REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 257 



utterly wrong in saying, " When we formulate in our 

 minds the proposition, ' All men are bipeds,' we have two 

 ideas." We have three ideas: (i) men; (2) twofooted- 

 ness ; and (3) identity of existence. 



Mr. Romanes next observes * that " we are not left 

 to mere inference touching the aboriginal state of 

 matters with regard to predication. For in many 

 languages still existing we find the forms of predica- 

 tion in such low phases of development, that they bring 

 us within easy distance of the time when there can have 

 been no such form at all." 



As an example, he tells us f that " in Dayak, if it is 

 desired to say, * Thy father is old,' * Thy father looks old,' 

 etc., in the absence of verbs it is needful to frame the 

 predication by mere apposition, thus : — * Father-of-thee, 

 age-of-him.' Or, to be more accurate, ... * His age, 

 thy father.' Similarly, if it is required to make such 

 a statement as that * He is wearing a white jacket,' the 

 form of the statement would be, ' He-with-white with- 

 jacket,' or, as we might perhaps more tersely translate it, 

 ' He jackety whitey.' " But how does this in the least 

 tell against the presence of distinct intellectual meaning 

 in the utterance of such phrases ? They may strike 

 the imagination of the unthinking, but, in sober truth, 

 the assertion, " He jackety whitey," is essentially as 

 good as the assertion, "That man's upper outmost 

 vesture has the hue of snow." 



Again, he tells us, J "In Feejee language the func- 

 tions of a verb may be discharged by a noun in 

 construction with an oblique pronominal suffix, e.g., 



* p. 316. t p. 317. X p. 318. 



s 



