REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 249 



or " digging-it " to denote a spade, or " digging-here " 

 for labour itself, answer fully to express really intellec- 

 tual conceptions. 



We have now to advert to, and animadvert upon, 

 the censures expressed by Mr. Romanes on his psycho- 

 logical opponents, concerning their statements with 

 reference to the "idea of being." Our author says,* 

 " Seeing that my psychological opponents have laid so 

 much stress upon the substantive verb as this is used 

 by the Romance languages in formal predication, I will 

 here devote a paragraph to its special consideration 

 from a philological point of view. It will be remem- 

 bered that I have already pointed out the fallacy which 

 these opponents have followed in confounding the sub- 

 stantive verb, as thus used, with the copula — it being 

 a mere accident of the Romance languages that the 

 two are phonetically identified." It will also be re- 

 membered that we have already replied f to this, but 

 we may again remark that in the word " is," used as a 

 copula, existence (real or ideal) is implicitly contained. 

 Mr. Romanes goes on, "Nevertheless, even after this 

 fallacy has been pointed out to them, my opponents 

 may seek to take refuge in the substantive verb itself : 

 forced to acknowledge that it has nothing especially 

 to do with predication, they may still endeavour to 

 represent that, elsewhere, or in itself, it represents a 

 high order of conceptual thought. This, of course, I 

 allow ; and if, as my opponents assume, the substantive 

 verb belonged to early, not to say primitive modes 

 of speech, I should further allow that it raises a formid- 

 * p. 308. + See above, p. 179. 



