3l6 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, 



necessity for a subject at all : in such a sentence as * It rains,* 

 there is no subject whatever, the it and the terminal s being 

 merely formal signs of predication. * It rains : therefore I 

 will take my umbrella,' is a perfectly legitimate train of 

 reasoning, but it would puzzle the cleverest logician to reduce 

 it to any of his figures. Again, the mental proposition is not 

 formed by thinking first of the subject, then of the copula, and 

 then of the predicate ; it is formed by thinking of the three 

 simultaneously. When we formulate in our minds the pro- 

 position *A11 men are bipeds,' we have two ideas, 'all men' 

 and 'an equal number of bipeds,' or, more tersely, 'as many 

 men, as many bipeds,' and we think of the two ideas simul- 

 taneously \i.e, in apposition\ not one after the other, as we are 

 forced to express them in speech. The simultaneity of con- 

 ception is what is expressed by the copula in logic, and by 

 the various forms of sentences in language. It by no means 

 follows that logic is entirely destitute of value, but we shall 

 not arrive at the real substratum of truth until we have 

 eliminated that part of the science which is really nothing 

 more than an imperfect analysis of language." * 



Again, as a result of his prolonged study of some of the 

 most primitive forms of language still extant among the 

 Bushmen of South Africa, Dr. Bleek entertains no doubt 

 w^hatever that aboriginally the same word, without alteration, 

 implied a substantival or a verbal meaning, and could be used 

 indifferently also as an adjective, adverb, &c.t That is to 

 say, primitive words were sentence-words, and as such were 

 used by early man in just the same way as young children 

 use their hitherto undifferentiated signs, Byby = sleep, sleeping, 

 to sleep, sleeper, asleep, sleepy, &c. ; and, by connotative ex- 

 tension, bed, bolster, bed-clothes, &c. 



Lastly, as already indicated, we are not left to mere 

 inference touching the aboriginal state of matters with regard 

 to predication. For in many languages still existing we find 

 the forms of predication in such low phases of development, that 



• Sweet, loc. cit., pp. 489, 490. 



t Bleek, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 69, 70. 



