264 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



it does. Of course the child has no reflex perception of 

 any function of any kind. 



Our author continues,* " So far as psychological 

 analysis alone could carry us, there would be nothing to 

 show that the forcing of one part of speech into the 

 office of another, which so frequently occurs at this age, 

 is due to anything more than the exigencies of expression t 

 where as yet there are scarcely any words for the con- 

 veyance of meaning of any kind. . . . What may be 

 termed this grammatical abuse of words becomes an 

 absolute necessity where the vocabulary is small, as we 

 well know when trying to express ourselves in a foreign 

 language with which we are but slightly acquainted. 

 And, of course, the smaller the vocabulary, the greater 

 is such necessity ; so that it is greatest of all when an 

 infant is only just emerging from its infancy." He adds, 

 "■ It is on account of the uncertainty which here obtains 

 as between necessity and incapacity, that I reserved my 

 consideration of * sentence-words ' for the independent 

 light which has been thrown upon them by the science 

 of comparative philology." 



The difference which he affirms between the infant 

 of to-day and primitive man, as to the duration and 

 importance of the use of terms not yet differentiated into 

 parts of speech, he tries to explain as follows : % " An 

 infant of to-day is born into the medium of already- 

 spoken language ; and long before it is itself able to 

 imitate the words which it hears, it is well able to 

 understand a large number of them. Consequently, 



* pp. 328, 329. t The italics are ours. 



% PP- 329-331. 



