74 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



simplest forms of activity which are immediately cognizable 

 as such.* In other words, few of these "original concepts" 

 rise much higher in the scale of ideation than the level to 

 which I have previously assigned what I have called " named 

 recepts " or " pre-concepts." A dumb animal, or an infant, 

 presents a full receptual appreciation of the majority of 

 actions which the catalogue includes ; and, therefore, so that 

 a society of human beings can speak at all {i.e. presents the 

 power of naming their recepts), it is difficult to see how they 

 could have avoided a denotation of the more important 

 recepts which are here concerned. 



Another most interesting feature of a general kind which 

 the list presents is, that it is composed exclusively of verbs.t 

 This peculiarity of the ultimate known roots of all languages, 

 which shows them to have been expressive of actions and states 

 as distinguished from objects and qualities, is a peculiarity 

 on which Professor Max M tiller lays much stress. But the 

 inference which he draws from the fact is clearly not justifiable. 

 This inference is that, as every root expresses " the conscious- 

 ness of repeated acts, such as scraping, digging, striking," &c., 

 the naming of actions, as distinguished from objects, "must 

 be considered as the first step in the formation of concepts." 

 Now, in drawing this inference — and, indeed, throughout all 

 his works as far as I remember — Professor Max Miiller has 

 entirely overlooked two most important considerations. First, 

 as already observed, that the roots in question are demonstrably 

 very far from having been the original material of language 

 as first coined by primitive man ; and, next, that whatever 



* This fact alone would be sufficient to dispose of what I cannot but consider, 

 from any and every point of view, the transparent absurdity of the doctrine that 

 " the formation of thought is the first and natural purpose of language, while its 

 communication is accidental only" {Science of Thought^ p. 40). Such a 

 "purpose" would imply "thought" as already formed; and, therefore, the 

 doctrine must suppose a purpose to precede the conditions of its own possibility. 



t I use the term "verbs" merely for the sake of brevity and clearness. Of 

 course there cantiot have been verbs, strictly so-called, before there were parts of 

 speech of any kind. The more accurate statement is given in the next sentence, 

 and is the one which I desire to be understood hereafter in the short-hand 

 expression " verbs." 



