REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 281 



those allowed by Mr. Romanes, adequate "to produce 

 such a result." It is true, as Herder says, that no 

 abstract term in any tongue has been attained to 

 without the aid of sensation and of tone, but the 

 abstraction itself no more consists of the mere aids to 

 its production, than the new-born child is identical with 

 the accoucheur or the obstetric forceps which may 

 have brought it into the world. To our mind it is 

 simply inconceivable that any stronger proof of the 

 utter impossibility of mental evolution could be fur- 

 nished, than is furnished by the one great fact of the 

 structure, the warp and woof, of the thousand dialects 

 of every pattern which are now spread over the surface 

 of the globe. We cannot speak to each other in any 

 tongue without declaring the presence of an intellectual, 

 conceptual element in every vocal term. Such elements 

 are the most essential part of every utterance of speech 

 now, and must therefore have coexisted with the sensuous 

 elements at the origin of speech. We cannot so much 

 as discuss the "origin of human faculty" itself, without 

 announcing in the very medium of our discussion how 

 necessarily distinct that origin has been. It is to 

 Language that Mr. Romanes, following his opponents, 

 has resolved to appeal : by Language he is hopelessly 

 condemned. 



