268 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



objected to this view that " such a language is a sheer 

 impossibility ; " * that " there could be no hope of any mutual 

 understanding" with a language restricted to such isolated 

 and general terms, &c. f On this side of the question it is 

 represented that " roots are the phonetic and significant types 

 discovered by the analysis of the comparative philologist as 

 common to a group of allied words ; " % that " a root is the 

 core of a group of allied words," § " the naked kernel of a 

 family of words." || Or, to adopt a simile previously used in 

 another connection, we may say that a root as now presented 

 by the philologist is a composite photograph {or phonogram) 

 of a number of words, all belonging to the same pre-historic 

 language, and all closely allied in meaning. 



The difference of authoritative teaching thus exhibited is 

 not a matter of much importance for us. Nor, indeed, as we 

 shall subsequently see, is it a difference so great as may at 

 first sight appear. For even the phonetic-type theory does 

 not doubt that all the aboriginal and unknown words, out of 

 the composition of which a root is now extracted, must have 

 been genetically allied with one another, and exhibited the 

 closeness of their kinship by a close similarity of sound. 

 Therefore, it does not make any practical difference whether 

 we regard a root as itself a primitive word, which was used in 

 some such way as the Chinese now use their monosyllabic 

 terms ; or whether we regard it as a generalized expression of 

 a group of cognate words, all closely allied as to meaning. In 

 fact, even so strong an adherent of the phonetic-type theory as 

 Professor Max Miiller very clearly states this, where he says 

 that, although " the mere root, qua root, may be denied the 

 dignity of a word, as soon as a root is used for predication it 

 becomes a word, whether outwardly it is changed or not." IF 



Seeing, then, that this difference of opinion among philo- 



* Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language ^ ii., p. 4. 



t Geiger, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 16. 



X Sayce, loc. cit.^ ii. p. 6. 



§ Wedgwood, Etttymol. Diet., p. iii. 



II Farrar, Origin of Language, p. 53. 



\ Science of Thought, p. 439. 



