ROOTS OF LANGUAGE, 2/9 



is due to the closeness of resemblances in an act of perception, 

 while in the other it is due to their remoteness." * 



Of course it goes without saying that this " closeness of 

 resemblances in an act of perception " may be due either to 

 similarities of sense-perceptions themselves (as when the 

 colour of a ruby is seen to resemble that of " pigeon's blood "), 

 or to frequency of their associations in experience (as when a 

 sea-bird groups together in one recept the sundry sensations 

 which go to constitute its perception of water, with its generic 

 classification of water as a medium in which it is safe to dive). 

 Now, if we remember these things, can we possibly wonder 

 that the palaeontology of speech should prove early roots 

 to have been chiefly expressive of " generic " as distinguished 

 from " general " ideas on the one hand, or " particular " ideas 

 on the other ? By failing to observe this real distinction be- 

 tween classification as receptual and conceptual — i.e. as given 

 immediately in the act of perception itself, or as elaborated 

 of set purpose through the agency of introspective thought. 

 Professor Max M tiller founds his whole argument on another 

 and an unreal distinction : he everywhere regards the bestow- 

 ing of a name as in itself a sufiicient proof of conceptual 

 thought, and therefore constitutes the faculty of denotation, 

 equally with that of denomination, the distinctive criterion of 

 a self-conscious mind. But, as we have now so repeatedly 

 seen, such is certainly not the case. Actions and processes 

 so habitual, or so immediately apparent to perception, as 

 those with which the great majority of these "121 concepts" 

 are concerned, do not betoken any order of ideation higher 

 than the pre-conceptual, in virtue of which a young child 

 is able to give expression to its higher receptual life prior 

 to the advent of self-consciousness. Or, as Geiger tersely 

 says : — " In enzelnen Fallen ist die Entstehung von Gat- 

 tungsbegriffe aus Mangel an Unterscheidung gleichwohl kaum 

 zu bezweifeln." f 



• Stipra, p. 68, et seq. 



t Ursprung der Sprache, s. 74. To the same effect, and from the side of 

 psychology, I may quote Wundt : — " Oft hat man desshalb in der Sprache einen 

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