REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 253 



cate existence, and succeeds in doing what he wants, 

 that is all that he or we could require. Mr. Garnett 

 tells us * that the Coptic is defective as regards the 

 substantive verb, but he significantly adds that the 

 Egyptians " had at least half a dozen methods of 

 rendering the Greek verb-substantive when they wished 

 to do so. ... If a given subject be 'I,' 'thou,' 'he,' 

 'this,' 'that,' 'one;' if it be 'here,' 'there,' 'yonder,' 

 ' thus,' ' in,' ' on,' ' at,' ' by ; ' if it be ' sits,' ' stands,' 

 ' remains,' or ' appears,' we need no ghost to tell us that 

 it isr 



Mr. Romanes next depicts what he regards as the 

 gradual impoverishment of language as we go backwards 

 in time through progressive simplifications, as to all 

 which, though we do not profess agreement, we have, 

 for our purpose, no occasion whatever to contest his 

 assertions. " In view of these facts," he tells us,t "it is 

 impossible to withhold assent from the now universal 

 doctrine of philologists — ' language diminishes the farther 

 we look back, in such a way that we cannot forbear con- 

 cluding it must once have had no existence at all' " 

 This " universal doctrine " is a quotation from Geiger, 

 whose ignorant prejudice is apparent to every qualified 

 observer. But we fully allow there was a time when 

 no rational language existed, and it was a time which 

 existed before man's appearance on the surface of this 

 planet. With the advent of man, the advent of language 

 simultaneously occurred. 



Mr. Romanes, in his effort to show the evolution 

 of language (which evolution he deems, so mistakenly, 

 * p. 310. t p. 314. 



