what Prof. Max Miiller is represented * 

 as saying about the Aryans is true, it does not matter 

 to us. Prof Max Miiller says, " It was one of the 

 characteristic features of Sanskrit, and the other Aryan 

 languages, that they tried to distinguish the various 

 applications of a root by means of what I have called 

 demonstrative roots or elements. If they wished to 

 distinguish the mat as the product of their handiwork, 

 from the handiwork itself, they would say, ' Platting — 

 there ; ' if they wished to encourage the work they 

 would say, ' Platting — they, or you, or we.' We found 

 that what we call demonstrative roots or elements must 

 be considered as remnants of the earliest and almost 

 pantomimic phase of language." 



This may be very true, and we have no objection ; 



but, to show how uncertain it all really is, we have but 



to quote the next paragraph of Mr. Romanes. He 



there says : f "It is the opinion of some philologists, 



* p. 302. t Ibid. 



